I used the spaced learning method to learn the complicated intro to “Money For Nothing” by Dire Straits in only 2 hours and 48 minutes. Watch the video below.
The Song
The “Money For Nothing” intro has one of the most epic guitar solos that I have ever heard. And despite the fact that I started playing guitar specifically because of this song, I had never bothered to learn it.
Several years ago I attempted it, but was never able to get far. The subtlety in guitarist Mark Knopfler’s playing (staccato plucking and unusual harmonics on the 4th fret!) made it just a bit too difficult for me to fight through.
What’s Spaced Learning?
I first heard about spaced learning from my friend Clay’s article – How To Memorize Anything Fast. Clay writes:
Spaced learning is a simple system developed by memory researcher R. Douglas Fields, and is in use at Monkseaton High School in England. It’s a relatively little-known system, but has worked very well for me. It involves three eight-to-ten-minute sessions learning lots of information with ten minute breaks of unrelated material inbetween.
What Exactly Did I Do?
I studied the rhythm and the tabs 1 hour per day for 7 days. Each 1 hour session was broken into 8 minutes of playing and studying followed by 10 minutes of doing something completely unrelated (studying Spanish, writing, etc.) So each session had a total of 24 minutes of study and practice.
The Recording
I recorded the song on the 7th day using my FS100 video camera and then through GarageBand. I apologize for the tones. I didn’t spend a whole lot of time tweaking.
Conclusion
It had been awhile since I played electric guitar – about 8 months in Central and South America kept me away so my guitar fingers weren’t exactly ‘warm’. Overall, I’m pretty impressed with the speed in which I learned the song.
I definitely could have learned this song in fewer days. But I don’t believe I could have learned it putting in the same amount of hours. Spaced learning helped me utilize my practice time better. Pretty sweet.
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THAT’S MY BOY.
Good use of spaced learning, good use of guitar, and looking good. Good work.
Cool technique. I prefer the use of adderall to learn large amounts of information in short periods of time. Ha.
This is interesting – although I’d never heard of ‘Spaced Learning’ before, I find I seem to use a similar technique when learning guitar parts.
I used to practice unamplified late into the night and find that even after hours playing the same thing over and over I’d make no real progress.
If I practiced a lot less and then went to sleep the next morning I’d almost always get up and nail it first time.
I’m working on learning a set of covers for a wedding band later this month so I’ll be giving this technique proper shot.
Thanks for sharing.
sometimes I amaze even myself