Hey forum,

Not looking to beat a dead horse, but I am curious about something and would like everyone's input.

Is self imposed regression a form of progression?

I have been studying the PB technique/system for over 9 months and have made many gains. I have the 14 position Gmaj system memorized and about 1/2 of the melodic minor as well as the Em and Am pentatonic positions. Over the past few weeks, I have pretty much abandoned doing any scales or intervals in favor of going back and trying to perfect the spider exercises, ladders, trills, chromatic movements, etc... I now realize how important these "basics" really are, despite the progress I have made in becoming fluent in scale runs.

I understand that the generic answer is to practice everything as much as possible. I saw of video of PB performing the spider exercises with a metronome (which I "almost" always have on), and I thought I was pretty darned fluent with spiders, but doing them with a metronome showed me a serious defect in my ability. My chromatic scales were coming along until I posted a video and noticed I was sliding my fingers along the strings which produced a loud squeak (sloppy), and so I am back to 16th notes at 45bpm (no more squeaks, but landing on the incorrect string.)

Am I putting too much emphasis on the basics? I don't seem to be able to make much progress practicing anything for only 10 minutes, so I tend to focus my one hour practice sessions on only 1 or 2 exercises, usually 30 minutes each, continuously.

As I cannot edit my post:

I have pretty much found my answer in another PB video. Practice EVERYTHING!!!!!!

I moved into doing scales and such because I thought my spiders and such were coming along quite well.