“I just want to have fun playing guitar,” he said to me thirty years ago, then pressed the button. I sat in his living room floating in a cloud of cigar smoke in a row house behind the High School I attended. The overweight mailman sat in his underwear with his old guitar lying against the dinning room table. Bad music came out of the cassette player. Real bad. It was his real bad music.
Mr. mailman was afraid of playing for me so he recorded his pieces for the lesson and let me hear the mistakes on tape. I realized that there was more than just stage fright -there was also apparently living room fright as well and we were both experiencing it simultaneously.
I got the feeling that one of my first guitar students preferred to tape himself playing more than practice. Getting down to business of practice can be tricky business. Of course, the whole reason for practice is just play. I hope don’t practice tomorrow but I hope you play a whole lot. I also hope your attempt at expanding your guitar time today will lead to the start of something small -a small amount of extra time effortlessly tacked on to your daily guitar sessions.
Let’s hear about your experience with the guitar today. Your experience could mean a lot to someone out there who thought they were the only one who ...
11 comments:
Great insight! Thanks!!
I broke a nail, so my practice didn't go quite as planned. Admitting that I broke a nail doesn't seem as un-manly as it used to, lol. I still managed to practice more than 2 hours. I just focused on sight reading using my thumb and left hand exercises. Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Segreras will have to wait a few days...
With all the snow, I couldn't resist the opportunity to first walk around the county and see the snow first hand... 8 miles later I came back home, took a shower, and then began to practice for a solid hour. I figured today would provide yet another opportunity to practice for an extended period of time - now that I've gotten the snowbug out of my head and I'm well rested from a good night's sleep
Today was a better day for practicing - with nothing to do, nowhere to go, and all day to get there, I thought I'd practice 2 hours in the morning, and 2 hours in the afternoon. It was nice to practice in 30 minute intervals. The break between morning and afternoon practices makes a long practice session manageable.
This is why I love crazy weather. The more dramatic, the better - the ideal is when it's downright biblical (extra points for locusts or frogs falling from the sky).
Love it. Love the sense of release from all but the most basic of responsibilities. (Pop-Tarts are a food group when it's snowing, right?) And while there were still multiple distractions and other things that occupied my time yesterday, I took many opportunities to sit down with my guitar...and do something small. To linger on the same note or phrase, over and over until I made it ring true. To tire my hand with a bar-hammer combination, knowing that I didn't have to save my energy for the rest of the piece. To treat playing as the luxury it's supposed to be.
Interestingly, though, it was shoveling out my driveway this afternoon that got me thinking about a related practice dynamic. I assume I'm not the only one who's heard David wax eloquent on "chunking" as a practice technique. It goes against every overachieving instinct I've ever had - the longer and harder the piece, the more driven I am to play it all the way through, at tempo, with no mistakes and all the musicality the piece demands. Now. Not two months from now, not next week, but now. I SHOULD be able to. I WANT to be able to. And I don't accept "can't" - or even "not yet" - as valid. No sir, not me, no thanks.
I got up this morning, showered and drank some coffee, and faced something relatively insurmountable: my driveway. 35 or so feet long, nearly three feet deep, drifted to four in some spots. Sun-wet and heavy. And I started my attack, determined and quite possibly a smidge out of my gourd.
As any soft-news reporter will tell you (perfectly lipsticked and staring gravely into the camera, not a hair amiss - someone please tell me how they do it), this is not advisable. Heart attacks, falls, sprains, breaks, ruptures. About this, at least, they're right...and "can't" wasn't something I could stare into submission.
So I set about chunking. Two square feet at a time, I removed the snow in layers, hefting it into piles that quickly rose above my head (hey, I'm only 4'9") until I hit pavement. Success. Then I shifted to the side and started again. I slipped more than once. Blocks of cement-weight snow shattered at my feet. Arms, thighs, back, hands all tired. So I broke it down even more - five or six layers per chunk instead of four. Eventually, the sidewalk...and then, asphalt. The street, where it becomes someone else's problem (any time you like, plows).
I'm sore as hell and my hands are blistered. I may move from this chair again sometime in April. But the driveway is clear, the piece mastered, the unbelievable achieved - not on my own time, but achieved nonetheless. Because I answered what the task demanded of ME- not what I demanded of IT.
And when I can move my fingers again, I might even apply it to guitar. (Oh, and Rob is certifiable. Just saying.)
Friday night - It took me a bit, but I finally replaced the well-overdue 5+ year old strings on my 1/2 sized acoustic guitar with some medium gauge steel string Elixirs. While I was at it, I also lowered the too-high-for-me action by adjusting the saddle so my fingers wouldn't bleed the proceeding day from the extended practice. Overall, I'd say that the tone and playability of that guitar has improved. The only thing that's left now is to trim the strings now. *hint hint* Change your strings if you haven't in a while.
Saturday night - I think my time tracking really needs some work, because I started my practice session at around 11pm, ended at around 2am, and somehow in that period, I only have 1.5 hours of practice recorded down. :( Perhaps if I was playing on my electric guitar instead of the newly restrung acoustic, I could've done it with fewer breaks. Hmm...
I now have tendonitis from helping to dig out the neighborhood... I'll try to practice through it.
Today/ Tonight (Monday) after almost two days of shoveling snow I got to practice. I practiced my Allemande by De Vise and got through two lines(I like that). Then I went to practice Sagreras and had fun trying to get a good rest stroke(they are challenging). I have spent about 2 or more hours practicing as of now and I will probably practice another hour or so. Chunking is awesome. I love it. Visualizing and Chunking over time make a great piece. Add to that general musicality.
I am actually beginning to enjoy the process of practicing. WOW that is crazy for me.
Thanks for blogging. You guys are awesome. THe snow has made for some wonderfully surprising lessons for me!
David
The goal is 3 hours a day. I break it up into scales, arpeggios, bursts, & pieces. The piece work gets the bulk of my time.
Jess mentioned "chunking". Yeah. It works. & takes an enormous amount of discipline. & it's not just about playing one or two measures at a time. It's knowing where you're heading and how to arrive. Everything is about "point A" to "point B". The transitions can then become seamless. I play a fun game with myself, too. I have a jar of shiny, colorful marbles next to my music stand. If I can play that "chunk" <1 or 2 measures> PERFECTLY, I get a marble. My goal is 10 marbles. To get 10 marbles, I have to play it PERFECTLY 10 times in a row. If I mess up (mess ups include hesitations in tempo -- yes, USE the Metronome!) all my marbles get put back in the jar. Even if I'd accumulated 9 - they all go back & I begin again. It sound ridiculously silly & time consuming -- but, it's Amazingly Effective. Just try it once & you'll see.
Keeping everything reined in -- being patient -- "earning the music" (so to speak) -- that's the hardest thing. My desire to rush ahead and "play" through the whole of a new piece is hard to resist. When I give in and just "play" a new piece, it takes me so much longer to get it right.
Someone once told me that most problems with pieces are "musical problems," not "technical problems." So, if I'm struggling to make a Bach piece sing, it's probably not because I can't "play it" -- it's because I can't "see it & understand it". So, for me, the best way to achieve understanding it to play each voice separately. Pick out the bass notes. Play it on the piano. Sing each line aloud.
Anyhow -- hope this helps.
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