Category: Practice

Getting Into Classical Guitar Again After A Long Break

Nicole Neal1 Comment

Following on from a recent post on getting yourself playing a again after a holiday or a relatively short time away from the guitar, a few folks have emailed me to ask how they go about getting back into playing classical guitar again after a much longer time away from it. Of course, it’s difficult to give specific advice as different folks have reached differing levels of proficiency prior to a hiatus, learn at different speeds, have different goals with their playing and many other variable, but I thought I’d share with you some of my thoughts and ideas on getting going again with some serious classical guitar learning and playing.2014-01-18 04.42.32

1. Don’t over think it and have fun!

Regardless of what level of proficiency you got to when you went on your guitar playing sabbatical, it’s so so important at this stage to rediscover the reason why you started playing the guitar in the first place – because it’s fun! Yes, it will be important after not too long a time to get stuck into some technical exercises, but perhaps a good place to start is just sitting down with the guitar and having some fun with it.  Enjoy holding the instrument, strumming it, plucking it, playing a few bits of tunes that you remember, recalling and remembering how to make a beautiful sound with it.

2. Build good habits

This is the time to build good practice habits, and ensuring you’re doing a little playing each and every day is a great way to do this. Even if you’re not really feeling like it, just sitting down for 10 minutes with the guitar to play something, be it a scale or two, a little piece or a couple of technical exercises can help build in that practice habit once again.

3. Make sure your gear is up to the task

If your guitar has been sitting in its case under the bed for a long time, perhaps a year (or more!), then I’d dare say it probably needs a new set of strings. Strings degrade and corrode over time due to atmospheric exposure, even if you’ve not been putting your grubby little mitts all over them for a while. Put a new set of strings on your guitar and you will start out playing the instrument sounding at its best.

Of course, this could also be a good opportunity to treat yourself to a new guitar too! 😉 Any excuse….

4. Treat yourself to some new music to learn

You may have gotten bored of that same old tune you were learning before you packed your guitar away under the bed or into the cupboard, so give yourself something brand, spanking new to learn. If you’re finding it tricky to get back into the practice habit a brand new piece of music to learn is 

If you’ve not played in a long while I’d probably advise giving some music a try that’s a little easier than the level you’d previously gotten to. This will give your brain and fingers a chance to get back up to speed again without you getting frustrated or disheartened by something that may feel too tricky at this stage.

5. Find a good teacher

If you’re serious about really getting stuck into playing classical guitar again, improving your proficiency on the instrument and becoming an even better musician then you can’t really overlook the help and advice from a good teacher or mentor. If you’ve not played in a long time, yes, you can take tips and so on from blogs like these, but this advice is rather general. A good teacher, through regular weekly lessons, will be able to talk with you about what you want to do, observe your playing, listen to your sound, look at your physical state when playing, observe your reading (amongst many other things) and really help you, as an individual, to get firing on all cylinders again with your playing.

Maintaining Your Classical Guitar Composure

Nicole Neal2 Comments

This is a topic that I’ve been talking to a few of my students about in recent times (and something that I’ve found enormous benefit from myself in my own development as player). So in the spirit of this blog I thought it would be useful to share.

cropped-2010_09_25_guitars-013.jpgToday’s post is all about maintaining your composure whilst playing and performing, and the importance of doing this.

So what do I mean when I say composure?

Well, I suppose I mean your sense of poise, holding yourself together, maintaining a sense of calm and serenity. Keeping a poker face if you will. Classical guitar face. Hah hah!

Ultimately it really means, in this sense, maintaining control of self at all times to a certain level in order that you can let go (that sounds like a bit of a contradiction doesn’t it?) and let the music be the focus of your energy.

It’s not about being overly serious and earnest, absolutely not. This is about keeping a certain level of focus, regardless of what is occurring, so you can let all your hard work shine forth!

Why is it important to do this? It’s not like I’m playing Carnegie Hall or whatever!

Regardless of whether you’re playing to a packed out auditorium, a school hall, your family and friends, or even for your teacher in your lesson (in fact especially this situation and I’ll come back to that in a minute) as a performer you always want to demonstrate that you’re in control (even perhaps if you’re not quite – hah hah!).

On a certain level, if you’re playing to a larger audience, that audience is going to feel a lot more comfortable in their seats knowing that you’re in control (or at least look that way!). But I’m not going to go into too much depth there as I’m guessing that’s probably too much of a helpful focus for you guys at this point?

What I will focus on (and what is an important element or stepping stone to playing in front of a larger audience) is the maintaining composure in front of your teacher thing (or even your friends and family) I mentioned above.

If you’re not maintaining your composure whilst playing – pulling faces when you make a mistake is a classic example of this – then you’re kind of sending a message (albeit subconsciously perhaps) to your teacher or audience to say “yes, I made a mistake there, and I know it’s not suppose to sound like that and I’d really like you to know that I know that and it doesn’t always sound like that especially when I’m practicing at home and I want you to know that I know that and……”. And so on and so forth with some variation on that theme!

And what are you doing when you’re using enough energy to pull these faces? You’re taking that energy and focus away from your playing, from the music. You’d be far better off maintaining that composure, resisting that urge to screw up your face or stick your tongue out or squirm in your seat or huff and puff, and putting that energy and focus in to the music.

Adult Students Getting Into Performance - Part One: Argh! I'm scared! What do I do?! Dealing with anxiety
It’s time to get serene…

There is absolutely nothing you can do in the moment of playing about the notes that have already been played. They’ve been and gone like water under the proverbial bridge. Adjust your focus to what is occurring in the moment – make the notes you’re playing right now your focus.

And I can guarantee you that your teacher will already know if you’ve made a mistake! So you may as well just let it go. Come back to it once you’ve played the piece through. Take it as a lesson that you don’t know that part of the piece as well as you might and there’s some work to do there. Nothing more. Nothing less.

And, let me say this very loudly (well, I would if I weren’t typing) – there is absolutely no shame in making a mistake! Nor reason to be screwing up your face and sending yourself further out of kilter. It is what it is. Let’s not forget too people that’s it’s only music! No one ever died from playing a C# instead of a C!

And your audience if it’s not your teacher and you make a mistake? They probably won’t even realise if you’ve made a mistake. Even if they do they probably won’t care and they will care even less if you just carry on with the rest of the piece playing it in the best way you know how.

So maintain that composure, keep your focus on your sound or some other element of your playing and resist that urge to screw up your nose and stick out the tongue. It also pays to remember that what we do regularly becomes reinforced, becomes a habit, that becomes harder to undo each time you do it again.

So play with confidence, let go and trust the work you’ve done to date, take mistakes as a neutral thing. Most importantly next time you’re playing for your teacher, friends or family practice keeping that beautiful nose of yours unscrewed (you’ll get fewer wrinkles to boot!) and your tongue behind your serenely smiling lips. You may just be surprised at the effect that change of energy and focus will have on your playing.