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4 Science-Based Ways To Learn Music Faster!

Diego Alonso Music

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LESSONS: https://calendly.com/diegoalonsomusic

FREE Practice Guide: Contact me @ contact@diegoalonsomusic.com

4 Incredibly Easy Tips To Learn Music Faster: Spaced-Practice

This is a topic I am very passionate about because these strategies have been essential to my growth as a musician. Not only have they helped deal with (and now avoid) many serious injuries and frustrations from my early guitar years, they've also helped me improve faster and more musically than I would have ever imagined possible. I wish I had learned these strategies early on but unfortunately not many people teach them so I had to discover them on my own. I truly hope that you find these videos helpful. If you implement these strategies into your practice they will absolutely help you improve more efficiently and avoid the set-backs I went through.

The strategies for today cover the importance of taking frequent breaks during and between practice sessions. It’s a simple idea at face, but the way you take your breaks can either be extremely helpful to your leaning and injury prevention or not. In this video I cover 4 categories: 1) Micro-Breaks, 2) Movement Breaks, 3) Long Breaks and 4) Patience. This video is a bit longer than my usual videos but I feel that it’s important to share this information in detail to make sure that you apply these principles correctly. Enjoy!!

REFERENCE
Noa Kageyama, PhD
http://www.bulletproofmusician.com

*TIME STAMPS*
0:00 Introduction
0:34 Strategy 1: Micro-Breaks
7:56 Strategy 2: Movement Breaks
11:17 Strategy 3: Long Breaks
14:19 Strategy 4: Patience
15:45 Process vs Result Focused Goals
17:14 Important Tips!

20 Comments

@velcroman11 9 months ago

What a great idea!! Yep, a bit on Monday a bit on maybe say, Wednesday. Err, maybe another bit say, next Monday. Sounds good.

@HumbleBaritonics 1 year ago

Diego -- thanks for your inspiring words to help non-professional / hobbyists better understand the learning process. I just bought a cassette recorder per Adam Levy's be your own jam buddy video in order to both listen to myself and improvise over my own chordal playing.

@brentwheeler2087 1 year ago

y thoughtful and realistic thank you. Especially relevant for me, and older player, with in reality limited time left in life. Without being overly dramatic - the urge to rush, speed, - is huge and ever present !! No simple answer but your series of observations and suggestions is very helpful.

@Shobairsindahouse 1 year ago

Thank you Diego. very inspiring and insightful 🙏

@d-boy1644 1 year ago

❤

@Opa747 1 year ago

Great video with very helpful information.
The quality of the presentation is top notch.
Would you mind sharing your production process? How about a tutorial on that?

@yarongolany3608 1 year ago

I'm an amateur guitarist who practices for about an hour a day—one hour-long session at night. I wanted to share something with the viewers of this excellent video, in the spirit of what Diego said, that works well for me. I tried taking a break in the middle of the session for a few minutes and putting the guitar down completely, but that made it harder for me to return to practice. What I do now is this: I record myself playing, and then—without getting up—I rest while focusing for 3–5 minutes on listening to the recording. I immediately draw conclusions from it, because what the recording tells me is essentially this: where I'm not playing well, and therefore, what I need to work on next.

@catherinegoodsett-wein3313 1 year ago

Awesome teaching! Thanks!

@robertemery527 1 year ago

Diego, thank you for your very thoughtful and compassionate form off teaching. There is shown a beautiful soul and brother-in-arms. I am learning so much from your videos.

@Milton9400 1 year ago

Does using a very small amount of cannabis or caffeine help or hinder memorization?

@GaZonk100 1 year ago (edited)

I would humbly suggest not even playing the preceding bar, but instead to land your fretting hand deliberately and mindfully (I used to call it my 'fly technique') on the problem chord in the same sure-footed was a fly lands on an uneven object then shake it out - -rpt a hundred times (there's no risk if RSI if you keep shaking it out). .if you do this ten times in a day you've done it a thousand times and maybe taken a total of twenty minutes. . works for me

@Ricky.Lopez.Official 2 years ago

I have commented here and there, but I really want to take the time here and say thank you so much Diego. I feel like a caveman watching someone start a fire for the first time.

I've been playing fingerstyle guitar for almost 15 years, and have been doing so much wrong this entire time. I was recently frustrated with my lack of progress given the amount of time I've been playing, which is how I discovered your channel. Well no wonder, it's because I've been doing marathon practice sessions this entire time, with no deliberate strategy to undergird my progress.

@gechli3433 2 years ago

I thought I was the only one who would experience debilitating frustration when encountering a technical block in learning a new piece! Now I know that professional musician will have to practice repeatedly, in countless repetitions, in order to surmount barriers to achieve progress. That makes me feel much better. Thank you for sharing this!

But how long does it take you to master a 3- or 4-minute piece? For me, it will take more than 3 months to learn a say 2-minute piece (I'm at most an intermediate player learning to fingerpick songs) and I often run out of patience, or even become fed up, so I move on to the next new piece on my wish list. Looking back, I have made overall progress in terms of techniques and music understanding but am still unable to play a piece to my satisfaction (that's to say, there are often one or two sections in a piece I have learned I feel I need to improve).

@tinkerduck1373 2 years ago

03:20 the nerd in me says: you're trying to avoid overfitting. 😁

@YaelEylatTanaka 2 years ago

You're a fantastic teacher! I wish you taught piano!

@azsxw2 2 years ago

Always good to have a refresher on how to practice :)

@danielgavrilescu2040 2 years ago

Hi, looks like studies corelate even more repetition just before going to sleep or very close is even better, or i may wrong ... ?

@jetarocruz6624 2 years ago

thanks a lot Diego.
pls let me know if learning 2 or more diff songs in a day is ok. or do i have to master 1 before moving to the next song. TIA

@gv1014 2 years ago

Great teacher :)

@1firstguitar 2 years ago

Diego, I can't help but think that at the beginning of this video you are going twice as fast as you should. Shouldn't practicing mistakes be avoided? I cite guitarist Manuel Barrueco: "Don't practice mistakes."