Everyone is wired differently and some others here would probably view these matters differently, and still get great results. But, in case you are like me, I’ll share my typical methods:
Don’t practice one because “you need to make progress on it” and guilt-trip yourself if you don’t practice it. Unless you have some specific goal that you need to meet (e.g. learning a piece you need to play somewhere), that kind of mindset might not help you progress very well because it molds music into a necessary task to “check off”. With different forms of education, sure; that’s just basic, needed diligence and without it you’ll sink. But music is about creativity and passion combined with that diligence. It is one thing to get a “passing grade” with your practice. It is another thing to LOVE your practice.
If you LOVE playing a certain instrument, that will get you much further than pure willpower to practice will.
My advice: play the one you really want to play today! Pick out the songs you love, can’t get out of your head and have always wanted to tackle. There will almost certainly come some other day when you have a burning desire to play the other instrument. Leave that instrument to that day and don’t overthink it.
When I was 12-15 or so I would sit down with an instrument in front of Ben’s lessons, YouTube, or a music player and just listen and copy my favorite songs and players for fun. I loved this process. It was enjoyable and it made me better.
When I got older, I started obsessing over “what do I need to be working on to get better?” I ended up working on nothing because I couldn’t clearly define what my long-term goal was to work towards. Or, I would manage to guilt-trip myself into working on some generic thing I hoped would make me “better”, only to forget it the next day because it had zero soul to it. I hated this process.
You know, sometimes I meet folks who profess a desire to learn an instrument. I usually respond, “Cool! What kind of music do you like?” and sometimes I hear the answers, “I don’t know.” “Um, I don’t really listen to music.”
Now, usually these folks won’t make much progress learning an instrument unless they figure out why they want to learn it – what music do they like? What situations do they aspire to play in? What lit the fire in them? If they don’t have those reasons, that instrument is going to be played for three months and then collect dust in a corner.
Well, I found myself going down the same spiral. I was trying to “get better” just for the sake of “getting better”. I was trying to figure out what would make me the “best” player possible at the end of everything. This made me feel incredibly generic. I wasn’t identifying what I really, really wanted to play and then playing it!
Turns out, I won’t make much progress in ten years unless I focus on doing something that will make me better TODAY and enjoy the process. Now, that truth seems obvious, but when you’re in “analysis paralysis” these matters are not so easy to see through— and honestly, can even be discouraging and drain the heart out of your playing.
So… if you’re looking to play, get better, annd have fun, ask yourself what the purpose behind your practice is. Play the kind of things that made you want to play the instrument in the first place— that’s motivation in and of itself!
“I do what I do because I love it; and when I do love it, and like to do it, I do it.
When I don’t like it, I don’t do it…"
–Tony Rice
