Time.
Contrary to the Rolling Stones' classic song, in the real world it's
never on your side. Or certainly never seems to be- there's always
something demanding your attention. Certainly, it's a rare lesson
that doesn't begin with a student apologising because they've not had
much time to practoce – pressures of work, education, family etc.
all combine to make it difficult to find half an hour a day to put in
to playing guitar at all, let alone practicing and concentrating on
new stuff.
I
have actually done a video and article on “pitstop practicing” - short but
intense bursts where you focus in n just one thing, whether that's a
new lick, a chord change that's been giving you trouble or whatever –
but this month I want to focus on something that more experienced
players often fall foul of.
As
your skills improve, and you're able to do more things, that of
course means you have more stuff you need to practice to simply
maintain those skills, let alone learn any new ones. So a practice
session can seem like a mountain to climb, working through all the
stuff you know before you can start on something new- a perfect
example of this was a student of mine a few years ago, who was
struggling to combine his Grade 5 with the demands of a regularly
gigging band. Although he was diligently setting a couple of hours a
day aside for practice, he would play through the band's entire set
before trying anything new. Every time, This meant that over ¾ of
his practice session was running over the same things, keeping them
fresh – or so his thinking was. To be fair, I can completely
understand where he was coming from, as when I joined my first semi
pro band back in (gasp) the 90s, I thought and did exactly the same
thing.
Problem
is, by the time you come to try anything new, your concentration is
shot, and if you've been playing for over an hour you probably want a
bit of a break – cup of tea, check your emails – and that further
eats into the tiny bit of time you've left yourself for learning
anything new. So this way, things very quickly become stale. Add to
this the pressure of an exam and it's quite natural to start thinking
“Sod it, I'm going to play something I want to play, not
something I'm supposed to play”. Of course, the problem for
me as a teacher is I'm trying to get this student through their Grade
5, as that's what they've told me their goal for the year is. It
doesn't take a genius to see how this can potentially lead to
friction, despite the student in question being talented, diligent
and hard working. And of course at that point, the whole thing is
going to nose dive.
However,
as I have made virtually every mistake it is possible to make on my
journey learning the guitar- although I'm sure there's a few out
there I'm yet to discover – I recognised where he was coming from,
and we sat down to talk about practice habits and came up with a
plan. If you have an hour a day, five days a week (because you're off
gigging at weekends) as an example, and you're trying to balance a
set and a grade exam, try this approach:
5
minutes – technical exercises from grade book. 1-2 scales, 1-2
arpeggios, 1-2 chords, style study. Rotate the scales/ arpeggios/
chords – eg Monday, major scale & major pentatonic, Tuesday
natural minor scale and minor pentatonic.
5
minutes – sight reading/ improv & interpretation/ melodic
recall/ harmonic recall/ general musicianship. Pick a different one
each day.
20
minutes – grade repertoire. MAXIMUM two tracks – play through,
look for mistakes. Spend a minute on each mistake, then play through
the track again. Rotate so that every track is played over the week.
Remaining
30 minutes – band repertoire. A good trick here is to put all the
songs into an iTunes (or equivalent – I've now switched to Music
Bee) playlist, hit shuffle, and see what it throws at you. But,
here's a twist – if the song has a solo, or a particularly
noticeable guitar part (for instance, the Sweet Child O'Mine intro),
before you play along with the whole song, play that part on your own
as slowly as you possibly can. Yes, you read that right – the
challenge is to really control the notes, the string noise, the
vibrato. Take everything out of the instinctive 90% of your brain and
back into the conscious 10% so you can look for bad habits and work
your way out of them.
Result?
You're spending less time but achieving a great deal more progress
than simply being stuck in a rut and thinking that you've got to
practice everything you know every time you pick up the guitar for a
practice session. Practice therefore becomes much less of a slog and
much more enjoyable – with the result that you do more of it and
engage with it a lot more, leading to more progress!
So
that's this month's thought, hope it helps some of you out there who
feel a little overwhelmed or frustrated. Drop a comment to let me
know your thoughts, and happy practicing!
