[cowmoo]

Maybe someone as a musician can enlighten me, but I always have so much trouble doing rote scale at every guitar fret position, arpeggio, memorize-these-chords exercises.

I always hear two sides of the argument that a) a la Mr.Sivers, oh you need to learn how to play fast, memorize all of these scale/chord patterns, and every single guitar-player style from Blues to Jazz to Folk to Pop, or b) you shouldn't worry too much about playing or learning too fast, but concentrate on the music; enjoy yourself, find your own style and get in the zone and slowly you'll understand how to improvise, compose and tab by immersion rather than memorizing patterns. (Because if you try to learn or play too fast, you get frustrated quickly that you aren't doing well and concentrate too much on the mechanics of note perfection that it affects your performance). Some books I read recommend daily practice sessions of only 20 minutes per day, but consistent daily practice.

I'm sure I'm painting a totally false dilemma but curious as to how some of the pro musicians out there takes are.

EDIT: Since we are on a programming forum and I assume that the advice is geared towards developing for startups, IMO, the best way to learn how to program is to learn by working on your own project and ruthlessly plagiarizing off of other people's open-source code base. Because you are motivated to finish the project because it's something that motivates you and you are forced to look deep down into the stacks because you almost always have to customize/hack 3rd party code to do something your way.

[keyist]

Not a pro (have moderate technical chops, but not the temperament), but here's my 2c:

Scales and chords aren't patterns per se -- they're the fundamental building blocks. They're the equivalent of syntax in a language. Not knowing them well is like having to think about where the semicolons and/or braces go when you're writing a for loop. Being familiar with chords/scales allows you to think about music at a higher abstraction level.

You can make exercises less boring (and more effective) by varying the way you play them. Vary the rhythm you play (triplets, etc), switch between legato/staccato, and so on.

The Deep Practice section of The Talent Code (http://www.amazon.com/Talent-Code-Greatness-Born-Grown/dp/05...) may provide more inspiration for how to practice effectively.

[cowmoo]

Thanks for your advice and the link to the book.

[sshumaker]

It depends on whether you want to play music for fun, or want to make it a career.

My fiance is learning to program, through the excellent Learning To Program (http://pine.fm/LearnToProgram/). She's taking at a comfortable pace so she doesn't get bored or frustrated - but she's doing it for fun and enjoyment, to round our her skill set (she's an architect), not with serious intentions of programming as a career.

All evidence points towards the fact that it takes human beings 10k-20k hours of practice to really master any skill. You'll never master music if you're practicing 20 minutes a day - and you won't be a great programmer until you've put in years of solid coding. But if you're just doing something as a hobby, it's more important to avoid getting frustrated (and giving up) then mastering it.