Building on yesterdays topic, Time to Practice, a good friend of mine who has played jazz guitar for many years sent the following for the more serious guitarist:
From Tom Monaco:
One of the most important things for anyone to learn and grow in music is practice. Many guitarists are self-taught, using a variety of ways to gain skills. These include watching their favorite players, chord books, chord sheets with lyrics found on the internet and picking this up from friends etc. What this usually produces is a constantly evolving array of variables. These can include everything from holding the guitar to hand positions and pick technique. This can produce a lot of frustration and make learning difficult and self-limiting. The guitar is an instrument that is easy to play some things. But just like any instrument, there is a lot more involved than using chord diagrams and randomly picking out a melody. These things are certainly part of the fun, but you can avoid the arrested development syndrome that often occurs.
Breaking it down
I break my guitar practice down to three categories and they should be utilized in sequence with one third of your time spent on each one.
- Technique and Warm up
- New music
- Have some fun!
Warm up time
When we first start our practice we need to make sure we are getting our fingers moving. This starts with making sure we have our hand positions and finger movements working. Fingers are “dumb”, meaning they only move the way we teach them. They can’t learn on their own, unless we teach them. Once we get them working mechanically, they will respond excellently to what they know.
To learn good technique, it’s important to work with a teacher who can help you. I recommend that you choose this person carefully and accept their guidance. This will help to prevent you from learning habits that may limit you greatly down the road. We hear the term “practice makes perfect”, but it really is “perfect practice makes perfect”. This is very important for long term growth. Fingers will learn exactly what we teach them, good, bad or indifferent. So, this is very important to take note of early in process. We want to allow ourselves to not become limited and frustrated down the road.
New guitar music time
Once our fingers are moving and our minds are fresh, it is a great time to move to the second segment of our practice. Pick out in advance what you would like to accomplish. Make sure that this goal is attainable for you and not something that will be frustrating and wear you down. A good barometer for this is something that 80% of it you are pretty much able to. This will allow you to accommodate your growth keeping a level of challenge that you can feel comfortable while still offering a few hurdles that will build your skills and enhance your repertoire of music you enjoy.
Have some fun!
The third segment of your practice should be the time that you play things that you are comfortable with and most importantly, enjoy. We want to leave our instrument with a good feeling so that we will want to come back to it. There’s nothing like leaving your instrument on “a bad note”. This is part of the growing process of building a good, bonding relationship with your guitar so that you leave all doors open to growth, and enjoyment of playing guitar!