Practising

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Terry Doran on March 29, 2011 at 11:38am

Are you able to do that and predict where notes and chords will happen on the fret board?  I can practically produce symphonies in my head, but couldn't possibly write them down.  I think that would require perfect pitch.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Fingerpickingguitar on March 29, 2011 at 4:45pm

If you can sing an interval then you should strive to know the guitar fretboard well enough to be able to play it. Writing it down would be great as well but really I'm talking about you're relationship with the guitar fretboard

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Terry Doran on March 30, 2011 at 8:16am

That sounds like a challenging but useful exercise.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by kevin wills on March 29, 2011 at 8:55pm

I seem to have bursts of activity re practicing, so i'll practice for a couple of weeks everyday for a few hours a day if i'm learning a new piece, then i'll drop off and not play much at all for a couple of weeks.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill on April 8, 2011 at 2:09pm

In his book "Blink," Malcolm Gladwell stated that what made the difference between someone who is mediocre and who is an artist, or at the top of his or her game, is "10,000 hours."  The Beatles spent over 10,000 hours refining their craft in Germany. He cited a number of others, but asserted that even those with mediocre "talent" can become experts if they invest 10,000 hours.

 

So, what does that mean? It means that if you start today and played continuously for 10,000 hours, you would be a concert-ready expert in just over 416 days!!!! 

 

If you practice 5 hours per day, you'd be an expert sometime during April of the fifth year.

I'm stoked!!!!

 

Bill

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Keith on April 8, 2011 at 4:00pm

Gladwell got the "10,000 hours" from Daniel Levitan, a Montreal Quebec academic who works on music and the auditory system. Levitan published a book entitled "Your Brain on Music".

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill on April 8, 2011 at 4:04pm

Yea, I read that in one of the posts after I posted my response.  Gladwell writes nothing new. He assimilates seemingly disparate information into one compendious and best-selling resource. 

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Terry Doran on April 19, 2011 at 8:25pm

I'd like to get opinions on how many new pieces to work on at the same time.  It takes me a while to master any song and working on one for a long time gets boring and tiresome, even not having mastered it yet.  When I was in high school band many years ago we worked on any number of pieces at the same time.  Same with chorus, then and today.  I'd just like to get everyone's opinion and experience on this.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Roland Vinyard on April 25, 2011 at 9:45am

I work on several at a time and keep it interesting by "going over" old ones regularly.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill on April 25, 2011 at 3:15pm

Whether on guitar or piano, I sometimes worked on a piece to get it perfect, only to hate it by the time I got it there.  Someone posted somewhere that perfectionists make for unhappy musicians.  I'm sort of taking that to heart. This time around with the guitar I'm really focusing on the theory and truly mastering the scales and modes so that I don't have to worry about perfecting every note. (I no longer play classical guitar which demands perfection.)  It's like a professional drivers/racers: They've been trained to know how to get themselves out of trouble.  I will no longer ruin my music by worrying about being perfect.  It takes the fun out of the playing. 

So, the answer? It depends on how you define mastery.  If you spend 20 hours pefecting one piece of music and are bored, then spending 100 hours perfecting five pieces of music won't necessarily return a different result.  Maybe instead you accept that it's "good enough" this time around then come back to it later to take it to another level?  It's all a state of mind. I'm not advocating mediocrity.  I'm just suggesting that if you're playing to the point where you're bored you might want to recalibrate your practicing philosophy.  Music making is supposed to be fun.

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Terry Doran on April 26, 2011 at 7:32am

That is really great advise Bill.  I have to stop beating myself up for not being able to make it through every song mistake free and just enjoy playing the music.  Really, really great advise!  Do you know of any good web sites or books where I can get a good understanding of scales and modes?

• ▶ Reply

Permalink Reply by Bill on April 26, 2011 at 12:46pm

OMG!  As you already know, there are seemingly countless web resources and books out there appealing to guitar players. From my experience, they all offer the same menu, but seem to cook it a little differently.  It all comes down, therefore, to your taste--How you learn. What may seem dry and unpalatable on one site, will scintillate your senses on another.  There is no way I'm qualified (or anyone else for that matter) to make a recommendation that will work for you. 

So what to do?  We don't have enough time to try everything or every teacher, so what I do is sort of rely on what seems to be working for the masses. For books, I do web searches for reviews but I also read the user reviews on Amazon.com.  I give particular attention to those that have the highest rating that have been reviewed the most times.  I also check out who is giving the highest reviews to be sure they aren't publisher agents, as best I can.

Anyway, there are two books I use that have received overall pretty good reviews:

"Guitar Fretboard Workbook" by Barrett Tagliarino and "Guitar Aerobics: A 52-Week, One-lick-per-day Workout Program for Developing, Improving and Maintaining Guitar Technique" by Troy Nelson.

I'm sure--and hope--others will join in and offer more, but two more points:  First, the guitarists who can really play that I know got there by spending hours and hours working on scales and modes.

Second, regarding perfecting your music, I forgot to mention/repeat what you have doubtless read everywhere else and something that is very hard to do--slow it down. You are hardwiring your brain to direct your fingers, hands and arms to perform some extremely complex tasks.  It's very easy to program it to perform the wrong tasks. If you rush through a piece, your brain will remember and hardwire all mistakes.

I read somewhere that when composer and pianist Sergei Vasilievich Rachmaninoff was preparing for a concert, he played each note in a concerto extremely slowly and deliberately to ensure each movement was "wired" correctly. If the masters do it, then what makes us so special?  Something I have to continue to tell myself.

Anyway, enjoy and keep sharing.

 

Bill

• ▶ Reply

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page