Perhaps learning to play a musical instrument is also like that.
That’s why I bought a banjo. If these year are going to fly by then I might as well insert 10 years of banjo practice into the blur. I might be bad now, but by the time my kid is 12 I’ll be 10 years in.
I have a guitar at home and one at work so I’m often picking it up and messing around when I need a break from work.
I still don’t know a single song from start to finish (other than nursery rhyme songs that are just a few bars long). I’m pretty close though on Nirvana’s About a Girl.
I’m also essentially tone deaf but my kids, on the other hand, both have perfect pitch somehow. They can hear a microwave beep and tell you it’s a b-flat the same way I can say a car is red. I am going to see an audiologist soon because I’m wondering if the crazy squealing I hear non-stop is related to my difficulties.
It’s hard for me to describe, but I can do one thing at a time pretty well. I can tap my foot to a metronome. I can strum muted strings (so it’s just a percussive sound) in time to a metronome. But I struggle with tapping my foot and strumming in time to a metronome even when all I’m doing with my fretting hand is muting the strings.
I can play parts of some songs and some riffs but if I try to play it along with the original track, I lose the rhythm after a bar or two. I don’t seem to be able to extend that length. I end up strumming with the rhythm of the lyrics (syllables) rather than the drum beat.
Right now, I’m mostly working on trying to establish some sense of rhythm. The Justin Sandercoe’s course on this is probably the best resource I’ve found. He has some exercises that are almost meditative.
Why would you both tap your foot and use a metronome at the same time while playing a piece? I play piano, not a guitar, but foot tapping is usually for when you don't have a metronome.
Sure, tapping and using a metronome at the same time is good, if you are trying to get your foot tapping to be more consistent. But actually practicing a music piece and using a metronome+tapping your foot feels weird, I cannot do it well either. For me, it is either tapping foot or using a metronome.
My metronome app has a timer. I set a 5 to 15 minute timer and then repeat the same strumming pattern for that entire time (usually down, down-up, up, down which corresponds to the count 1, 2-and, -and, 4 and I play it between 60 and 100 bpm). The strum is just a percussive strum on muted strings. I’m not playing chords or any kind of melody. The goal is to get the strumming and foot tapping to be automatic so that I can add the next step.