The persistence of patience and practice

"It's been three days. I should have mastered the thing already." --Young Sherlock Holmes.

I am not a patient person. It makes it hard to stick with things sometimes, like learning guitar.

But I'm keeping at it--the guitar thing and the patience thing.

I'm not getting in practice time every day, but I'm hitting the guitar about two to three times a week. And I'm keeping my practice time fairly short, to somewhere between 15 and 30 minutes. As I get better, I will probably increase that on certain days, especially when I'm trying to learn songs.

It's just such slow going. My good frend said it took her over a year of weekly lessons to become anything near proficient. So, any improvement I can track on a day-by-day basis, even if it's small, is a good thing. Helps me stay motivated.

That's why I tend to end my practice sessions with something I'm good at: playing by ear. Tonight, I ended with The House of the Rising Sun, and Less Talk More Rokk (my husband's been playing Guitar Hero II). Whee. It's always nice to end on a high note, you know?