I suck less than last year

Buco

I got this as an inspirational merch for DiJ. It'll be easy to pick me out in the crowd.

But, it actually takes me longer than a year to fully realize I've improved. It could be a couple or even several years to truly hear and feel the improvement. How is it for others? That's assuming you don't practice 6+ hours a day. If you do, I'm pretty sure the improvement will be obvious in a year. What were the milestones for you?

A few that I can think of:

Wrapping the thumb

Learning La Gitane

Learning intro to Swing Gitane that Angelo plays

Realizing I'm finally decent at double down picking

Finally, for the last few years, realizing I can finally navigate the changes

Joonas

Denis Chang said in one of his videos that if you practice (I assume ~6 hours a day) you'll see jumps in results in about every six months.

For me, the fact that I can notice any positive changes in my playing at all is a very big thing. And I can see and hear them. Speed is obviously something to note. I'm not fast fast but there are certain licks and phrases that I know I'm definitely getting faster with than before. Hand strength also comes to mind. Some chords that seemed impossible to me about a year ago are now almost ordinary. I'm thinking about some weird 5-6 string chords that I picked up from Echoes of Spain from the Django Reinhardt Anthology book ( I think it was that), chords that I even b e l i e v e had probably like one note too much in them, so they were maybe transcribed wrong, but I stuck with them and now I can play them.

Also general speed of computing notes and chords. I "theoretically learned theory" 20 years ago (I'm forty now) but I haven't practiced it much. For the past couple of years I've been playing at the church almost every Sunday and this has had me involved in transposing a l o t of songs (the singers often need a specific key), often with a day's notice. And I've gotten pretty good at it. And I'm grateful for it!

Buco

Oh yeah, you reminded me of when a few years back I was working on some ultra fast lick I heard Remi Harris play. I was absolutely flabbergasted when eventually I had played it myself, I just couldn't believe it. I heard Paulus Schaffer say something like "don't worry about speed, you keep playing and it'll just come". And I think I mentioned that to Bill just a few days ago. But I know that at some point I went after it. And I also heard people who said that, at some point you have to go for it. I did that and that could've been one of the turning points for me as well.

Oh yeah, photo credit on my patch goes to @geese_com from when he was selling off his impressive collection of Killy picks. I ended up with the one on the left. Still a great pick. That was, I think, another one of my turning points... wouldn't that be great...

B25Gib

Thanks to BUCO for acknowledging his GJ improvements. Budos to Joonas for learning key transposing for singers!

My biggest improvement jumps back to 2004 took 6 months after Django Fest in Langley Whidbey Island WA. Back then I still hit stagnant levels 6 months even after practice 60-90 min a day. Keep playing. Also: a Gm7b5 took me two weeks to grab!