Subject: How Have You Been Practicing Guitar?
You are getting this e-mail because you subscribed to it on www.learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com. If you don't want to receive these e-mails any longer, go to the bottom of this message and click on "unsubscribe." Hey there Friend, Are you happy with your guitar playing progress, or do you feel like you end up playing the same three chords or the same tired riff every time you sit down to practice? Do you ever learn a whole song, or do you only learn to play the beginning (the part you can and have been playing for the past three years) and then move on to the next song in your list of song intros that you know?Or how many times have you sat down intending to practice guitar and found yourself drifting off, playing along with the radio or an MP3 (or playing those intros again), or just goofing off? Do you realize that when you don't take the time to plan your practice session, you're not doing anything to advance your skills? For the casual guitarist, this might be OK. But if you are feeling any frustration because you want to get better and are not seeing (hearing) improvement, playing the "same old, same old" ain't gonna cut it to pull you out of your rut. Here's why. Playing the same things over and over only reinforces what you know. It does nothing to increase your ability or expand. Sure, you might be able to play the intro to "Sweet Child of Mine" almost perfectly, but what does that do to enhance your ability to improvise a solo on your own? It's like the old example of physical exercise - you can go to the gym every day, but if you use the same exercises and never vary the amount and type of stress on the muscles, you'll never see improvement in your physical appearance and strength. Muscle doesn't grow unless it is stressed and forced past its normal limits. You have to fatigue the muscle, which creates a new limit to push past. There is no status quo. If you aren't doing something to force growth, you'll actually end up going backwards into decline. It's like veggies in the garden - If they're not growing, they're dying. There is no in-between. Contrary to the notion that stress is bad for you, it's actually necessary. I'm obviously not talking about the kind that gives you ulcers, like the mental stress of worry and pain, or the stress of overwhelm. The kind of stress I'm talking about is that of pushing yourself to small levels of improvement with manageable chunks of effort. We need a bit of stress in our lives to keep us from harm and to help us improve. If we didn't have the stress of needing to eat (hunger), we wouldn't go out and earn a living so we could satisfy that need. Or we might walk out in the middle of traffic if the fear (stress) of pain or death didn't keep us on the sidewalk. So let's relate this to guitar and the art of practice. In order to expand your skills, you need to force yourself into new techniques and patterns. If you are sloppy in a technique, or want to learn a new one, you have to first learn the mechanics of that technique, then take a slow approach to mastering it. By mastering I mean having proficiency to the point where you would be comfortable performing it. There's a saying that goes something like this: only perfect practice makes perfect. I used to believe that statement, but I'm having second thoughts about it because of an article I read by Dr. Noa Kageyama, a sports psychologist at The Julliard School and a very accomplished musician. He has studied the psychology of performance extensively and offers a good perspective on the idea of perfect practice. The key to improving involves becoming aware of why something doesn't feel or sound correct when you play it. It involves analyzing your technique and isolating areas where you don't play as well as you'd like. By isolating and focusing on those areas, you can then determine what exactly needs to change and how to improve it. For example, lets say you are working on learning sweep picking, a technique used by many jazz, rock and metal players. One of the challenges with sweep picking is fluid hand motion with the picking hand. Many of us have gotten used to alternate picking as our primary method of playing notes on guitar, but with sweep picking, you incorporate a downward picking sweep across all the strings in play and then reverse to an upward sweep. That motion, in conjunction with fingering the notes with your other hand, can make for a disjointed tempo as you try to coordinate your hands. Let's say you know the notes and string changes to play but aren't happy with the execution. As part of your practice, you can take the time to analyze what it is that doesn't work in your execution. Are you missing strings with the pick? Is your pick dipping too low between the strings to effectively sweep? Is your pick angle optimized? Focus your attention on each hand and ask yourself questions about the problem areas you identify. As you ask these questions, you are pinpointing what you need to practice more. Because you have now analyzed the areas where you need to improve, you can take the necessary steps to change and improve your playing. You can follow this process for every aspect of your guitar playing. In fact, this translates well to just about any other endeavor you might undertake. By taking this approach, you will identify and correct issues much more quickly than if you take the ram rod approach - forcing yourself to struggle at normal speed without identifying the problem areas. So as a follow up note, strive to be as perfect as you can be, but don't obsess over it. Focus more on identifying exactly what you're not happy with in the execution of what you are practicing, then take steps to master those areas. Here are some final tips for successful practice:
At the end of the day though, the most important thing about practice is to make it fun. Practice is not something to get through on your way to becoming the player you want to be. It's part of the journey, and you should enjoy that process. It's OK to have a slack off day where you just noodle and goof off. At the end of a good, focused practice session, reward yourself by just jamming along with one of your favorite CDs. Music is meant to be fun and an expression of ourselves. As the saying goes, there are two rules in life - 1) don't sweat the small stuff, and 2) it's all small stuff. Enjoy all aspects of your music making - if you aren't having fun, you're doing it wrong… Rock on! Peace~ Dave Dave "Eddie" Vance is a rock guitar enthusiast and gear nut. He has been playing guitar for over 30 years and enjoys tormenting the neighbors every chance he gets. When he's not slaving for the man, you can find him rocking out with his B.C. Rich Bich guitar, a cold beer and some sweet tunes. He also runs Learn-To-Play-Rock-Guitar.com, but you knew that already! Follow Learn To Play Rock Guitar:I welcome your feedback! Did you like today's message? What other topics would you like to see covered in my e-mails? Please let me know at: dave@learn-to-play-rock-guitar.com As always, please feel free to forward this email to a friend! I review products before recommending them. If you buy a product based on my recommendation, I will receive a commission. However, my emails also contain links that don’t require any investment on your part and are jam-packed with "juicy, guitar learnin' tastiness". We don't rent or share your name with anybody. Feel free to forward this issue to any friends you think would enjoy its contents. They will thank you. So will I.
|
