How to break down your guitar projects into tasks to maximize motivation
Hello everyone,
As you know, I’m currently sharing a system of using projects to consistently and reliably improve your guitar playing.
I’m telling you about a new part of it each week for the next little while.
Last week, we figured out how to design our projects to match our musical goals. With this done, the next step is figuring out how to design your tasks to give your practice less friction and make it feel like you’re skating toward improvement.
Do you have problems with motivation? Do you sometimes pick up your guitar, not know where to start, and get overwhelmed?
Photo by Levi Midnight on Unsplash
One of my guitar teachers made lessons a chore. The other made them frictionless.
The two guitar teachers in my hometown were polar opposites.
The first guy I saw was all about reading notes. I took piano with him for a while before switching to guitar, so I had a basic comprehension of notation. I had an instructional book and, I'm guessing, we plowed through it week by week.
I say “guessing” because, except for learning through notation, I literally have no memory of those guitar lessons whatsoever.
The lessons were a chore. I dreaded going to them.
After having enough of this, I quit for a while. But maybe a year after that, I got the bug again.
But this time I went to another guy I heard of at school. "He teaches you songs? Like, he'll just teach you what you want to learn?"
And so it was.
I don't remember practicing (because it didn't feel like practicing) and I don't remember struggling (because I didn't). I just remember being excited for my weekly lesson to watch him figure out songs by ear and show them to me.
Learning guitar shouldn't be a chore. Everyone is different, but there is always an approach that keeps it satisfying and fun.
I find it hard to feel like I’m skating through my guitar improvement these days - everything is such a chore lately. But, luckily, I’ve found a way of designing tasks that bring back the skating feeling.
How to break down your guitar projects into tasks to maximize motivation
I've found how I break down my projects into small, achievable tasks has a great impact on my motivation and stick-to-it-ness.
It's all about finding a balance between actually taking a productive step toward completing the project and not being so difficult it takes forever to do.
Here's an example using a project I recently completed.
The project
I wanted to learn Charlie Hunter's guitar solo on D'Angelo's "Spanish Joint" for a long time. Since it would take a while to transcribe and pushed me on my current ear training abilities, it was perfect for this system.
I decided the concrete, tangible artifact would be a video of me playing the solo with some improv at the end in style. With this project, I satisfied the first two aspects of the practice system:
I chose a project that’s musically interesting, just outside my current ability level, and that I’d like to incorporate into my musical DNA.
I designed the project such that the concrete, tangible artifact would require me to learn the solo not to perform, but to absorb some of Hunter’s playing style into my own style.
So then, I started breaking down the project into small, achievable chunks to be completed over the course of a month.
Here are the guiding principles of how I design my tasks:
I don't want to spend any more than 15 minutes on any given task
I don't assign the whole month of tasks at the beginning. I just start with the obvious first steps and come up with next steps as I go
I try to have a concrete, tangible artifact of each task as I go to keep everything tightly scoped. In the case of “Spanish Joint,” I made rough videos and written chord charts of wherever I was in the process
I don’t set timeframes. If I did a good enough job, each task is a small, achievable chunk that can be completed easily without worrying about how long I need to practice
I keep notes and reflections for future reference
I keep track of immediate next steps as they come up (for next week's roadmap)
Here is how I ended up designing tasks for the “Spanish Joint” project
I do my projects in a monthly cadence - I only have a small amount of work to do each week to complete the project. It’s certainly possible to speed up the cadence (like weekly projects with daily tasks), but I’m in no rush. I just like having steady, consistent progress.
Week 1
Figure out harmony in verse
Figure out harmony in chorus
Commit solo to memory (be able to hum the phrases accurately)
Learn A section of solo
Only done first 3 phrases*
Week 2
Learn the rest of the A section of the solo note for note
Figure out key change in solo
Work up basic solo arrangement of chords and bass line
Week 3
Record audio of my own arrangement of bassline and chords (4 rotations)
Find C Dorian scales across the neck for Spanish Joint
Learn B section
Do improv instead**
Week 4
Come up with improv ideas for key change
Record video
*This is an example of not completing a task I thought I’d be able to. I only got to the first 3 phrases, so I made note of it and incorporated the rest into next week’s tasks.
**I change my mind all the time. After diving deeper into the solo, I realized I really only liked the A section and was ho hum about the B section. Instead of spending time working on something I wasn’t dying to get into my musical DNA, I skipped it.
What I’m left with
Now, each week I’m left with a series of small tasks that are completed easily, eliminate confusion over what I should be doing, and guarantee my progress toward my musical goals.
I can’t describe how beneficial it is to just be able to pick up my guitar, look at what I could do to improve as a musician, and do it without wading through a haze of confusion first.
And although it looks like a lot to explain, this takes almost no work at all. It only takes minutes from my normal routine and contributes greatly to my overall improvement.
With two or three projects on the go at the same time, I have variety in what I choose to work on - certain tasks take more effort than others so I can choose what to do based on my mood.