practice – Page 18 – Classical Guitar n Stuff

Once you’ve got the skeleton or an understanding of the framework of the piece together, I highly recommend commencing your practice of a piece, not from the start, but from a little stumbling block perhaps, a section or phrase or chord change that is proving tricky, or perhaps the start of a phrase or section that you want to work on and bed in further. Playing through pieces start to finish, skipping over stumbling blocks without addressing them, hoping they magically sort themselves out the next time we play the piece through in exactly the same way is not really going to get you too far.

Whatever your particular “stumbling block” might be, isolate it and work through it slowly and methodically. Pick it apart. Find out EXACTLY what is going

Spanish guitar — Photo credit: aesedepece

wrong, or rather what is not quite working right and what you need to do with your left hand fingers AND your right hand fingers to get it working as you want it to sound.

It can take our brains around 20 or days to learn new patterns, apparently – so don’t stress if you can’t get that chord change or finger movement yet or a piece memorised after a couple of days. Just know that by carrying out this methodical work you’re embedding the new habit, the new muscle memory.

And when you do pick out that tricky spot to practice it in isolation DO NOT just go repeating it countless times without awareness of what you’re really doing. If it’s still not working go back to figuring out what you need to do to fix it up. And if you’re not sure what that is then it’s definitely one that your teacher will be able to help you with!

So, yes repeat it a few times when you’ve got it more or less figured out. Do this S-L-O-W-L-Y. This is absolutely key. Don’t be in too much of a rush to get it up to speed just yet. There’s plenty of time for that. Just focus on getting it right, getting it rhythmically correct, getting it settled, getting it sounding exactly how you want. Speed comes later, and only ever to serve the music.

And then leave it to sink in for a while. You might want to come back to it later in your practice session. You definitely want to pick out that little tricky spot in your next practice session. I can pretty much guarantee it will be a lot less tricky the next day and the next, until you will have forgotten what all the fuss was about!

So, next time you sit down to practice, before you start playing your first piece from the very start to the very end without pausing for breath in between ask yourself the following questions:

Do I really need to play this all the way through from the beginning right now? Would that be an effective use of my time now or am I just being a little bit lazy? 😉
Where do I know I could begin focussing on instead? Which sections need the most work still?
What is it about those sections that need further work, what do I need to do and what do I want to have achieved by the end of this practice session with those sections?

Well, there’s a short and easy answer to that question – an indefatigable yes!

Hah hah! Of course I’m kidding! The answer to this question is absolutely and most definitely NO! There is no time like the present and there is absolutely no age limit to start learning the guitar (or any other instrument in fact).

There are a number of reasons why we are inspired to pick up the guitar and they hold true for whatever age you may be – you want to challenge yourself, it sounds cool (and it looks pretty cool too), you want to play the wonderful repertoire, pieces and songs that you really love, you want to express yourself or pour your emotions into music, you want to help inspire and entertain others. Now, I can think of no reason as to why age (whatever age that may be) would be a limit to fulfilling any of those things. Can you?

There’s an old Chinese proverb (and I’m sure I’ve written it on this blog before, but I’ll say it again) – the best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now. So, yes, you can whinge and whine and carry on that you should have started learning five, ten, fifteen, however many years ago, but there’s no time like the present!

I have a number of adult students who’ve come to me to pick up the guitar for the first time (wishing that they’d started earlier), but now very much committed to learning the instrument. These guys are really committed to developing their technique, their music reading and musicality, really committed to playing the music they’d wanted to since they were knee-high to a grasshopper, really committed to developing and honing the skills that are opening up a world of guitar-playing goodness, being an example to their children to show them the fulfilment that music can bring as well as the fruits of committed practice and hard work. And they’re loving it!

There’s a whole wealth of joyful, enlightening, self-developing experiences to be had by starting to learn right now and imagine where you’ll be in another five or ten years time – wowing audiences, inspiring your kids, teaching others and passing on your knowledge and skills. Once you’ve started to learn the guitar you can take it in whichever direction your heart desires.

So what is really stopping you from learning the guitar right now? A question to ask yourself.

It may be that it’s something you’ve always wanted to do and never quite gotten round to it. Well, perhaps it’s time to finally do it? What have you got to lose? Nothing, aside from time……

Tag: practice

Do you always practice from the start of a piece? Have a think about that….

Am I too old to learn guitar?

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