Tag: classical

Classical Guitar Performance – Cutting Loose and Going For It

Nicole NealLeave a comment

Cutting loose and going for it. Cutting loose is about letting go and letting the unconscious mind and your muscle memory and all that hard work and practice you’ve been putting in do its thing. It’s about trusting yourself.

What does that even mean when playing guitar? For me at least it means:

  • Resigning conscious control of what it is I’m playing.
  • Being really in the now and present with what I’m playing in exactly that one moment; living for the moment!
  • Not being concerned with the music I have just played and is now past.
  • Not becoming upset with any glitches or imperfections I may have played or thinking how I’d like to play that better and so on.
  • Not judging myself or thinking about what others may think.
  • Not allowing myself to get over-excited when I really nail something spectacularly.
  • Maintaining a calm, confident and centred (not ecstatic, not negative) demeanour when playing; just being.

Here are some ideas to help loosen you up and get you to trust yourself….

Why are you playing guitar? To make yourself and others happy or moved? Or to make yourself feel tense and horrible? Hopefully not the latter or you and I need to have words! Note that I say “make yourself…..” – only you can make yourself feel a certain emotion….Think about that one. And remember why you’re playing in the first place.

Close your eyes when you’re next practicing and really listen it to the sound you’re making. How does it sound? How does it feel to really focus in on your sound in this way? How could focusing in on your sound help you in a performance situation? It gives your conscious mind something to focus on and be occupied with so your unconscious mind and your body can get on with the job in hand (boom boom). It will also mean your sound quality remains top notch.

Practice getting in the zone, and quieting the active, bubbling, bouncing conscious mind and its whirling thoughts. Some daily meditation, or similar mind-body awareness practice can really help with this. I like to do daily Alexander Technique practice with my semi-supine position as it gets mind and body awareness working together – I become aware of both mental and physical tensions and practice noticing and letting go. It’s soooo relaxing…

This one’s for those who are ready to take it to the next level……. Say “bugger it! What is the worst that can happen?!” As special as you are and all that, no one is going to remember your performance in an hours time let alone that you played a B-flat instead of a B (if they even realised!), or that you skipped a section, or that you lost your place because you got excited. I promise you.

Think on it – do you remember any particular moments from the concerts and gigs you’ve been to as an audience member? Maybe a couple, but overall you remember them as fantastic experiences I bet?  People always remember the big picture rather than the little details, so give them a technicolour experience rather than something in muted tones!

And then pull it back a little

And when you’ve got that down pat it’s time to review, revise and perhaps look back a little in the other direction.

Sometimes cutting loose and really going for something may not always be entirely appropriate – Barrios and the idea of high-energy “cutting loose” seems to go well together. With a Bach prelude perhaps the interpretation of “cutting loose” needs to be tempered slightly.

In the act of getting excited and really going for something we may in fact over-egg the pudding and diminish it’s impact. This is then where we need to exercise a little, not restraint – I don’t think our playing should ever feel restrained, do you? – but refinement.

This is where we now work to define the point or range between totally, 100% “safe”, timid and indeed restrained playing and 100% playing by the seat of your pants, super exciting, edgy, risk-taking playing….. I call this the Rogers’ Cutting Loose Scale. Hah hah!

Where do your current repertoire pieces sit on this scale? Is it time to put a rocket up the proverbial backside of some of your playing? Is it time to bring some back down to earth a little?

Ooh before I forget…..

Watch out for a wee announcement tomorrow about an exciting new development for the blog. 🙂

Nicole

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No pain, no gain – or not when playing classical guitar

Nicole NealLeave a comment

 

At no point ever, ever should there be any pain involved in the playing of classical guitar – not when first learning, not when progressing up through your grades, not when performing at the highest level, not ever.

 

If you experience pain creeping in at any point, either during practice/ playing or immediately following, then this is a sure signal that something aint quite right. The body is a smart thing and the message that pain is giving us is telling us something loud and clear – “you’re not doing this correctly and if you carry on doing this in this way you’re going to bugger me up. Then you’ll be stuffed.” Or something like that anyway.

 

So, it’s a hackneyed old saying, but you really should listen to your body.

 

Unlike marathon runners or kickboxers or any sporting person-type analogies we may care to use from time to time when talking about learning and playing guitar, if we experience pain whilst playing this isn’t “weakness leaving the body” (or some other similar macho or “brave in the face of adversity” type saying), we should not push through it and it’s most definitely not about how much more you can take, pushing, pushing and pushing just a little bit more. This is most definitely where the analogy between the pursuit of sporting excellence and classical guitar mastery ends.

 

Pain, be it muscular, skeletal, tenderness, soreness, sharp or dull, when playing or practicing guitar should never ever be ignored. I can’t stress this enough!

 

All manner of causes

 

The cause of a pain could be all manner of things – poor seated posture, habitual and unconscious muscle tension, “trying” too hard and straining muscles, excess pressure, conscious excess muscle tension, poor left and/ or right hand technique, focus on fingers and hands over and above how the whole body is involved in playing, poor physical condition, even psychosomatic responses to feelings of inadequacy and nervousness and so on.

 

As pain can be the result can be the result of all manner of things, it can also present itself in numerous different ways in different places from one person to the next – we’re all made up slightly differently after all. We may experience pain in that big, fat juicy muscle in our thumbs, our fingers, our hand or wrist – those are common ones where poor posture and excess tension and pressure can combine to cause problems. Then, of course, as guitarists we may also experience pain in the neck, shoulders, jaw, head, upper back, lower back, hips, knees….. the list could probably continue!

 

So, as you probably may guess I can’t help you cure your specific aches and pains and so on in all these places in the space of 500 word blog (I can help you explore each of these areas in greater detail if of interest though?). What I do invite you to take away from this though is:

 

If it hurts, stop playing right away!

 

Believe me – it’s more trouble than it’s worth to continue down the path of pain. Your body is giving you a signal that you need to change something with your posture, technique and/ or approach.

 

Take a really good hard look at how you’re playing and ask yourself what needs to be done to rectify the situation. Well in fact this may be difficult for you to do, as it may not be obvious to you as to the cause. An objective outsider view may be required – it may be easier to talk in greater detail with your teacher about the issue if you have a teacher. If you don’t have a teacher, this may be a good time to get one. If you have a teacher perhaps seek additional advice too – other teachers, other guitarists, or physical therapists such as Alexander Technique teachers or physiotherapists.

 

In other news….

 

In other (if somewhat slightly random) news, a website by the name of Coupon Audit (a new one to me, I’ll admit) has been putting together a series of “Top 100 Blogs” under various topics – gardening, craft, health and so on. The folks there have put together one for guitar and, lo! Classical Guitar n Stuff made it in there, to the lofty heights of number 37! Check out the list here: http://www.couponaudit.com/blog/top-100-guitar-related-blogs-to-follow-in-2013/

 

Ooh and some other news….

 

There will be a very exciting announcement headed this way shortly about some plans for the blog coming up in the near future. Watch this space!