Covering music can be fun but is a bad way to learn. You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet. The problem is the memorization and song-specific timing practice have very low carry over to general musical skill. If you're trying to get as good at an instrument as possible, it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills.

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sunrunner 2 days ago | parent | next [-]

> You spend a lot of time memorizing note sequences, a good amount of time nailing the exact timing of lines to make them sound right and usually some time working out the challenging technical aspects of a song you're not at the level to play yet.

> it's much faster to do a combination of scale/chord/arpeggio and technical challenge drills.

Classical musicians that wasted their time training on existing note sequences learning pieces intentionally picked to be at the edge of their current skill level are going to _hate_ when they hear about this one weird trick ;)

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CuriouslyC 2 days ago | parent [-]

I mean, if the entire piece is "exactly" at your skill threshold across the board, that's great. But then you also had a teacher that knew your skill threshold very well and also had an exceptional repertoire to draw on to direct you towards that piece that was just as your skill level. That's not your average music teacher.

Looping arpeggios/chord tone sequences together at progressively higher BPM, while sprinkling in stuff like string skipping, dynamics control/accent patterning, etc lets you stay close to your edge of ability and really focus on specific techniques heavily. If you're trying to make it sound good to a backing track at the same time, it also develops improvisational abilities and musical originality in a way that playing existing music won't.

	▲	sunrunner 2 days ago \| parent [-]
		I agree with all of that and was thinking that I hadn't mentioned the role of etudes and exercises directed at specific techniques or dexterity, though I guess I had classical music in mind and wasn't thinking about genres or instruments that perhaps favour improvisation over the 'other side' of a highly refined performance of a well-known piece (which still have the performer's own personality in except in a way where the listener likely already 'knows' the piece). > That's not your average music teacher Tangentially (or perhaps not as every other topic in 2025 is 'AI'), I was always facinated by the episodes of Star Trek: TNG that showed the holodeck and crew members being able to use that environment to essentially learn skills from the greatest performers (or even a blend) in their area.

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Slow_Hand 2 days ago | parent | prev [-]

It depends on your objective. The process you describe is excellent for achieving technical mastery. Less so for compositional mastery, but it can still be educational to see written parts up close.

What it wont prepare you for at all is impovisational mastery and just jamming over some chord changes.

Also, I don’t know many musicians who would completely ignore technical exercises like scales, chord voicings, and arpeggios.

So, it depends on what kind of musician you’re trying to be.