Effective practice . . . . . . some advice please

Clarky

more to the point is that first time around, although I had the backup rig, I wasn't prepared at all..

the cut-over was kinda "scruffy" and took longer than it should have

ChrisMusic

@Clarky - - - Thanks for sharing your scheduling tips.

The "rig failure" drill is an interesting addition, very pragmatic and learned through bitter experience.  Just shows it is never too late to plan for the unexpected, but quite possible, occurrences in life.  The more prepared we are the more "auto pilot" just takes over and gets the job done.  You can still be mindful and in control, but it takes the pressure off to know you are prepared.  Good advice for us all.

Luckily that never happened to me in my "previous life", enough other stuff used to go wrong on the road, and in the studio (which gets damn expensive).

Who knows where this "new life" will lead?

At least I'll be better prepared for that and other eventualities, thanks.

However - if the PA goes down, then you really are screwed.

That happened to Nile Rodgers & Chic at Hyde Park this year IIRC, but good recovery by his team to use the monitor rig to drive the PA.

@steamabacus - more real life support for visualisation, thank you.

"Luck favours the prepared mind"

Clarky

there is actually a musical angle to that drill too...

same with changing a guitar if you pop a string..

it's about maintaining awareness of the song so that when you're up and running again, you drop back in as seamlessly as you can..

in my case that's not so easy when the riff is humping along in 17/8

I guess the moral to this with respect to the thread title is that there are different kinds of practice...

those where you're in a creative phase and simply maintaining a certain level of 'form'

those where you're developing your musicianship and pushing the limits of your technique and knowhow

those where you're working towards a recording session and looking to nail all of the parts in detail

and those where you're working towards playing live and practicing as best you can with a 'gig conditions' mentality

they are all equally important..

what you do and when depends upon your live / recording / writing schedule

so.. practice is not limited to scales and stuff..

it's good to have a purpose

ChrisMusic

@jmaster, @Bucket, @Ettery

Hey young guns, how about some input from you guys.

You are just off to ICMP and hungry to learn.

Please share a bit of what has got you there with the rest of us.

Maybe not just how to practice, but what to practice too, anything you see fit.

You do have a valuable contribution to make, if you want to.     Thanks

----------------------------------------------

I can tell you I am so envious, what a fantastic way to start a successful career in the music biz.

Good luck at ICMP.

ChrisMusic

Clarky said:      ...

I guess the moral to this with respect to the thread title is that there are different kinds of practice...

those where you're in a creative phase and simply maintaining a certain level of 'form'

those where you're developing your musicianship and pushing the limits of your technique and knowhow

those where you're working towards a recording session and looking to nail all of the parts in detail

and those where you're working towards playing live and practicing as best you can with a 'gig conditions' mentality

they are all equally important....

so.. practice is not limited to scales and stuff..

it's good to have a purpose

Oh so true, what a very good, and very broad perspective, thank you @Clarky

jmaster

Hi Chris, how's it going? How's the Greco working out for you?

I think someone like Bucket would be more qualified to offer advice on the technical side of things, since my technique isn't nearly as good as his (or as good as it really should be). However, I've found the exercises in Guthrie Govan's 'creative guitar' books quite helpful even if they're just as a sort of warm up routine, so I'd definitely recommend having a look at these.

What has made a big difference to my outlook on learning the guitar, or any instrument, is watching these videos of the incredible Victor Wooten. The first one is a bit artsy, but I like it cause he plays bass in it, and roger me with a fence post that guy is good, and the second one he goes into a bit more detail and background of the ideas he's talking about.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3yRMbH36HRE

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zvjW9arAZ0

He puts it a lot better than I ever could, but I love the analogy to learning a language, when you learn your mother tongue you don't do speaking exercises you just watch others and try it, make mistakes, and get better. The main thing I take from it is the idea of 'playing more than you practise', or as Joe Pass put it never playing anything that isn't musical. While purely technical exercises certainly have their place, and a scheduled practise session is definitely helpful to make sure you're moving forward and learning new things, great technique is wasted if what you're doing comes from the fingers' muscle memory and not inside, so to speak. The only purpose of your technique is to facilitate what it is you want to say, so it's more of a priority IMHO to find out what that is than it is to have great technical ability, and this comes from listening to lots of other musicians, playing with them, and creating music rather than practising exercises all day long. One way this can be implemented into a practise routine is if you're trying to learn new scales or arpeggios or even just playing a technical exercise, make yourself a super simple loop/backing track of the chord that it goes with so you can internalise the colour of the sound and improve your understanding of theory as well as learning it with your fingers. This is much more useful when you come to use the things you've learned in your own music.

There's another great video which you might've seen already, from Tom Hess talking about playing a 1 note solo and making it sound like your favourite singer and this is a great exercise too. Just don't sign up for the e-book thing, he sends you a million trillion emails trying to get you to buy stuff.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kkW8VeaAhbs

Above all, make sure you're enjoying it and make sure you make lots of time for putting the things you've learned together and into practise as well as trying to make progress, it's no good if you can execute the 5 shapes of the pentatonic at a million miles an hour in your bedroom but can't use it in your playing. I think Clarky covered this point though.

Oh, and that Oliver Sacks book on music is brilliant isn't it, when he's talking about what makes musicians tick and things like musical hallucinations and that guy who got struck by lightning and obsessed with Chopin!

Hope that helps and good luck

Bucket

jmaster said:

I think someone like Bucket would be more qualified to offer advice on the technical side of things, since my technique isn't nearly as good as his (or as good as it really should be). 

Thanks!

As for me, I'm ashamed to say I don't really "practice" as much as I could, per se - as in, I don't sit down and rehearse scales and exercises anywhere near as much as I probably should, which is probably hindering my progress tbh - should step it up really.

What I do is just play guitar, as often as possible. What with the summer holidays and not having much else to do, I've been playing for hours every day when I'm at home, sometimes unplugged and sometimes plugged in. Quite a lot of bass as well. I suppose the way I learn and the way I improve technique is to learn new songs that incorporate techniques I need to work on - I want to re-build my sweep picking having not done much work on it recently, so I'm learning the impossibly difficult solo in "Follow the Signs" by Born of Osiris. Slowing it right down, playing it with a metronome. I'm also writing my own material which I can try to bring to my band.

Recently I've been working on fingerpicking quite a lot, and have just been trying to come up with fingerstyle patterns and little licks or progressions myself, instead of learning songs. It helps with the technique, and sometimes I get some cool material out of it too!

Like I say, this might not be particularly useful given my disclaimer that I don't really "practice" as much as I should, but I hope it helps.

steamabacus

Another good book (can't believe I forgot to mention it earlier) is 'Guitar Zero - The Science of Learning To Be Musical' by Gary Marcus. He's a cognitive psychologist who, at the age of 40 decides to take a sabbatical and fulfill a lifelong dream to learn to play the guitar despite (so he believes) being 'tone deaf'.

Clarky

Loving Tom Hess' vibrato

so strong and positive, smooth and consistent..

ChrisMusic

@steamabacus thanks for the book recommendation, I'll check it out.

@Clarky good call on vibrato, thanks

@Bucket thank you for contributing. I often just play unplugged too.  It may have become a habit as when I started again I had a guitar but no amp, but I quite enjoy it, a different feel and vibe.   (it saves the GAS on effects too)    

"the way I improve technique is to learn new songs that incorporate techniques I need to work on" - that really makes sense as after all it is what we are all aspiring to, making music. Puts it all in context.

When I am doing "Finger Gym" co-ordination and isolation exercises, which I often do while watching TV, going to sleep, or reading through this forum, I try to do simultaneously with both hands. it seems to use largely the same brain areas which I think shortens the path to achievement. It is useful for building fingerpicking, tapping, etc, and rhythmic co-ordination between hands too.

Thanks for your input Bucket, it all helps, much appreciated.

ChrisMusic

Come on people - we had about 530 members the last time I checked, and this post has gained 530 views (the last time I checked). 

Thank you all for looking, I hope it is as useful and thought provoking for you as it has been for me.

There is a lot of wisdom shared by the people who have been generous in sharing their views and perspectives with us all.

BUT - there are so many more of us on FretBoard, please share your experiences, they are all valuable, we can help each other to improve, wherever we are on the learning curve.

No more "silent majority" OK.

We all have a valid voice. Let's hear from some more of the rest us too.  

>-

mike_l

As I have limited time this week (probably about 1 hour/day) I shall do

15 mins scales/warm up (Ie finger gym + scales in one)

10 mins chords/arpeggios

10 mins on random exercises from a (random) book (I have loads) different each day

25-30 mins jamming with a backing track

 

And getting to Jam nights to play with others.

 

Next week (probably 2 hours/day to practise)

15 mins scales/warm up (again finger gym + scales in one)

15 mins chords/arpeggios

30 mins working through a book (actually working through, not just random exercises)

30-45 mins jamming with backing tracks

15-30 mins of revision of stuff I know

 

 

ChrisMusic

spacecadet said:

Some sage advice in this. Love him or hate him he knows his stuff.

Thanks @spacecadet - great video, inspirational and motivational.

Thank you so much for posting that one.

Not too sure about the - strengths / weaknesses bit.  If I didn't work on my weaknesses I would never have learned to play at all, on day one it is nothing but a seeming "cliff face of weaknesses to climb".

I do get his point however, but I think you have to work at a rounded skill set when you start out, and then you can make more informed decisions about which path to take from there.

Agreed - Very sage advice, and for so many aspect of life, thanks.

Oh, and I agree about Rebecca Dirks, shame she's left PG.  (totally not related to this thread / discussion)

ChrisMusic

Thanks for the sample practice schedules @mike_l

Can you shed some light on the whole "jam night" thing please.

Take it that I know nothing - and you won't be far wrong   

steamabacus

ChrisMusic said:

Not too sure about the - strengths / weaknesses bit.  If I didn't work on my weaknesses I would never have learned to play at all, on day one it is nothing but a seeming "cliff face of weaknesses to climb".

I feel that becoming a good player is a case of learning to highlight your strengths and disguise your weaknesses. Playing music isn't really about 'not making mistakes' (although it helps to play it right). It's how you react to your mistakes that matter. Great players still make mistakes but they're pretty adept at bluffing their way out of it. Most in the audience wouldn't recognise a mistake if it slapped them in the face with a wet fish, anyway - but they DO recognise someone on stage getting all embarrassed and self-conscious because they've gone wrong.

mike_l

ChrisMusic said:

Thanks for the sample practice schedules @mike_l

Can you shed some light on the whole "jam night" thing please.

Take it that I know nothing - and you won't be far wrong   

@ChrisMusic

It's literally going to a local jam night (or 2) and standing if front of others and playing different songs with others. It doesn't matter if you make mistakes, these will reduce the more you do it. The other part of it is you will have songs you don't know thrown at you to play (last night, for me Black Magic Woman), ask what chords they are if you don't know, and play along.
The benefit is you'll soon realise what does and doesn't work when playing with others, and you'll learn how to lay at (slightly) higher volumes.

mike_l

@ChrisMusic

I should say, there's 2 ways of doing the chords/arpeggios

1 - using 1 chord (Eg Cmajor) and playing it in as many places and inversions* all over the neck

2 - using one scale and playing every chord within that scale, again I as many places over the neck

 

* an inverted chord uses all the notes from a chord (Eg C has the notes C-E-G) and changes the order, so ie E-G-C or G-C-E

 

Why random exercises? Because it will make you do something different each time you practice. I will be using different books from the ones I shall work my way through.

Also, when you go to a jam night, try to watch what the other guitar players are doing, especially when there is a lick/solo/riff you like, as you'll see where on the neck they're playing it, and what the fingering is.

mike_l

@ChrisMusic

What books/DVD's etc do you have to use to practise with/get the tools to practise with?

ChrisMusic

mike_l said:          I should say, there's 2 ways of doing the chords/arpeggios

1 - using 1 chord (Eg Cmajor) and playing it in as many places and inversions* all over the neck

2 - using one scale and playing every chord within that scale, again I as many places over the neck

Why random exercises? Because it will make you do something different each time you practice. I will be using different books from the ones I shall work my way through.

Also, when you go to a jam night, try to watch what the other guitar players are doing, especially when there is a lick/solo/riff you like, as you'll see where on the neck they're playing it, and what the fingering is.

Hi @mike_l, thanks for the extra info on random exercises, that bit of extra fleshing out is very helpful.

On the subject of watching guitarists, whether that is YouTube or whatever I am like a hawk (with a few less feathers admittedly).

There is definitely a lot to learn from seeing position and fingerings in playing, it ties in with note and tone awareness etc.  In the same way as the visualisation works I suspect, and will reinforce the learning, even without a guitar in my hand.

It does make even more sense now I am understanding some of the psychology behind this.

If you haven't read Catthans link on page one of this discussion, it is well worth trying to digest it.  I'll repost it again I think so it's closer to this conversation.

mike_l said:     What books/DVD's etc do you have to use to practise with/get the tools to practise with?

Most of the resources I have used in re-learning have been on YouTube, like JustinGuitar.com, who I have a lot of admiration for, a very decent and generous human being.

I haven't any books at all, but I have a few DVDs from Lick library on technique and modes, they seem pretty good.  Backing tracks wise nothing at all, but I do have a looper on the shopping list.  I know that will make a world of difference.

I really need to find out if any Jam Nights go on anywhere around here (how?).

If I can get over the inevitable stage fright, I really think the interaction will be a real benefit.

ChrisMusic

@Catthan thank you so much for the phenomenally good paper in your link.  How on earth did you find it?

I explains a lot of my own observations since starting to play again.  It certainly is nice to have some vindication.

Having had a scientific background, it put me in a good position to study and experiment with different aspects of the learning process.

It also helps that I played guitar before, so I have a pretty good idea where the path leads.

Although having said that, I am very open to learning on that score, as I was pretty much self taught in my "previous life", and so much has moved on, and so far, since then.

I have to say that the conclusions to the "Mental Practice" section of the paper are astonishing, even if the methodology is not entirely clear.

http://madisonjazz.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/practicingandcurrentbrainresearchbygebrian.pdf