When we learn something new or unfamiliar, we, to varying degrees, develop certain skills required for mastery.
The acquisition of these skills is invisible to us, and we can’t touch, feel, or sense them.
Proper training consists of learning to identify, capture and develop skills within a system.
Let me give you an example from sports.
To monitor their progress, weightlifters keep statistics for each workout. In it, they note indicators such as: what weight, how many times and what exercise they did, etc. They enter the data into tables and track any progress or decline in their development. Based on the resulting numbers, athletes adjust their training.
You and I are musicians, and we can’t measure the “weight” of completed rehearsals or exercises.
Recording results, despite this, is still necessary.
We simply need to know what level we’re at now and what results we want to achieve in the future. To understand this, a results control system is needed.
There are musicians whose playing technique reaches 99 out of 100.
There are one, maybe two in the world. But there’s a musician somewhere who excels at one skill, say, chord strumming.
And that’s it, he can’t do anything else at the same level, and it’s unlikely he ever will.
So how do we know what we’re capable of?
How will we know what level we’re at if we don’t measure it?
No way.
Therefore, I’ve developed my own performance measurement table, which consists of nearly (500) five hundred musician skills (not just guitarists, but also bass players, keyboardists, vocalists, and drummers).
Of course, not all skills are necessary. Everything depends on a vast number of factors. You can do the same.
To make it clearer, let’s look at it in more detail.
Example:
You play scales on the keyboard or the guitar. It doesn’t matter. You want to measure your performance.
Let’s do the following:
— Think about what skills you already use.
— Make a list of them.
— Identify those that will be most important to you (not to the teachers, tutors, or musicians who teach you), but to you?
— Mark them with a checkmark (or whatever you prefer, but make sure the skill stands out from the crowd).
— Rank all skills from 1 to 10 (1 = not at all good, 10 = best of all), based on your own judgment.
— We move on to three main areas: acquisition, improvement and consolidation.
— Find ways to acquire skills rated 1 to 5, improve skills rated 5 to 9, and reinforce skills rated 10 (ten).
— Write out a plan for each skill.
Well, from now on, just follow the plan.
I think you can do it if you know what you want.
Musicians, please record all your skills in a separate spreadsheet and save it. Track your progress!
If you need help, sign up and I’ll send you a handy spreadsheet!
