Meta What?
Metacognition. It’s defined as the awareness and understanding of one’s own thought processes. And it’s largely what You & Your Guitar is about—but I didn’t use that term in the book, because it wasn’t in my vocabulary at the time I wrote it. Instead, I used the term “learning skills.”
Prioritizing these types of skills may seem like an unusual approach to some people. Everyone knows that to succeed in guitar playing you need quality lessons and materials, and you need to use them in the appropriate order. That’s why I provide those things in my books and videos and in the Virtual Studio. But if you really want to succeed, you also need good practice skills.
Metacognition will enable you to be good at self-teaching guitar, which is essentially what you’re doing any time you practice. It’s also really helpful in all other areas of life and learning, so as you deepen your metacognitive skills for guitar, you’ll find yourself expanding in surprising ways. You’ll see improvements in discipline, focus, organizational skills, ability to memorize material quickly, and much more.
How Do You Develop Metacognition?
There are a number of things you can do to enhance your learning through self-awareness and learning tactics, and I present them in You & Your Guitar. I also write about many of them in this newsletter and on my website. For example, this article on witnessing and choosing your thoughts can help you increase metacognition, this one helps you make deadlines work for you, and this one helps you identify the things you most need to focus on in a practice session.
I’ve been able to identify the metacognitive qualities and activities that are important for guitar players both by witnessing my own learning over a lifetime and by observing my students and how they learned best. If you like scientific studies, you can find plenty that apply to learning that back up my conclusions. I identified and included a lot more guitar-specific skills in You & Your Guitar than you’re likely to discover in your search, though. I addressed those not only in the “learning skills” chapter, but also in the chapter on “character skills.” Then, to make things easier and more fun, I created the DAILY to provide you with a healthy dose of inspiration and a roadmap to your goals. Enjoy!
