Learn Like A Champion | Brainjo Bite 

Excellent advise Josh, and advice I can relate to. I have played guitar for well over 50 years, mostly fingerstyle, but in the last few years I have been trying to learn bluegrass flatpicking. On a scale of 1 to 10 I am, at best, a 5, and I was consequently reluctant to go out and play with others for fear of humiliating myself. But in the last year I screwed my courage to the sticking point and started going to a bluegrass jam at a local craft brewery. That led to two revelations: One, the people are incredibly nice, and although most of them are way better than I am, they always make me feel welcome. All they ask is that you abide by the etiquette of a jam, and no one really cares how good or bad you are. I have sampled other jams, and this wecoming attitude seems the rule not the exception. Two, I started to imporove by leaps and bounds, mostly because playing with them has given me an incentive to improve. For example, I came home one night having been left in the dust on Bill Cheatham and promised myself that I would learn to do it at 125 beats a minute even if it killed me. It took some effort, but it didn’t kill me, and I got there. I doubt it would have happened without that push.

Thanks Josh, I really appreciate your input

I understand and agree with the principle being espoused here but, while probably more true in sports than music, I think there are limits to this. As a teen I played tennis and my most accessible partner was my next door neighbor who was a natural athlete at easily 10x what I could ever be. One summer he had a winning string of (IIRC) 16 straight 6-0 sets against me (or I had a string of losing sets: yin / yang). By comparison, my older sister and I were reasonably evenly matched and could carry on lengthy volleys. It's rather hard to see that my tennis playing improved more (if at all) by playing my neighbor when our skills were at such disparate levels. All of that said, I certainly wish I knew other musicians to play with, regardless of their skill level. Right now that's a complete gap in my overall musical experience.

Your advice is spot on. I was a tennis coach and I can tell you with certainty that players learn more from their losses than their wins. If they lose they are motivated to work on the flaw that caused them to lose. If they win they don’t want to change anything. It is important to occasionally win so you don’t lose all your confidence and get comfortable losing. I would like to hear what advice you might have about singing while playing. I recently picked what I thought would be the hardest song for me to learn and once I learned to play the song I had much more difficulty singing while playing this difficult song. I’m getting there but would appreciate any advice you might have.

Also, we dont want to let others down with mistakes and poor timing etc.