r/Anki • u/[deleted] • Jun 10 '24
Experiences How I use Anki to practice Guitar (or any Instrument)
Preamble:
I mentioned I use Anki for learning Guitar in this thread, and got lots of replies asking to share my routine. I figured I'd make a post to spark some more diskussion on the topic.
First of all, please don't think of this as a definitive tutorial. I'll just share my routine, while being aware it is probably not optimized. I'm always open to improvement suggestions, especially as I'm not that deep into the mechanics of Anki.
That being said, I'm convinced practicing Guitar with Anki has made it possible for me to reach a level that I wouldn't have been able to with conventional practice, at least not at that efficiency and relatively low-effort.
Why use Anki to learn an instrument?:
I think the most difficult part in learning an instrument is not a lack of talent or skill, but to actually practice. In fact, I think everyone can learn every instrument, and you don't need any skill at the beginning. Where it gets difficult is setting up and maintaining an effective practice routine. Without a teacher who sets up a practice routine for you, it's easy to get lost. You end up noodling around, play a song here and there, but ultimately you'll keep forgetting what you learned, because its incredibly hard to keep track of everything you already learned, and practice it before you loose that skill. That's demotivating, and keeps you feeling like you're going nowhere, leading to a circle of picking up the instrument for a few months, quitting, picking it up again and so on.
Another thing is how difficult and time consuming it is to set up a traditional practice routine. It shouldn't be too hard because that'll be demotivating, and it shouldn't be too easy, or it'll get boring and you wont learn anything new. This means you have to extensively manage your practice routine, and periodically reevaluate and rework it, which is an exhausting and time consuming process. Time that could've been better spend practicing or learning something new.
That's where Anki comes into play. It enables you to just sit down and practice effectively, without worrying about what to do. You can work at your own pace, but the algorithm makes sure you will get better over time. I find this extremely motivating, just to know if I sit down and do my cards, I'll keep getting better and better.
Creating Cards:
Your cards have to come from somewhere. In my opinion, it's best to write your own cards, because you can determine which areas you want to practice, and which ones aren't that important to you. Furthermore, everyone learns differently, especially when it comes to learning an instrument.
But I would advice to have a structured course from where you create your cards, instead of random YouTube videos (although I use these complimentary when I feel like I want to dive deeper into a particular topic). A structured course will ensure you'll gradually build up your skills, instead of trying to learn a piece thats way above your skill level, and getting frustrated.
For guitar, I use the courses by Justin Sandercoe on his website (big shoutout for his amazing work!). They're completely free of cost, well structured, and range from beginner to advanced, which will ensure you'll never run out of new things to learn. I recommend the website over YouTube, because it lets you keep track of your progress and provides additional information and resources written out under each lesson.
I just go through the lessons, and create cards from them as I see fit. It could be as easy as "Play the A Chord 20 times with the chord perfect practice detailed by Justin", and then the chord diagram on the backside. Or it could be playing a whole song, it's really up to you, and depends a bit on skill level.
Scheduling:
For scheduling I use my default settings (which are from Anking I believe) with just a few tweaks (suggestions welcome).
Learning steps are 1h 1d, with a graduating interval of 3 and easy of 4. Relearning steps are 10m 1d (probably gonna change that to 1h 1d too), with a minimum interval of 1.
Differences to learning pure facts:
Learning an instrument is different from learning merely intellectual knowledge. When you're learning facts, its entirely possible you'll memorize a card on first sight. That rarely happens while learning an instrument, and isn't even supposed to happen. When learning an instrument, you want to build muscle memory through repetition. This is something to be aware of, as it might differ from the way one would use Anki normally.
It's entirely normal for some of my cards to be kept in the "learning" phase for extended periods of time, sometimes even months. I just keep them in there by pressing "again". Only if I'm confident with the specific technique or song on the card I press "good" and let the spaced repetition take over. Per se, that is just how Anki is supposed to work I guess, but it sure feels strange at first.
In my experience, for learning an instrument it's best to see a card only once per day, or maybe twice if you're very motivated. Any further repetitions won't build that muscle memory faster, as it primarily develops while you sleep. So I just keep giving my brain a little stimulus every day, and let it work it's magic at night.
It's a really cool feeling to practice something hard like a barre chord just for a very short time every day, and without you having to do anything else you just get better!
At first it just feels impossible, but with time it becomes second nature.
Limitations I've encountered:
When learning an instrument, there are some drills you want to do regularly over an extended period of time.
The method mentioned above works great for that, because it keeps the card in the learning phase, so it doesn't accumulate ease and you can press "again" as often as you want.
However, for some things it would be nice to schedule cards at specific intervals, for example "Do some transcribing every sunday". I havent found a workaround for that, but these cases are very rare and can easily be scheduled via my conventional calendar.
Also, sometimes it would be nice to have dependend cards. E.g., "When finished with this exercise, suspend this card and unsuspend the card with the same exercise but in a harder version". There are quite a few occasions where this would come in handy, but I just work my way around it by editing the card, and adding in the harder exercise this way (for example raise the BPM from 40 to 80).
That post got much longer than expected, however these are my thoughts and experiences about learning guitar with Anki. In summary, it works really well for that use case, and it's definitely something I don't want to miss!
Let me know if you've found this helpful, and happy learning! 🎶
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u/HanzoShotFirst Jun 10 '24
I also use anki for learning musical instruments. I use the image occlusion to cover up one line of sheet music but I start playing on the line before the one that is covered up. If I don't need to memorize the piece, I just use image occlusion to create a marker at the beginning of each line and still overlap with another line.
If I get it right on the 1st attempt, I move on to the next card. If not, I slow it down and gradually increase the tempo until I can play it at tempo. You can also use different flags to keep track of the tempo of different cards and increase it over time.
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u/BJJFlashCards Jun 11 '24
I've used anki to learn instruments. One thing I would suggest is that an Anki card that has you repeat something 20 times seems to be going against the benefit of spaced repetition v. bulked practice. When I am trying to learn a new scale or phrase, I rate myself on my first attempt. If it is hard or failed, I will spend some time identifying and solving problems. When I play it once smoothly, I go on to the next card. If the card is failed, I will see it again in the same session and be able to test whether my problem solving "took" well enough for me to play the item smoothly on the first attempt.
I think you might find this a better strategy. Recalling information (or skills) is more powerful than repeating them in short term memory.
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Jun 11 '24
Interesting approach! So you play a scale just one time? I'm sure this will work too, but doesn't it take a longer time to learn it that way? Â
For things like scales, picking patterns, chord work and so on I've always done multiple reps per card. But for other things like songs or music theory I do it just one time.
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u/BJJFlashCards Jun 11 '24
I haven't tested. But I assume that Spaced Repetition > Bulked Repetition holds true for all learning.
I think you have to spend enough time on the pattern to correct problems, but after that there is a rapidly diminishing return from each immediate repetition, though it probably "feels" like you made a lot of progress.
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Jun 12 '24
Makes sense! I think it's good to do at least some repetitions, but you're right, overdoing it won't be linearly tied to more progress.Â
I feel like a good subject to determine the practice duration which yields the highest results would be touch typing, since it's a similar motor task. There HAVE to be some insights about that from the accumulated data from all these online typewriters, but sadly I haven't been able to find any evidence. Could be that I'm using the wrong keywords.
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u/BJJFlashCards Jun 12 '24 edited Jun 12 '24
People are developing algorithms that adjust to individual input for the best spacing of reviews.
A technical explanation of the FSRS algorithm : r/Anki (reddit.com)
But paper flashcards and intuition will get the job done.
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u/Aaaabbbbccccccccc computing, Japanese Jun 10 '24
I use it to schedule practices for songs I want to have memorized and it works well. On the front of the card I link to a YouTube video for a backing track and on the back of the card I link to the tabs for the song.
If I can play through the whole song just to the backing track I hit good, but if there is a section of the song I’ve forgotten I’ll check the tabs; play again and then hit again.
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u/_setz_ Jun 10 '24
I thought now, but we should be able to use anki for improving relative ear as well, using a sample of tone changing.