For solo players: how much of your playtime is devoted to practice?

[Arch0wl]

By 'practice', I don't mean just playing songs. I mean slowing down a song in particular to practice a hard part or doing something else intended to increase your skill level.

If, say, you play for 2 hours a week, how much (if any) of that would be practicing and how much would it be just playing songs at whim?

[TC_Halogen]

Oh my, this was a huge basis of my skill improvement when I started. I would sit in Edit Mode and practice over and over again. My first milestone full combo was Acid Rain, where I practiced the ever-loving shit out of this solo. It took me so much time and I was so happy when I saw it, as you can see by my reaction at the end of the video, despite being a screen capture.

I don't play solo much anymore, but I would like to get back into it. When I -was- playing, I would devote at least a good 30 minutes every two hours I would play just practicing patterns.

[arcnmx]

Neat skin you had there.

As for me (I don't play SM but I do play other 5/6/7/8 key simulators) I don't ever practice anything at all, just play things until I gradually get better. That's probably due to my mindset though, I play to relax, listen to some music and have fun. I don't worry about skill at all.

When I was first playing guitar hero eons ago I did use the practice slowdown occasionally though. It was quite helpful for some songs but not something I dedicated any significant amount of time to.

[JohnRedWolf87]

I don't really practice, either. I just keep playing til I get better.

In FFR, I just hit that Random button and play whatever comes up, no matter how hard it is. On occasion, I'll try to go for some new FC's or AAA's, starting with the lowest difficulty that I haven't yet conquered.

I've recently gotten into Stepmania, and downloaded most of the major simfile packs. My strategy there is to play through every song on Beginner (where applicable), then play them again on Light, then Standard, etc. and see where that takes me.

[kommisar]

i'd play 4-5 hours a week of solo at peak. getting used to anything is just playing over and over again. if you wanted to get good at patterns, you would play older files because they were so horribly constructed with awkward patterns.

[Choofers]

I generally play chordstream/bracket heavy files on lower rates. I had a bit of a skill loss due to playing singles more often and there was a gap of a couple months where I didn't play at all.

(need to re-AA himiko oni)

[Gundam-Dude]

Hours upon hours spent of playing semi-pettanko and other really easy files just to get the hang of everything—if anyone even remembers back in like late ODI days, I was the 6key boo-whore because every file I played I always got double digit boos with a very low miss count, rofl. I guess I'll bullshit a number of around 2 hours per day when I first picked up 6key in late 2009 to mid-late 2010.

Xiao Solo Beginner Packs got the basis of my skill started, but it was really the BCMPs that challenged my skill and gave me the area and strive to improve.

I still suck at 6key though in comparison to whoever even posts in the Solo Scores thread nowadays.

[Choofers]

Originally Posted by Gundam-Dude

I still suck at 6key though in comparison to whoever even posts in the Solo Scores thread nowadays.

at this point I think it's just me and the numerous other solords that are still playing

[FFR4EVA_00]

i'm just going to say that the sooner everyone forgets that solo/6key was ever a thing the better

[Choofers]

i'm just going to say that you're mad because you're bad