An Analysis Of 'Suck'

I received the following e-mail from a young guitar player about 9 or 10 months ago…

“My friend and I started playing guitar at the same time, the very same day even. We both practice about the same amount of time, but he is already so much better than I am. His playing is getting better and better at a faster rate. Mine is lagging behind. I do make small improvements however I become frequently frustrated cuz I try just as hard as he does. Sometimes I wonder if he is just more talented than I. To reach his rate of growth I would have to practice 10 hours a day as he only needs 1 hour. I cannot dedicate 10 hours per day so what can I do? Bottom line -- I still SUCK after three and one half years of playing six to seven days a week!”

I know both of these guitar players and can verify that the friend’s progress has been more significant than the author of the email above. And everything written in the email was basically true (at the time it was written). I gave this guy two main pieces of advice:

01. Do NOT compare yourself to your friend. Do not let your friend (or anyone else) set the standard for you to aspire to. One should have fixed in his/her mind the vision of the type of player one wants to become. Generally speaking, you don’t want your “next door neighbor” to be the definition of your ideal long term “vision”. If I could magically take your friend’s skills away what you feel better about yourself simply because he was not as good as you? Keep in mind that your skills would be the same as they are now, the only difference is that your friend’s skills were taken away or diminished. Your attitude about your own progress should be centered completely around where you are in the journey to realize your goals.

02. After you have reconciled your thoughts with the first piece of advice, you are ready for the second. In general, the greatest players are not great because they were naturally talented. In every case, truly great players become great (and make a lot of progress in relatively shorter periods of time) because their practice habits are EFFECTIVE. You see, they not only put in the time and effort as you do, but that time and effort is focused and effective. It appears that your practice habits have not been effective. I do not believe you lack the necessary potential to make significant progress. You just aren’t being effective. You seem to believe that you “CANNOT”. I propose that you can, but that you simply “HAVE NOT”. Certainly you are trying, but the efforts are bearing little fruit…

…I went on to tell him a story of how I generally approach increased practice effectiveness when working through a specific challenge (which all players at some point will face), read it below. There are many reasons why some players make less than average progress while spending a decent amount of time practicing. In most cases however, the problem is almost always the same.

I had suspected his lack of progress was due to ineffective practice approaches and habits. He thought the equal time he spent should have brought equal results. But that is a fallacy, a myth. Time is like a road. And there lots of different types of roads such as: dirt roads, gravel roads, brick roads, concrete roads, tar roads, and auto racing tracks (roads). His friend was driving (practicing) on a high quality road that can enable the car (his guitar playing) to move at the fastest pace. The email author was on a road made of loose gravel, rocks and littered with pot holes. The poor quality of the road is similar to poor quality practicing habits. Poor practice habits put one on a bad road and therefore the progress will be rough and slow. Effective practicing will put you on a race track where maximum traction and conditions are there to allow the maximum rate of progress.

I once had a new student (named Chris) who came to me because he couldn’t play Stairway to Heaven smoothly. In one of our first lessons together I asked Chris to play it (Stairway to Heaven) for me, 3 consecutive times. Each time Chris played the beginning of the song he could not make the chord change between the 3rd and 4th chords in time and cleanly. He practiced the song for months but could not get to the fourth chord (D/F#) correctly. I asked him some questions about how he was practicing and then I asked him to “practice the song for 15 minutes right here in front of me and I would just sit back quietly and listen”. After 15 minutes of that, I could see the problem was not that Chris lacked the potential to play it. It was clear that he had been struggling with this song because of ineffective use of his practice time. I noticed several minor problems that he was doing over and over again that was creating obstacles for him. But the greatest problem wasn’t in the way he attempted to play it, it was in his “approach to practicing” it. In those 15 minutes he practiced in front of me, he played the entire first section of the song. Which meant he actually only “practiced” the hard part 21 times (yes I was counting!). So we spent the next 15 minutes “ISOLATING THE PROBLEM AREA” and just focused on that. That meant he wasn’t allowed to practice anything he could already do well (which was the rest of that section of the song). I made him focus on only the difficult chord and position change. In the course of 15 minutes he had practiced this “problem spot” 536 times! (Yes…like a nerd, I was again counting!). In 15 minutes he could still not play it perfectly yet, but significant progress was made. I told him to practice in this exact same way for 15 minutes a day for the next 7 days. When he came back for his next lesson, I asked him to play the entire section of the song and he played it perfectly every time.

What changed? Well actually he practiced the song LESS (in terms of numbers of minutes per day) but he did practice the problem area more than 3,500 times in a total of 1.75 hours total during the week. What has happened was he got off the pot-hole- gravel-road and moved to a race track. Since then he has learned to practice all extraordinarily challenging things in this way…and the results show in a huge way. There are many reasons for Chris’s huge long-term success as a musician, but certainly the effectiveness of practicing is close to the top of the list. Chris has become a virtuoso guitarist and professional musician. You can hear the results for yourself here.

There are lots of ways to improve the quality of your practice-time-effectiveness and thus your results. To get started, I recommend the following:

01. Before practicing, have your goals in mind before you begin and make them specific. Don’t just say, I’m going to practice Stairway To Heaven, say, “I’m going to work specifically on getting to that D/F# ONLY for 15 minutes”, or “I’m going to practice the 7th and 8th measures of the guitar solo for 12 minutes”.

02. When practicing ALWAYS ask yourself if you are using your practice time in the most effective ways.

03. Video record yourself practicing for 30 minutes. 1 week later watch the video recording and ask yourself this question, “If was a teacher (watching my student practice for 30 minutes, what might I suggest to him/her to improve the quality of the practicing I am observing). Then implement those suggestions the next time you practice.

For further reading: check out Tom Hess’s instructional web site.
Tom Hess’s world tour dates are posted here.

Copyright 2006 by Tom Hess. All rights reserved. Used by permission.

Comments

[Metallica708]

Props to be you. I had the exact same problem (the stairway to heaven one).

[Gitter_Wizard]

i liked the part about comparing yourself. thats a good way to put it.

[ChordProgressiv]

Really good article, well done for taking the time out to contribute something so helpful.

[Slash·Slash]

seems alrite to me...might help

[Limaj_daas]

true and useful... stuff every person should know.

[Nor'Easterbass]

i've heard this said before, but for some reason i still think i haven't seen the light in that, i don't use my practice time as wisely as i should...this makes me wanna go home and practice tons...thanks.

[mikeman]

This is pretty obvious. Unfortunately, I didn't learn anything from this.

[Cobalt Blue]

makes sence... i'm just realizing i haven't picked up the axe in a day or so.. i must go now

[Strat_Monkey]

Hmm... I think I criticised your last article, but this one I like. Obviously very useful for people with this sorta problem.

[Dannychords]

This is my life...ive been playin for 4 years now and i know people who have played for 1 year and are better ='[

[gibson sg!]

wow! so simple but very good, it has gave a lot of info tyvm!

[jmt]

This information is pretty obvious. Practice the parts you have a hard time with. I really don't think that this tip was worth the time put into reading the entire article. I guess that the situation would help some people by putting things into perspective, but nothing original by any means.

[vantage4]

i think the article deals with a pretty obvious solution to a very obvious problem...but apparently it's a problem a lot of people have trouble with so well done i guess.

[elgranmapache]

This article is really crappy.When you finish reading it it seems like it had said almost nothing at all

[fornillia]

its not a crappy article. it may also be obvious to some, but for those who dont realise proper practice habits it could be very useful. good article.

[Mental Hop]

Hasn't this article been done before?

[RNRSoldier]

This didn't say all that much, but the thing about not comparing yourself to your friends is definitely true. Didn't learn anything from it, but well written enough it could help beginners

[Night_Lights]

jmt wrote:

This information is pretty obvious. Practice the parts you have a hard time with. I really don't think that this tip was worth the time put into reading the entire article. I guess that the situation would help some people by putting things into perspective, but nothing original by any means.

its obvious to you, but people need to be pointed out these things. Be nice to beginners, dont assume they know as much as you do.

[Amped1]

i know you said not to compare yourself to your neighbor or friend but im roomin with slash so is it okay?

[Scourge441]

Very good article for the beginner players out there, and a good reminder to the more advanced ones.

[Imp]

Terrible analogy. A huge waste of a paragraph.
Good article, good points, good story, good explanation. I'm giving you a 9.

[Feel bad inc.]

i agree with this article. i always used to compare myself to my friend in terms of progress. his probly played around the same amount of time and is probly better, but i stopped caring about that a while ago and am aspiering to something new. also the part about the practice was good im gonna start doing that more

[george_meggs]

im the friends thanks dude lol

[roxorzroxz]

hey my first song i learnt was stairway to heaven lol

[hyroglyph!c]

I agree with everything. But what got me good is i DO compare my self with others. Because i want to know how much better someone else is..so i can strive to be that good. Its worked for me. Hell this one kid started a good YEAR before me. And all the time...in my head was "Damn hes too good, and i wont keep up"..but ive worked at it..and learned that either he sucks..or im just good....either way...if it wasnt for him..i wouldnt have put as much effort into practising as i did. Thats just me though

[Muppet]

Pretty good.

[marvelboy_04]

nice

[Muusik]

hyroglyph!c wrote:

I agree with everything. But what got me good is i DO compare my self with others. Because i want to know how much better someone else is..so i can strive to be that good. Its worked for me. Hell this one kid started a good YEAR before me. And all the time...in my head was "Damn hes too good, and i wont keep up"..but ive worked at it..and learned that either he sucks..or im just good....either way...if it wasnt for him..i wouldnt have put as much effort into practising as i did. Thats just me though

I don't think he means it's wrong to aspire to people. Just don't think, "aww he/she's better than me and they've been playing the same amount of time"

[LeveLHeaD69]

oi

[paulhimpjc]

man that is really really great advise!!!
holy shit like i mean gandolf the grey shit here:P

[stratman13]

Man, I'd be intimidated if my teacher ptd my practices on his website. Then again, I'd probably practice more?

[RIP Dime]

Great article man!!

[bassmonkey16]

well a recent roadblock i hit was in a stevie wonder piece im doing in band (playing bass). one of the toughest solos ive played. so, a week or so a go i played that one section where i solo over and over again. i stuck around and got my teacher to help me with a bit of timing a few days later, and now, i can totally do that solo.

so i support this article 100 % because it WORKS. 10/10

[losthope]

the thing about looking up to your neighbor...uh what if it was steve ****ing vai you thought about that

[BubbaBill]

that was very very good advice, now i think i can play bed of razors by children of bodom perfectly, after some intense practicing of course, thank you

[The_Raven]

That was really very good, I want to try it!

Checked.

[cabbaman98]

yeh godo article. you can tewll you are really proud of you 'gravel roads etc' metaphor. It was helpful though.

[inXP]

Metallica708 wrote:

Props to be you. I had the exact same problem (the stairway to heaven one).

hahaha, I still have that problem.

[pariah452]

you wanna know something. That WILL really help you learn to play so much better. PRACTISE YOUR FUCKING SCALES.

[pariah452]

practising scales will help you SOOO much.

[<vlad>]

yep.

[floydman_4140]

This is my life...ive been playin for 4 years now and i know people who have played for 1 year and are better ='[

me too man
im gonna go practice
good article

[69.so.fine]

I read a lot of shit ass articles, but this one was worth my time, great advice, ****ing killer

[Charlie4]

Something that helped me improve my accuracy is by playing with headphones on, chromatics ; scales etc,
through my amp. The reason for this is headphones distort the notes which makes it a lot more difficult and can get REALLY frustrating. However if you can play every note perfectly with all that noise, in time, you'll rip it without headphones. Indeed a way-out stlye of practicing but it really is worth all the effort/frustration. It works for me.

O yeah
the article,decent.

CHecked

[havana_Affair19]

cool...i have hard time with that part too

[TSmitty6]

i caught myself doing the same thing, practicing the hard things barely and the easy things over and over.

[MESAexplorer]

Thank you for this artical, since then I have improved all the sloppy parts in As I Am, In The Name of God, and Erotomania. Your advice makes me want to dry hump you in appreciation.

[HmTownHero1007]

good articlee

[Battery Chicken]

Tom, you're kick ass. I always get something out of your articles, cheers!

[Remco]

Pretty much what I do, besides recording myself of course. I don't have a teacher, I'm trying to teach myself and there are a few things I always keep in mind:

1). Great players became great by practise.
2). Nothing is too hard, you can learn anything.
3). Talent is an excuse to give up on what you want to reach.

[Sletvin]

Nice article, it's true

[Mudder]

All you guys that say "well, that's obvious", it's not obvious to everyone, those are the people that needed this article.

[SYH_Fan]

Actually the prime directive is to have fun.

[Child Pr0digy]

Dude, that is probably the best piece of advice for beginners. 9/10 article

[ohmerrymayhem]

jmt wrote:

This information is pretty obvious. Practice the parts you have a hard time with. I really don't think that this tip was worth the time put into reading the entire article. I guess that the situation would help some people by putting things into perspective, but nothing original by any means.

Agreed. I thought it was common sense to work hard at things you're not good at to improve... Imagine that.. This sounds a lot like a "my teaching skills are fabulous" self-agrandizer to me. Maybe it's just me...

[CoDee]

Great article, minus the road metaphor. 9/10.

[cds+stereo=life]

Good advice, especially the part about not comparing yourself to others. I think you could have made that a bit more clear, though, because it's envy that drives us to be better. So, maybe try, "don't allow yourself to feel defeated by someone else's ability".

Also, can no one spell on here? There is no "s" in "practice".

[Sletvin]

Envy doesn't always drive you into trying to play better, or well, not me. I would love to become as good as a few friends of mine, but its not what Im primary aiming at. I just like to make music with the guitar. and the better, the more fun \o/

[muppet_man456]

Woah gud article, tht has made me see how im goin practise on my guitar more effectively, nice 1 dude

[AXISSS]

Great article, especially for the beginners that might not even realize how they have been practicing.

[rancidrocker]

Great Collumn! 5 *s

[rancidrocker]

lol 10* I mean (I'm so used to tabs haha!!)

[fdogg]

yeah. im dealing with the same problem today. my friend started later than me by a few months and has already surpassed me by a mile. great column. i am also dealing with that stairway to heaven problem lol. when im playing it for someone i just play the open d string instead of the 4th fret. it works ok. just fyi 4 everyone

[smb]

ohmerrymayhem wrote:
I thought it was common sense to work hard at things you're not good at to improve... Imagine that.. This sounds a lot like a "my teaching skills are fabulous" self-agrandizer to me. Maybe it's just me...

It's not just you. This is more of an advert for his site than a useful article.

[ivancat]

good stuff, actually helped me with several things and helped when I was reading, not even practicing

[Formalities555]

Never had a problem with Stairway to Heaven . . .Classical Gas, on the other hand, was difficult.

[Slasher_Sloth]

Good article, But I disagree about comparing yourself to others slightly. In the perspective of saying "Yeah they're too good, I cant get as good as them", I agree. But I wouldn't have improved even half as much if I wasnt competing with my brother on "who can get better". Competition can make you work alot harder and it pays off.

[monkey of doom]

Guitaring is not about competition. The point is to make some music. I once went to an audition were the other guitarist was trying to compete with me constantly. I got the gig, but never took it. Its not a good position to be in. The same stuff happens in guitar shops a lot. For me, I try to learn complicated things because I want to better my technical ability so that I can apply it to other aspects of guitar playing like composition. If I want to say,write a fast part in a song I would a least have the ability to pull it off convinvingly. Its not a competition.

[Gilders]

Very insightful article, well-written and easy to understand

Checked

[Truism]

Nice article. Although it may of come across as obvious to many people (such as myself), it was still a well-written piece of advice for any aspiring guitarist. Plus, even though some people merely believe this to be an advert for his site, he has the right to after writing an influencial piece like that doesn't he?

[fox69]

i usta think this dude was way 2 full o himself, but hes finally coming out with sum really insightful articles. its tru that most ppl dont practice the rite way,(like me for like 3 years).

nicely done.

[Covin]

Very good stuff. My rhythm guitarist in our band will definitely be reading this ASAP.

[fridge_raider]

In general, the greatest players are not great because they were naturally talented."

I don't agree with that one bit..

[RainbowBassist]

Very useful

[logrules]

dude i think you just have to be dedicated to what you do
you also have to love playing
some people are born with natural talent and some have to develop it

keep at it!!!

[slappy4191]

Amazing article.

It gives me something to tell some of my friend's when they jam out with me and start telling me how much better I am than them and how much they 'suck.'

[harley10_5]

elgranmapache wrote:

This article is really crappy.When you finish reading it it seems like it had said almost nothing at all

lambchop wrote:

dude you just suck
you should probably quit right now
save yourself the tauntings on stage

and wait for my cd to come out so you can see how its really done

these guys raggin on you are ridiculous ma it was a great article ....and as for those guys pissing about it they need to quit guitar and go do something useful to the world i.e. selling tires

Checked.

[the.spine.surfs]

I sell tires. It's a noble art...

I think this article has a good point. There's my opinion, go rip it all up.

[PickNGrin]

I think it makes a good point, and students need to hear it.

[guitaristben]

very good article, ive got the same thing that at school, ive been playing for 4 years now and he said he has been playing for a year and he is better than me, it just doesnt make sense. But he has guitar tuition and i dont so he must have a reli good tutor then. Im still jealous of him now, the wanker! lol

[Normozoidz]

this article helps a lot!!!!!
it's really essential not compare yourself but you should monitor yourself

[chieftanec]

good job, nice article

[Guitargod12345]

I have a freind who's been playing for two and a half years and I've been playing for 1 and a half, and I can play faster and better than he can. Here is what you accually need to get better, Improve your ear. Learn Any scale you can and learn how to use any scale to find a key, make it so that you don't need a guitar to find the key of the song you are listening to and at least get some idea of what they are doing.

[i<3myteli]

wow ur a good teacher, i had a teacher say the EXACT same thing to me. like not with stairway to heaven but i was learning this song classical gas to get my fingerpicking skills up. and he said the same thing w/o the road metaphor. and ever since then i can play almost any song without tabs, just by focusing on every little mistake even if it means playing the same song for a week. anyways 10!!! ur a smart guy

[westo]

i like the video taping idea

[» Declan «]

I'm 14 fight now and ive had both of those problems ever since i started playing (6 months ago). I coudln't do the chord D/F#, but now after practising that one area for a few weeks a i can play stairway really smooth and easily coudlnt be happier! Great artical, thanks!

[» Declan «]

Corrections: right, weeks i (no 'a'), article.

[Lambey]

a very true article. i've been doing this stuff since i first started playin not quite 2 years ago and iv already caught up with my mates who've been playin 2 or 3 years longer than me. itsa good feeling =] nice article for people that could be struggling

[86th fret]

when he says to make sure you are using your practice time wisely, what does that mean? Should I not play easy stuff, but instead learn some scales, or a challenging song? I've been playing for 4 months by the way

[c0d3ster]

People are right learn your scales. My one friend has been playing for two years and has been taught. I myself have been playing for one and have been self taught, and I still beat him in improvsation and in soloing just because I practice and know all my major/minor/blues/pentatonic scales.

[XNeo```]

True inspiration for the dude i think...

[nirvana_62]

This was cool. Between me and my friend I was the better one. And I still am

[Invader Jim]

Excellent article. I have the same problems. This will definately help.

[deathbyungabung]

Yeah this article helped me alot with the string-skip alternate picking in As I Lay Dying's confined.

CHecked.

[MAXPAYNE4664]

Great read

I've been playing guitar for almost 2 years but I'm still not that good. The reason? I dont use my practice time efficiently. I couldnt even handle changing my chords from fret to fret but now it's easy thanks to practicing and using time wisely.

[thegrungyhippie]

does this guy realize that people play guitar for fun and dont want to do all this crap?

[D$MONEY]

everyone "sucks" when they first start playing. EVERYONE.


D$

[mp3stalin]

pariah452 wrote:

you wanna know something. That WILL really help you learn to play so much better. PRACTISE YOUR FUCKING SCALES.

the MAJOR scale is important... pentatonic and blues even the minor scale are just modes of it.

Chords and progressions are the most important thing to learn... and the best vehicle to learn them... is the major scale and learning all the notes on the fretboard.

[BennyStruggle]

This article shows how once you become talented and respected in any given field you get away with stating completely obvious information; things that most people would laugh at if said by an average joe.

[BennyStruggle]

thegrungyhippie wrote:

does this guy realize that people play guitar for fun and dont want to do all this crap?

yea no doubt, I mean he acts like he is infamous but I have never heard of him, and neither has anyone I know. He is like one of those studio musicians who plays an instrument on an album by a big band, and is talented, but no one knows who the hell he is. Its one thing to be a great musician with international acclaim, but in my opinion Tom Hess is just a shadow coming out of a speaker, like a guest musician on an Eric Clapton tour or something who nobody notices and is only there to reinforce the 'known' musicians.

[Da Guitar Masta]

great article, thanks for that advice.

[Dream Pin]

Good article.