Difficulty

A place to discuss Playground's main curriculum, the Bootcamp.
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Klee13
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:58 pm

Difficulty

Post by Klee13 » Sun Dec 27, 2020 11:06 pm

With some of the lessons theres an extreme jump in diffculty as it pertains to the last section of a lesson. If I'm able to complete the sections on either my first or second try and then the last section I'm spening hours failing, that would mean the prior sections are not teaching well enough or the difficulty of the last section is too high in accordance to the previous sections of the lesson. It's actually very discouraging.

EFlatMajor
Posts: 147
Joined: Tue Dec 19, 2017 2:51 pm

Re: Difficulty

Post by EFlatMajor » Tue Dec 29, 2020 1:24 pm

Klee13, everyone has problems with different parts of the program. Consider the following:
  • You are proceeding through the program too quickly. You need to practice the lessons multiple times so that it sinks into your brain. Hitting 100% once just is not enough.
  • Use the metronome tool to slow down the beat. This helps a lot in trouble spots and once you master the piece at the slow pace, slowly move up to full speed.
  • Repetition is your best friend.
Since you don't say which lessons are a problem and what the problem is, I have to leave it at that. Good luck.

Galm
Posts: 10
Joined: Mon Dec 28, 2020 1:01 pm

Re: Difficulty

Post by Galm » Thu Dec 31, 2020 10:52 am

Isn't it normal for the difficulty to be increasing? And as said by other members, if you feel like there's a "cliff" of difficulty, it's because you should practice more the previous steps, so that it becomes more ingrained in you, and you don't have to struggle, or to be actively concentrated, to remember it. And then, when you have to learn something new, you don't learn it while struggling at the same time, you learn it while doing something automatically, with a lot of free "brain power" to dedicate to learning this new thing.

griced
Posts: 6
Joined: Mon May 27, 2019 5:32 pm

Re: Difficulty

Post by griced » Thu Dec 31, 2020 11:28 am

Hi, great tips already above. And I feel the same that difficulty jumps last sessions but.. it makes complete sense it would. Often our brains only have to focus on right hand, then later just left hand, then it starts to come together in last sessions (or something like that).. and now we have more to think about. For sure, as others have suggested, just flying through the initial easier sessions without really locking it in 100% a few times is only going to make the last sessions more challenging. For my last sessions, I know/expect it will be harder so I use both the looper on tough sections as well as slowing down tempo as far as necessary to get that 100% and bit by bit increase to finally nailing it at least 3x or more at 100% on normal tempo.

I think it's VERY important to not feel rushed.. take as long as it needs to and slow down to each measure (looper), slow down tempo, etc.. as required. Enjoy that learning process vs feeling rushed or frustrated and you'll be practicing for a long time. I finally got that mindset approach figured out as I attempted this over a year ago and gave up in frustration. Now, I'm slow & steady will keep me going for a long time. Much more enjoyable too. :-)

Keep at it. If frustrated, that's a GREAT piece of info to use the available tools as mentioned.

Cheers, Dave

Klee13
Posts: 4
Joined: Thu Dec 10, 2020 2:58 pm

Re: Difficulty

Post by Klee13 » Sun Jan 24, 2021 11:32 pm

Thank you all for the feedback. I'm currently having an issue on lesson 39 of the intermmediate tour bootcamp. This one is especially difficult for some reason or maybe I have some sort of mental block when completing this lesson. it does look a bit difficult looking at the sheet music but i feel as though i've slowed down the tempo so much and I'm still hitting a block. i went back and have redone all of the prior sections ofthe lesson but it looks as though I'll just have to keep pracitcing.

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