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Posts: 223
Joined: Mar. 17 2015
From: Virginia USA
Setting goals
Do you set short-term and long-term goals for your flamenco guitar playing or learning? Can you share? I would like to hear from you. A year ago in April when I started taking flamenco lessons, I set a personal goal to achieve a 10 in 3-4 years from my current skill level, say zero. My 10 is not the same as your 10 or other player's 10, and it does not mean perfection. My 10 means decent independent movement of the left hand fingers, especially the a and x fingers, playing in time with the metronome, picado at decent speed, learn to play some serious pieces cleanly, and few other flamenco skills like a i p continuous rasguedo, etc. Now after one year, I give myself a 2 - still a long way to go. So recently I started setting short-term goals, more or less a weekly practice plan. For example, this week I spent more time to improve my a and x fingers, doing i a, ma, ix, ax legatos, playing alegrias falsetas which have lots of a and x fingering spreading over 4 and 5 frets. To me, without picado, it's not flamenco; and without smooth independent left hand fingers, picado is not possible. So back to the grind, 2 hours on the guitar each day hopefully achieving my 10 in 2018. And then setting a new 10. Flamenco is lots of fun for me. Being retired, flamenco and golf are my 2 passions which I enjoy each and every day.
My 10 is not the same as your 10 or other player's 10, and it does not mean perfection
The problem is that your 10 now is probably not even the same as your 10 from a year ago when you set your objectives. And what you're calling a 2 now, you may have called a 5 back then.... If you're setting objectives, maybe something more quantifiable? like speeding up a particular exercice or piece to a certain tempo?
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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
My current flamenco goal - not let a day go by without attempting to recite a letra. I gotta get into the habit of AWAYS having a lyrics sheet or two in my pocket.
when I was 25 I set a goal to become as good as possible flamenco guitarist when I am 65........now I am 52 and still working on that day by day. And, still make progress! That surprise me a bit. still enjoying the trip......
when I was 25 I set a goal to become as good as possible flamenco guitarist when I am 65........now I am 52 and still working on that day by day. And, still make progress! That surprise me a bit. still enjoying the trip......
I am 73 and still very much enjoying the flamenco ride. Nevertheless, just as the Law of Diminishing Returns in economics states that at a certain point the marginal output of a production process decreases as the amount of a single factor of production increases; I find that the marginal rate of advancement in my playing ability decreases as the number of years increase.
The above was extracted from the renowned monograph entitled, "Applied Economics as a Factor in Flamenco."
Bill
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And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
Sounds like a lot of fun. My goals are usually small like "work on this" or "that", where it is a falseta or palo I haven't spent much time with lately. I've always been pretty good at rhythm but never as much with solo guitar.
I am 58 and only playing two years. When I was younger I thought that Flamenco was some impossibly hard thing and only super humans like PDL could attempt to play it. It was by chance one day I was bored and playing my classical guitar and just fell into Flamenco. Now I wish I started much earlier, but as long as I feel progress my motivation is high.
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Ah well, there was a fantastic passion there, in my case anyway. I discovered flamenco very early on. It grips you in a way that you can't get away - Paco Pena
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