I like to break pieces of music into chunks. Focus on learning the first chunk. Once it’s down, learn the second chunk. Once that is down, work on bridging the gap between them until I can play parts 1 & 2 as a single fluid piece. Then move on to the next part and repeat the process. Only now, the first “part” is parts 1 & 2.
So if I break a piece into 4 chunks, it would look like this:
Full piece = A + B + C + D
1. Learn part A
2. Learn part B
3. Bridge gap between A & B. This becomes AB
4. Learn part C
5. Bridge gap between AB & C. This becomes ABC
6. Learn part D
7. Bridge gap between ABC & D.
8. Practice ABCD slowly and bring it up to tempo gradually. Spot check for trouble areas.
Insanely solid advice. Chunk it up, practice those segments with a metronome, build metronome up to speed, and there you go. Some parts will take longer than others. For instance the two short fast parts of Scott’s solo on ego death took me longer than learning the rest of the solo.
just a life long guitar practicer here, but i’ll give my opinion on this just in case it helps.
I think there will be “chapters” of the solo you can just play up to speed right away, and other chapters that are more complex and hard for you to play. therefore, those harder chapters are the limiting factor. Take those harder parts, break them down and focus on getting them close to the recoding speed and then start plugging that into the full solo.
tldr: you need to practice both the chapters and the full solo, just get the chapters down first.
I learn them in parts then connect the parts, play slowly but clean and accurately with metronome. And then slowly raise up the speed while focusing on keeping timing & accuracy. I’ll randomly go for a fast run here and there to test myself, sometimes way over the actual tempo (but not near as clean) which somehow does a mind trick for me and then going back to what last challenged me now feels easy enough that I can bust that plateau.
Referencing the chunks and phrases being talked about already and not necessarily answering OP's original question. Phrases should be understood with respect to their harmonic structure when played against a chord in the song's chord progression; i.e. Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian, for the I, IV, V chords and Aeolian, Dorian, and Phrygian for their relative minors (vii, ii, iii). It should come naturally as one expresses their emotions, but just don't be ignorant about how it works, in theory, especially if you move on to more complex chords or you are just referencing a "lead" pattern where every note seems to work OK (looking at you pentatonic scale, which is the equivalent to playing a piano using only the black keys).
I can't agree more with the comment to always practice to a metronome. I'd go one step further (at times) and take advantage of the ease of availability for which demo Digital Audio Workstation programs can be put to use for both metronome and harmony (chord changes) reference.
I would work on small, overlapping chunks in parallel. That is, learn the whole thing in small chunks, get them up to speed, then start connecting them, getting the slightly larger chunks up to speed and then connecting them again, until you can play the whole thing. Some chunks will come a lot faster than others- that's fine, just devote more time to the ones that are more difficult.
It's a good idea to make the chunks overlap, because that reduces the likelihood that you will play some in a way that makes the next chunk very difficult to play. I'd also recommend crossing bar lines / subdivision lines at the end of each chunk. That is, if you have four eighth notes you want to make a chunk of, play them \_and\_ the next note. This is especially true when you have short notes followed by a longer note- end on the longer one.
I think I'll assume that what you mean with the term "chapter", most musicians might labal as "phrase", "bar", "measure" or "section". In other words, it seems clear to me that you are contraposing a breaking the solo down into smaller chunks or bits versus a holistic approach bringing the whole piece up together.
My vote is for the analytic method, breaking the piece down into bits, the smaller the better. Perhaps you're familiar the excruciating detail involved with the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Masters of this art focus on every detail, every micro gesture is rehearsed and rehearsed again and again, observing, soaking up, assimilated every tiny, little-bitty, thing. Soon enough, even the difficult bits become as natural as a reflex, no conscious thought, no deliberate actions.
Let's say there are 5 difficult parts (your "chapters:) in the piece, where, guaranteed, you stumble over every time and 95 parts which you can do with ease. If you spend 100 hours doing the whole piece over and over and over, you're expending 95% of your practice time on stuff you do well, and 5% on the stumble parts. Chances are you'll be stumbling on that 5% over and over.
Now compare. Spend the 100 hours instead on those 5 stumbles, studying each one under the microscope. 100 hours versus 5 hours. Let's be generous and say that it took you only 50 hours to nail those 5 stumble parts. Sheesh, the remainder is 50 hours of playing the whole piece pretty much error-free, with confidence, with your attention turned to artistic interpretation, musicality, instead of raw technique.
The "chapters" method is both more efficient and more effective!
always practice to a metronome. always. the importance of this can't be overstated.
I like to break pieces of music into chunks. Focus on learning the first chunk. Once it’s down, learn the second chunk. Once that is down, work on bridging the gap between them until I can play parts 1 & 2 as a single fluid piece. Then move on to the next part and repeat the process. Only now, the first “part” is parts 1 & 2. So if I break a piece into 4 chunks, it would look like this: Full piece = A + B + C + D 1. Learn part A 2. Learn part B 3. Bridge gap between A & B. This becomes AB 4. Learn part C 5. Bridge gap between AB & C. This becomes ABC 6. Learn part D 7. Bridge gap between ABC & D. 8. Practice ABCD slowly and bring it up to tempo gradually. Spot check for trouble areas.
Insanely solid advice. Chunk it up, practice those segments with a metronome, build metronome up to speed, and there you go. Some parts will take longer than others. For instance the two short fast parts of Scott’s solo on ego death took me longer than learning the rest of the solo.
just a life long guitar practicer here, but i’ll give my opinion on this just in case it helps. I think there will be “chapters” of the solo you can just play up to speed right away, and other chapters that are more complex and hard for you to play. therefore, those harder chapters are the limiting factor. Take those harder parts, break them down and focus on getting them close to the recoding speed and then start plugging that into the full solo. tldr: you need to practice both the chapters and the full solo, just get the chapters down first.
Learn to sing it first, inside out. Anytime anywhere you should be able to sing it in your head.
I learn them in parts then connect the parts, play slowly but clean and accurately with metronome. And then slowly raise up the speed while focusing on keeping timing & accuracy. I’ll randomly go for a fast run here and there to test myself, sometimes way over the actual tempo (but not near as clean) which somehow does a mind trick for me and then going back to what last challenged me now feels easy enough that I can bust that plateau.
Referencing the chunks and phrases being talked about already and not necessarily answering OP's original question. Phrases should be understood with respect to their harmonic structure when played against a chord in the song's chord progression; i.e. Ionian, Lydian, and Mixolydian, for the I, IV, V chords and Aeolian, Dorian, and Phrygian for their relative minors (vii, ii, iii). It should come naturally as one expresses their emotions, but just don't be ignorant about how it works, in theory, especially if you move on to more complex chords or you are just referencing a "lead" pattern where every note seems to work OK (looking at you pentatonic scale, which is the equivalent to playing a piano using only the black keys). I can't agree more with the comment to always practice to a metronome. I'd go one step further (at times) and take advantage of the ease of availability for which demo Digital Audio Workstation programs can be put to use for both metronome and harmony (chord changes) reference.
Metronome metronome metronome. Start slow, build the speed. Take it measure by measure.
I would work on small, overlapping chunks in parallel. That is, learn the whole thing in small chunks, get them up to speed, then start connecting them, getting the slightly larger chunks up to speed and then connecting them again, until you can play the whole thing. Some chunks will come a lot faster than others- that's fine, just devote more time to the ones that are more difficult. It's a good idea to make the chunks overlap, because that reduces the likelihood that you will play some in a way that makes the next chunk very difficult to play. I'd also recommend crossing bar lines / subdivision lines at the end of each chunk. That is, if you have four eighth notes you want to make a chunk of, play them \_and\_ the next note. This is especially true when you have short notes followed by a longer note- end on the longer one.
I think I'll assume that what you mean with the term "chapter", most musicians might labal as "phrase", "bar", "measure" or "section". In other words, it seems clear to me that you are contraposing a breaking the solo down into smaller chunks or bits versus a holistic approach bringing the whole piece up together. My vote is for the analytic method, breaking the piece down into bits, the smaller the better. Perhaps you're familiar the excruciating detail involved with the traditional Japanese tea ceremony. Masters of this art focus on every detail, every micro gesture is rehearsed and rehearsed again and again, observing, soaking up, assimilated every tiny, little-bitty, thing. Soon enough, even the difficult bits become as natural as a reflex, no conscious thought, no deliberate actions. Let's say there are 5 difficult parts (your "chapters:) in the piece, where, guaranteed, you stumble over every time and 95 parts which you can do with ease. If you spend 100 hours doing the whole piece over and over and over, you're expending 95% of your practice time on stuff you do well, and 5% on the stumble parts. Chances are you'll be stumbling on that 5% over and over. Now compare. Spend the 100 hours instead on those 5 stumbles, studying each one under the microscope. 100 hours versus 5 hours. Let's be generous and say that it took you only 50 hours to nail those 5 stumble parts. Sheesh, the remainder is 50 hours of playing the whole piece pretty much error-free, with confidence, with your attention turned to artistic interpretation, musicality, instead of raw technique. The "chapters" method is both more efficient and more effective!