When I was in middle school, I played the double bass to fulfill my music requirements -- or at least I pretended to. Orchestra members were required to practice 100 minutes per week (gasp!) and have their parents sign their practice sheets. I would typically play half-assed, or perhaps even quarter-assed, for around 15 minutes, bullshit the rest of the practice log, and then forge my dad's signature. The fact that I had shown some natural ability on the instrument was entirely irrelevant to me. I simply gave zero fucks about the instrument. However, buried deep in my massive brain, there is one particular memory from that time that continues to be helpful to this very day.
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One of my latest musical challenges is to relearn "Beyond this Life", yet another progressive masterpiece by Dream Theater (who I will be seeing live in a few weeks!). "But wait," you might find yourself saying, "what happened to that whole notion of playing for the win? Why are you still trying to imitate John Petrucci?" A fair question, and my answer is twofold: first, I've converted most of the passages from alternate picking to other techniques, particularly slapping, finger picking, and overhand tapping. Second, I'm trying to learn to perform the vocals and the guitar parts simultaneously, which is no small feat by any means. Singing a series of G#4s while playing chromatic eighth note patterns at 210 beats per minute in a passage that alternates time signatures between 4/4 and 6/4 -- not easy, and also not something that most guitarists would even bother trying to do.
I've been working on this somewhat casually for a while, but this past week I decided to make it one of my primary objectives. I dedicated yesterday to mastering one particular solo, and having that one concrete goal helped me push myself to play for 9 hours in one day -- my new personal best. So, what do I have to show for this fanaticism? Let's take a look! This morning I recorded a few videos to examine the progress that I've made thus far. I present them here unedited and uncensored to give you an honest, complete view of my practicing experience.
This first video contains a few attempts to get through the whole solo, as well as a few corrections to some of the trickier parts. The cleanest run is probably the last one, which starts at around 3:50.
You may have noticed that, in the above video, there's one section near the middle of the solo that I skip over. I have learned the solo in its entirety, but that passage is so much faster than anything else that I haven't gotten it up to speed yet. The following video is me running speed drills of that section. For this particular drill, I started at a tempo that I was comfortable with, and I increased the tempo by 2% whenever I got through two consecutive runs without a mistake. The end speed is about 70% of the target tempo.
Finally, I recorded a full run of the entire song. There are lots of rough patches to work on, but there are also some sections that I'm totally happy with. I leave it to you to decide which is which. The solo that I worked on yesterday starts at the 7:20 mark.
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I suspect that the author of whatever practice book I had been using in middle school was aware that his students were filling out / forging practice sheets. I distinctly remember reading a note near the beginning of the book that advised students not to set arbitrary time goals, such as "Practice for 20 minutes today", but instead to have particular musical goals, such as "Play this passage at concert tempo." This manner of practicing, according to the author, would not only help the student improve faster, but also make it easier for them to practice for long periods of time without getting bored. My apathetic, arrogant, 13-year-old self decided that this did not apply to me, but I may have changed my mind about that idea.
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Week 12 total: 27.5 hours
Grand total: 296.5 hours
Required pace: 231 hours (+65.5)
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