Thanks Josh - your service to the banjo community is immense! Your practice techniques and ideas make a lot of sense and it's great to understand a little bit of the science behind them. Your thoughtfully constructed course has certainly made learning a new instrument as a very time poor adult a lot faster than I imagined! One question: is there anything in the research or literature that discusses whether the 20-25 minutes needs to be continuous (i.e. in one sitting) to have maximum brain-building effect or whether making this time up in shorter chunks throughout the day can also be effective? Reason I ask is that I often take numerous 5 minute breaks from my desk at work throughout the day to practice a tune or technique exercise (as well as longer sessions when I get the time). I won't change that (as it's a nice way to step away from the desk) but I'm just curious to know your thoughts on this.
Thanks so much, Wayne - and good question. To my knowledge it hasn’t been specifically tested, but I’d speculate that it needn’t be continuous. It’s also possible the single practice sessions shorter than 20-25 mins are enough to stimulate growth - that’s just the shortest duration I’ve seen tested experimentally. So I think there’s likely great value in your strategy!
I have been (melodic - 'blitzing' @ ~120 bpm) 'clawhammering' of celtic music for well over 70 years; and I'm still 'learning', especially the all-important INSTINCTIVE playing. For me, 1/2 to 'sometimes' ~1 hours ~per day is sufficient, so that that I maintain my instinctive MUSCLE MEMORY. Any amount over that amount results in accumulated 'bursitis'. FWIW - a severely worn-through fingernail takes about 4+ months to fully 'regrow'; so, I now use a soft brass, 4 winged, PRO-PIK on my strike finger, and regularly 'sand down' the built-up finger tip callouses on my 'up-the-neck' hand. Dont over-do; all things in moderation !!!!
Thanks, Josh. Every Brainjo Bite episode is like a banjo TED Talk. The Bites certainly inform my banjo progress, but I find that the information is also broadly applicable in other areas of my life.
Thanks so much, Sean. The aim is certainly to discuss broadly applicable principles through the lens of learning music, so those comments are nice to hear!
Although I am an experienced banjo & guitar player who already practices half an hour each day, I intended to search TH-cam this morning for videos about how clutter in my workspace adversely affects my projects. Thanks for this video. An efficient person working on the wrong priorities is ineffective. Clutter, whether in the brain or the accumulation of things, just overwhelms & nothing gets done.
Thank you, I'm learning. At 57 yrs old ,working full time, yes it's hard to get that practice in. Thank you so much for all the session on learning the banjo . I'm only on lesson 5. Do you sell your tshirts?
Thank you for your awesome advice, understanding how the brain learns is a very smart way to approach learning music. Your videos is talking about 25-30 of practice. I have a question: I play in a bluegrass group and we have a large catalog of tunes, probably about 3 hours of music, how can I practice that material is such a short time? If I break that into 30 minute practice sessions it would be 6 days before I played the first 30 minutes again……
Thanks Josh. Helpful info as always. I have the same question as Bill. How many 25 min sessions per day ? Also, how many tunes should you work on at once ? For example, should I work on a single tune until I can play it at the ideal BPM ? Or should I work an several tunes during the same session and be content with achieving a slower BPM on each. Right now I am simultaneously working on 7 tunes and practice a little of each of them during my session. Am I biting off more than I can chew ? Guidelines in this regard would be helpful to me.
That was a fantastic lesson on how to learn any instrument Josh I've been practicing the banjo but not on a regular time set some days for about one our till I lose concentration the days later for about half an hour and not making great progress so will follow your advice and hope to improve.
Thanks so much for your educated approach to learning. There is one thing that many mention and that is innate ability has nothing to do with skill or improvement of that skill. I don't agree with this related to physical abilities. One example is that of fast-twitch versus slow-twitch muscle. Fast-twitch muscle is found in athletes that play such games as basketball where considerable high-speed motion is required. Ever noticed how lean the legs are of most players, yet they can move so fast and jump so high. Slow-twitch muscle is bigger and slower reacting and better suited for other sports, in general. Likewise, players with long, slender fingers do have an advantage on many instruments due to the ease of reaching strings or keys. Of course, these things don't alone carry the day for those with them, but they do demonstrate that those with these attributes will find success easier all other things considered. Thanks again for your teaching and endless patience.
Great advice here. Thanks. It was my understanding that ultra marathoners have more heart attacks than other populations because they consume a massive load of calories each day, which usually includes a great deal of cholesterol. I believe a study showed that vegan marathoners had a significantly lower incidence of heart attack than their cholesterol consuming counterparts. I remember this from a video from nutritionfacts yt channel, but can't recall the exact video. Regardless the message about practice minutes is received. How soon after a 25 minute session is another 25 minute session going to be effective? Like, can you practice 25 minutes and then break for 15 and go another 25 and repeat? My favorite quote from Doc Watson is 'practice like the devil' or something like that. I have time for long sessions and have started incorporating breaks. Thanks for sharing your insight, i plan to get Brainjo for kindle as soon as I'm finished with my current read.
Hope I'm not asking the same question someone else has, but do you think it is effective to alternate practicing clawhammer one day and bluegrass the next? Or should I stick with your clawhammer course for a while then try another style? Thanks
Good video, helped me realise there is value in a short session, which helps with motivation (knowing scientifically there is value achievable from effort). Quite interested in how you structure 25-30mins. Subbed.
Interesting...I practice 3 to 5, 20 minute secessions throughout the day... but I'm also playing a guitar and Mandolin..Most of the emphasis is on the Banjo since it's the newest. About once a week or bi-weekly I do about 1 to 1-1/2 hours going thru songs. Building a song list and going thru them is important as a rehearsal for public performances.
Does this include warmup time, or is this specifically 20-30 minutes in the 'zone'? 20-30 minutes working specifically on one thing that needs work, like fingering or a particular song? I'm so new it takes me quite a while just to get set up for my daily practice, I can't imagine that time is actually counted towards the optimal learning pocket. When someone says they practice for X minutes/hours a day, they usually include the whole routine like set up and tuning, warm ups, wipedowns.. and then they have more than one specific task to work on, like refreshing a previously studied song as well as going over a new one. I'm still on chard fingering but I watch my husband on his guitar.
Okay, 20-25 minutes per session for optimal learning. How long between sessions to maximize results? If I practice 20-25 minutes and then take an hour break, would results be similar to practicing 20-25 minutes and then taking a half hour break before the next practice session? How about a four hour break? In other words, now that we know the optimal amount of time for a successful practice session, is there any indication of what the optimal down time between practice sessions would be?
So the original question was how much to practice each day. After a practice session, you need sleep to start to consolidate and strengthen those memories.
20 to 25 minutes of focussed practice on new things that you are learning, then you can play or revise all day if you like. I recommend the Brainjo book, it is a great resource for learning anything. I am doing great with it.
Since that is also the duration of the typical attention span, that would also be the point beyond which there's diminishing returns. Whether or not a second session at another point in the day can yield additional results (especially if it's a relatively unrelated skill, etc.) would yield additional benefits is uncertain - but we're up against the limits of what structural changes can be accomplished in the brain in the span of 24 hours (just like with muscular fitness, the window of effective resistance training is limited by the amount of growth that can be accomplished in a set period of time).
Thanks Dr. Josh! I really value the information that you share. I wonder how this applies to the Indian Classical musicians I have met who spent their childhood practicing 16 hours per day, and not sleeping much. They have extremely refined skills, but maybe they were routinely passing the period of benefit without knowing it? Maybe most of their growth came from the first 20 minutes?
Yes, the “more is better” bias has been pretty pervasive in human history, so you find it in many domains. Without a counter factual scenario, or without insight into the underlying physiology, there isn’t a mechanism for challenging that bias. But in multiple domains now (especially sport) records are being broken by training less, and in ways that are better informed by the relevant physiology.
Hi Josh. I'm a little bit late to this conversation, but if you have a second...Surely the best of the best (professional musicians) don't get by on 20 - 30 minutes of practice a day, right? I have a friend who is professional concert violinist, for example, and he practices hours per day. My guess, from the graph you show, is that the biggest gains come in the first 20 to 30 minutes, but if you want to put yourself into the top 1% or even 0.01% it take hours for the fractional gains that remain...and for most of us, we don't have that kind of time and we don't really need to take that kind of time to be merely "accomplished" and have fun.
It is true that there is significant diminishing of returns on time as you reach the high end of expertise; however, there will always be a limit to what’s biologically possible. We will always be constrained by the amount of synaptic modification that can occur in the span of 24 hours. Also, the 20-30 min. guideline is with respect to novel learning, which requires structural reorganization. Some days I may spend a few hours playing music, for example, but only a fraction of it (if any) is devoted to novel learning. Lastly, it’s important not to mistake what is from what is ideal. History is of course littered with examples of certain practices being the accepted norm, only to ultimately discover that they were ineffective or inefficient. And one of the most common mistakes has been believing that “more is more.” Yet in many domains we continue to learn that it’s better to train smarter than harder. All growth happens during rest. And while some at the heights of expertise may practice for many hours every day, there are plenty of others who do not.
Unrelated (to banjo/music) question on your "33 days ago" question: Do you believe those people who claim to have a perfect record of the kinds of trivial things you talked about, that most brains don't deem worthy of dedicating space to ("hyperthymesia")? How do they pack all that into the same space as the rest of us - if they really do? How do you verify this? If I say I had bacon 33 days ago, how do you prove me wrong?
Ha, that’s a big topic! Short answer is yes, there are definitely people who have this sort of unlimited autobiographical memory - first described in depth in AR Luria’s “Mind of a Mnemonist.” It typically comes with significant trade offs and is most commonly seen in autistic spectrum disorders. It may represent instances where cortical networks usually dedicated to other functions (like language and theory of mind) are repurposed for other functions (in this case autobiogrophical memory, which is one of several capabilities commonly observed in savants). And of course the reason they are notable is because they differ from how cognitive resources are most commonly allocated.
Be careful of practicing too long in one sitting. I used to practice for several hours at a time which caused focal dystonia and has ended my banjo playing forever.
Thanks Josh - your service to the banjo community is immense! Your practice techniques and ideas make a lot of sense and it's great to understand a little bit of the science behind them. Your thoughtfully constructed course has certainly made learning a new instrument as a very time poor adult a lot faster than I imagined!
One question: is there anything in the research or literature that discusses whether the 20-25 minutes needs to be continuous (i.e. in one sitting) to have maximum brain-building effect or whether making this time up in shorter chunks throughout the day can also be effective? Reason I ask is that I often take numerous 5 minute breaks from my desk at work throughout the day to practice a tune or technique exercise (as well as longer sessions when I get the time). I won't change that (as it's a nice way to step away from the desk) but I'm just curious to know your thoughts on this.
Thanks so much, Wayne - and good question. To my knowledge it hasn’t been specifically tested, but I’d speculate that it needn’t be continuous. It’s also possible the single practice sessions shorter than 20-25 mins are enough to stimulate growth - that’s just the shortest duration I’ve seen tested experimentally. So I think there’s likely great value in your strategy!
I have been (melodic - 'blitzing' @ ~120 bpm) 'clawhammering' of celtic music for well over 70 years; and I'm still 'learning', especially the all-important INSTINCTIVE playing.
For me, 1/2 to 'sometimes' ~1 hours ~per day is sufficient, so that that I maintain my instinctive MUSCLE MEMORY. Any amount over that amount results in accumulated 'bursitis'.
FWIW - a severely worn-through fingernail takes about 4+ months to fully 'regrow'; so, I now use a soft brass, 4 winged, PRO-PIK on my strike finger, and regularly 'sand down' the built-up finger tip callouses on my 'up-the-neck' hand. Dont over-do; all things in moderation !!!!
Thanks, Josh. Every Brainjo Bite episode is like a banjo TED Talk. The Bites certainly inform my banjo progress, but I find that the information is also broadly applicable in other areas of my life.
Thanks so much, Sean. The aim is certainly to discuss broadly applicable principles through the lens of learning music, so those comments are nice to hear!
Although I am an experienced banjo & guitar player who already practices half an hour each day, I intended to search TH-cam this morning for videos about how clutter in my workspace adversely affects my projects. Thanks for this video. An efficient person working on the wrong priorities is ineffective. Clutter, whether in the brain or the accumulation of things, just overwhelms & nothing gets done.
I wish you were around when I was starting. Keep up the great work. Every piece of encouragement helps. You are very positive and progressive. Thanks
Just discovered the channel but really enjoy the content. Thank you for posting!
Thank you, I'm learning. At 57 yrs old ,working full time, yes it's hard to get that practice in. Thank you so much for all the session on learning the banjo . I'm only on lesson 5. Do you sell your tshirts?
Thank you for your awesome advice, understanding how the brain learns is a very smart way to approach learning music. Your videos is talking about 25-30 of practice. I have a question: I play in a bluegrass group and we have a large catalog of tunes, probably about 3 hours of music, how can I practice that material is such a short time?
If I break that into 30 minute practice sessions it would be 6 days before I played the first 30 minutes again……
Great question. I think I’ll answer this in an episode. So stay tuned!
Thank you for the helpful information. I knew this to be true, but a reminder and an understandable explanation of the science behind it is great.
What a relief, I can still be a great banjo player with a 9-5 job
Thanks Josh. Helpful info as always. I have the same question as Bill. How many 25 min sessions per day ? Also, how many tunes should you work on at once ? For example, should I work on a single tune until I can play it at the ideal BPM ? Or should I work an several tunes during the same session and be content with achieving a slower BPM on each. Right now I am simultaneously working on 7 tunes and practice a little of each of them during my session. Am I biting off more than I can chew ? Guidelines in this regard would be helpful to me.
That was a fantastic lesson on how to learn any instrument Josh I've been practicing the banjo but not on a regular time set some days for about one our till I lose concentration the days later for
about half an hour and not making great progress so will follow your advice and hope to improve.
Thank you for the much-needed techniques for practice!
Thanks so much for your educated approach to learning.
There is one thing that many mention and that is innate ability has nothing to do with skill or improvement of that skill. I don't agree with this related to physical abilities. One example is that of fast-twitch versus slow-twitch muscle. Fast-twitch muscle is found in athletes that play such games as basketball where considerable high-speed motion is required. Ever noticed how lean the legs are of most players, yet they can move so fast and jump so high. Slow-twitch muscle is bigger and slower reacting and better suited for other sports, in general. Likewise, players with long, slender fingers do have an advantage on many instruments due to the ease of reaching strings or keys.
Of course, these things don't alone carry the day for those with them, but they do demonstrate that those with these attributes will find success easier all other things considered.
Thanks again for your teaching and endless patience.
Great advice here. Thanks. It was my understanding that ultra marathoners have more heart attacks than other populations because they consume a massive load of calories each day, which usually includes a great deal of cholesterol. I believe a study showed that vegan marathoners had a significantly lower incidence of heart attack than their cholesterol consuming counterparts. I remember this from a video from nutritionfacts yt channel, but can't recall the exact video. Regardless the message about practice minutes is received. How soon after a 25 minute session is another 25 minute session going to be effective? Like, can you practice 25 minutes and then break for 15 and go another 25 and repeat? My favorite quote from Doc Watson is 'practice like the devil' or something like that. I have time for long sessions and have started incorporating breaks. Thanks for sharing your insight, i plan to get Brainjo for kindle as soon as I'm finished with my current read.
Can’t wait for the next episode
Hope I'm not asking the same question someone else has, but do you think it is effective to alternate practicing clawhammer one day and bluegrass the next? Or should I stick with your clawhammer course for a while then try another style? Thanks
Good video, helped me realise there is value in a short session, which helps with motivation (knowing scientifically there is value achievable from effort). Quite interested in how you structure 25-30mins. Subbed.
Interesting...I practice 3 to 5, 20 minute secessions throughout the day... but I'm also playing a guitar and Mandolin..Most of the emphasis is on the Banjo since it's the newest. About once a week or bi-weekly I do about 1 to 1-1/2 hours going thru songs. Building a song list and going thru them is important as a rehearsal for public performances.
Does this include warmup time, or is this specifically 20-30 minutes in the 'zone'? 20-30 minutes working specifically on one thing that needs work, like fingering or a particular song? I'm so new it takes me quite a while just to get set up for my daily practice, I can't imagine that time is actually counted towards the optimal learning pocket. When someone says they practice for X minutes/hours a day, they usually include the whole routine like set up and tuning, warm ups, wipedowns.. and then they have more than one specific task to work on, like refreshing a previously studied song as well as going over a new one. I'm still on chard fingering but I watch my husband on his guitar.
It’d be the amount of time spent focusing intently on the thing you want to improve on.
Okay, 20-25 minutes per session for optimal learning. How long between sessions to maximize results? If I practice 20-25 minutes and then take an hour break, would results be similar to practicing 20-25 minutes and then taking a half hour break before the next practice session? How about a four hour break? In other words, now that we know the optimal amount of time for a successful practice session, is there any indication of what the optimal down time between practice sessions would be?
So the original question was how much to practice each day. After a practice session, you need sleep to start to consolidate and strengthen those memories.
20 to 25 minutes of focussed practice on new things that you are learning, then you can play or revise all day if you like.
I recommend the Brainjo book, it is a great resource for learning anything.
I am doing great with it.
@@thomasgivens2125 Thanks Thomas. I'll check it out.
25-30 minutes is the minimum required volume, is there research on the volume that starts giving diminishing returns, and optimal volume?
Since that is also the duration of the typical attention span, that would also be the point beyond which there's diminishing returns.
Whether or not a second session at another point in the day can yield additional results (especially if it's a relatively unrelated skill, etc.) would yield additional benefits is uncertain - but we're up against the limits of what structural changes can be accomplished in the brain in the span of 24 hours (just like with muscular fitness, the window of effective resistance training is limited by the amount of growth that can be accomplished in a set period of time).
Thanks Dr. Josh! I really value the information that you share. I wonder how this applies to the Indian Classical musicians I have met who spent their childhood practicing 16 hours per day, and not sleeping much. They have extremely refined skills, but maybe they were routinely passing the period of benefit without knowing it? Maybe most of their growth came from the first 20 minutes?
Yes, the “more is better” bias has been pretty pervasive in human history, so you find it in many domains. Without a counter factual scenario, or without insight into the underlying physiology, there isn’t a mechanism for challenging that bias.
But in multiple domains now (especially sport) records are being broken by training less, and in ways that are better informed by the relevant physiology.
Hi Josh. I'm a little bit late to this conversation, but if you have a second...Surely the best of the best (professional musicians) don't get by on 20 - 30 minutes of practice a day, right? I have a friend who is professional concert violinist, for example, and he practices hours per day. My guess, from the graph you show, is that the biggest gains come in the first 20 to 30 minutes, but if you want to put yourself into the top 1% or even 0.01% it take hours for the fractional gains that remain...and for most of us, we don't have that kind of time and we don't really need to take that kind of time to be merely "accomplished" and have fun.
It is true that there is significant diminishing of returns on time as you reach the high end of expertise; however, there will always be a limit to what’s biologically possible. We will always be constrained by the amount of synaptic modification that can occur in the span of 24 hours.
Also, the 20-30 min. guideline is with respect to novel learning, which requires structural reorganization. Some days I may spend a few hours playing music, for example, but only a fraction of it (if any) is devoted to novel learning.
Lastly, it’s important not to mistake what is from what is ideal. History is of course littered with examples of certain practices being the accepted norm, only to ultimately discover that they were ineffective or inefficient. And one of the most common mistakes has been believing that “more is more.” Yet in many domains we continue to learn that it’s better to train smarter than harder. All growth happens during rest.
And while some at the heights of expertise may practice for many hours every day, there are plenty of others who do not.
Thank you valuable information
Unrelated (to banjo/music) question on your "33 days ago" question: Do you believe those people who claim to have a perfect record of the kinds of trivial things you talked about, that most brains don't deem worthy of dedicating space to ("hyperthymesia")? How do they pack all that into the same space as the rest of us - if they really do? How do you verify this? If I say I had bacon 33 days ago, how do you prove me wrong?
Ha, that’s a big topic! Short answer is yes, there are definitely people who have this sort of unlimited autobiographical memory - first described in depth in AR Luria’s “Mind of a Mnemonist.”
It typically comes with significant trade offs and is most commonly seen in autistic spectrum disorders. It may represent instances where cortical networks usually dedicated to other functions (like language and theory of mind) are repurposed for other functions (in this case autobiogrophical memory, which is one of several capabilities commonly observed in savants).
And of course the reason they are notable is because they differ from how cognitive resources are most commonly allocated.
@@ClawhammerBanjo Mmmm...significant tradeoffs. Somehow that's never mentioned when you hear about it.
Be careful of practicing too long in one sitting. I used to practice for several hours at a time which caused focal dystonia and has ended my banjo playing forever.
Got the same exact malady. A bitch ain't it?
Thanks Josh. I guess that is why music teachers generally allocate 30 min lesson time per student. Any more and it could be a waste of time and money.