Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

Practice until it hurts

#1

I have a few questions about practice

  1. can you practice too much in a day?
    I landed a job where on night shift I can and do practice for 9-11 hrs per shift is this too much ? I however dont feel there is such a thing

  2. As for the lesson modules How much time should I spend on each one? To stay on it until I can play it from memory 100% ? Thats what i have been doing

  3. do you always keep practicing them forever ?
    For example before I joined Banjo Ben I just bought the Earl Scruggs Banjo book and taught myself Cripple Creek, Boil the Cabbage and Foggy Mountain Breakdown and I keep playing them through a few times every time I practice. I’ve since learned Reuben and Hot Corn old Corn now they’ve been added to my practice repertoire but its getting long. So at this point I am thinking practicing certain modules and certain songs at various days of the week…

Looking for some feed back on best approach

Steve Regan

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#2

Yessir! I ended up with shoulder issues that sidelined me for some time and it came with me playing less than you describe (it was probably about 5 hours a day). Besides injury potential, I am going to guess you might burn out pretty quick. I also find I progressed better at times with LESS work and more specific (non-fun) work. All that said, congrats on a job where you can practice that much!

#2: that sounds about right. Add a new song once the last one is memorized.

#3: You have already run into it… you can’t keep playing them all every time. At one point, I had a list of songs and I would cover the list over several days. That seemed to be a good way to keep everything fresh and not orphan some songs. However, truth be told, I didn’t stick with that for more than a few months.

As for all the above I wrote, that’s just my opinion. Other folks will likely have different thoughts. Keep having fun!

#3

Thanks for the awesome feed back and encouragement Mike
The job is boring so I make the best of it by getting paid to learn the banjo lol
I also find to take a day off once a week and not touch it also seems to help big time.

I like your idea of spreading them out through the week also
Do foggy mtn and Banjo Ben on Monday
Tuesday is Hot corn cold corn and banjo ben
Wednesday Reuben and Banjo Ben and so on
I start every session by going thru roll patterns in every chord position on the neck
Bar F shape and D shape every roll in every position
eventually adding the minors and whatever off chords there are

Thanks Again Amigo

Practice till it hurts then go another hour lol is my moto

Practice practice practice

My wife says I am obsessed and she is correct

Love this community
God bless

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#4

Hi @steveregan805 Steve welcome back to the Forum.

  1. can you practice too much in a day?

That depends on whether YOU want to practice or not.
There was a time when I studied/practiced on average 12-14hrs a day. Not lately though

  1. As for the lesson modules How much time should I spend on each one?

If we are talking about @BanjoBen’s Lessons. As long or as short as you want, it’s your membership.
However I think Ben would hope you had a reasonable grasp of the content of a lesson before moving on. There is no expectation that you will commit 100% to memory before starting a new project. Had that been I would never have worked my way through Ben’s library. Your goal here is not to learn to play a tune 100% perfect from memory it’s to learn to play the elements to enable you to develop the skills required to play any tune on the banjo. So move on you can always revisit a lesson.

  1. do you always keep practicing them forever ?

If you are asking ME that question my reply would be NO! Since there is always new content being added I’d never have time to learn new stuff if I keep going back over stuff I have already learned and committed many hours of study and practice. That said every new lesson has elements of a previous lesson so in a way you ARE always practicing stuff you already know.

I am impressed I bought Earls book and I am ashamed to say I didn’t learn anything from it. I am not great trying to learn anything from books.

I do however practice a few advanced tunes I learned from @BanjoBen , Alan Munde, Jim Britton, Heath Joyce and a few other great teachers that are my go to warm up lessons when I am motivated to do so. Getting in a good practice session prepares your brain to want to learn new stuff.

You seem to have a plan/goal going forward go with what your gut tells you. Make the most of what your membership allows, the wealth of lessons here leaves you spoilt for choice make the most of it. You won’t find anything like it anywhere else on the internet.

I am sure others will want to share their experiences. Good Luck

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#5

Wow, what a great opportunity!

  1. Yes, you can burn yourself out both mentally and physically. Just be aware of that potential.

  2. My opinion is you should use them until you get the principles that are taught. Don’t feel like you have to memorize everything. I’m more concerned with you getting a mental and physical grip on what I’m teaching.

  3. Great answers already above, but sounds like you need to watch my theory of practice course to answer this question: https://banjobenclark.com/courses/the-theory-of-practice

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#6

Thanks Ben

I haven’t touched my Banjo for 2 nights previous and broke it out tonight and my wife said she can see a huge difference

I’ve watch the theory of practice video 3x lol

I started with the Earl Scruggs book and learned Cripple Creek , Boil Cabbage and Foggy Mtn Brkdn then joined Banjo Ben plus I have been playing guitar for 37 yrs so I wasn’t totally starting at zero but I’ve still followed every modul of yours from # 1

Thanks Agaik.
Steve Regan

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