Hacker News Reader

Chaun C. Chang's The Fundamentals of Piano Practice [0] does a fantastic job of describing the relationship between practice and improvement, and how to make the most of your time.

You'll probably come across advice you've already figured out on your own, but there is a wealth of information for even experienced musicians.

> Learn to play a few simple songs that you like, using 3-4 simple chords (there are a ton of tutorials for that), and then spend 1,000 hours playing around on the vicinity of that musical environment.

I would fundamentally disagree. I picked up guitar 12 months ago, and while I couldn't play you a single cover song, I have written over a hundred fleshed out songs. My practice time and creative time were intertwined, and I let my practice sessions inspire my songwriting and vice versa.

It created a clear path of progression for me, and through learning about and writing dozens of different genres I successfully brute-forced my songwriting skills into maturity. I didn't get locked into any particular style as to not limit myself; I intentionally didn't learn 12-bar blues, for example, until about two months ago. I'm not boxed into referring to the Circle of Fifths every time I write a progression.

I still have a long way to go, for sure, but my fundamentals are solid, cohesive, and broad instead of defined by a narrow perspective of playing three-chord songs for 1000 hours. I have written a hundred songs and am preparing to gig, while my friends who have been playing guitar for 10+ years are still struggling to write their first full original song.

[0] https://fundamentals-of-piano-practice.readthedocs.io/

I'd have to agree that a 1000 hours of practice on a few chords is not the best way to learn musicality.

My parents spent a fortune on private guitar tutoring to modest effect and I'd say in my case the single biggest thing was freestyle practice while listening to the progression and trying to react to the teacher. So practice indeed, but one where listening and technique are both part of the exercise at the same time. Some theory (for the mathematically inclined) did help for me to understand progressions. Things like landing on the right note are instrumental for the audience and based in theory.

Fun book.

"When mass produced, the cost of self-tuning options will be small compared to the price of a quality piano. You might think that this would put piano tuners out of work but that will not be the case because the number of pianos will increase (because of this book), ..."

That's confidence in the method, right there.

I would take your audacious claims with a grain of salt. Unconventional progressions don't equate to creative or good song writing. You could be the next Nick Drake or Erik Satie, and I am all for deliberate focused practice, but you have to crawl before you can walk. Limit yourself to three chords and write a song, you might learn something.

Audacious? I never said most of them were good. Most of them were awful. But I followed through till I was finished.

I never made any claims as to my abilities, just my personal accomplishments. I didn't mention unconventional progressions. You need to read my post again, because your criticism is unwarranted.

> Limit yourself to three chords and write a song, you might learn something.

Learn more than three chords and write a song, you just might learn more than the average guitarist. Fundamentals of Piano Practice emphasizes the importance of never getting comfortable, of always pushing yourself during practice. Why settle for mediocrity?

> Most of them were awful.

In that case let me rephrase: Limit yourself to three chords and try to write a really good song ;)

Now you're assuming they're all bad songs, and you're also making the ridiculous assumption that every song someone writes is supposed to be good. The whole point of practicing songwriting is to get better at it.

Stop being a jerk for a second, stop being aloof, and try to consider that I might actually know what I'm talking about, that I actually might be a decent musician. Your attitude is just toxic and mean.

I did not want to push your buttons. Good luck with your songwriting.

Such language is an attempt to deflect responsibility from you to me, but I assure you, the problem here is how you approached this conversation.

Could you link some of your songs?

Sure, I'll post another comment to this one hopefully this evening with a couple tracks. It's been a busy day.

> Learning to improvise and to write your own songs requires 1,000+ hours of the type of "playing/dancing/exploring" I was mentioning above. You'll learn the theory on the 10% of those 1,000 hours that you are resting and browsing the internet.

This has been my experience as well. When I first started I thought I would rush into the theory and that would allow me to improvise, but what was lacking was the playing of songs and getting a feel for the music. Learning the theory was easy -- getting a basketful of songs under my belt and then getting good at playing them took much longer, and required much more effort -- and now improvising comes more naturally, including being able to use use my ears to hear things like keys, intervals and so on.

Practice, practice, practice! Learn a lot of different songs well, and fully understand the Circle of 5ths.

I agree. Beatles songs are great for this. But I would say don't stop after learning a few simple songs, always keep learning more. one new song each week maybe. Keep in mind that most of the musicians whose music you are learning probably learned this way as well. of course, if you want to learn classical or play like Coltrane, you'll need to learn the theory.

> it is not about learning patterns, music is a different language

So much this.