Tag: practice

Are you committed?

Nicole Neal1 Comment

Ooh the big C word – commitment! Mwah hah hah! Yes, this word can strike fear into the very heart of the otherwise bravest soul. Ok maybe that’s overdoing it a little….. So what does commitment have to do with playing the guitar, I hear you ask. Well, thanks for asking, I shall tell you.

The concept of “commitment” (which means to make a decision and to stick by it, it means to be fully dedicated, to fully apply ones self) features largely through various aspects in the journey of learning the guitar, mastering the instrument and performing with it.

We decide we want to learn the instrument. We decide to play a certain piece. Practicing. Deciding how we want a piece to sound. These all require commitment at one level or another.

Yes, very good. But why is commitment going to help me and my playing?

Ok, here we go.

The students that I teach, who from the very outset have made the decision that “yes, I absolutely want to learn how to play the guitar to the very best of my abilities” are the ones that tend to progress, learn and develop most quickly.

They’ve made that decision for themselves and stuck with it. They’re committed. Their actions indicate their commitment – they make time in their busy schedules for lessons to become a normal part of their life, they lock it in. They turn up for lessons week in-week out, they’re on time or early for their lesson, they’re not making excuses for no or little practice – they’ve done the practice (they also recognise that life happens sometimes and practice becomes challenging to squeeze in from time to time, but that’s ok in the bigger picture), they put themselves into uncomfortable or new performing situations in spite of feeling nervous.

And as a natural result of these committed actions they begin to see results. I’m not talking necessarily about setting the world alight and going from one grade to another in the space of a couple of months. I am talking about making noticeable and marked improvements week to week. And this as a teacher makes my heart sing! Knowing that you’re actually listening to what I’m saying and taking it on board is great!

And that’s a commitment too. Committing to take on board the advice from one’s teacher, committing to take on feedback and direction to help improve your playing, even if its not quite what you think or want to hear. You could choose to filter it out and say “nah”, or you could say “you know what? I’ll listen to what the teacher is saying, really listen, change what I can change and work very hard at it”. Might just work…….

We also make a commitment when we’re learning and playing a piece, and this particular gem I have to thank my own guide, mentor and super-teacher, Ben Dix, for. Decide exactly how you want a piece, phrase, bar or note to sound. Commit to it. Decide on exactly the dynamics you want and commit to it. The audience will feel a bajillion times more comfortable and settled with your playing (as will you) if you’ve already made the decision and said “yes, this is how I’m playing this”. The audience know where you’re going, and will go with you.

So commitment. Yup, can be scary sometimes, but what’s the alternative? As a rather famous sportswear brand say, just do it.

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How to memorise music

Nicole Neal3 Comments

Putting aside the question of whether one should memorise music and why we as guitarists and musicians might be inclined to do that (check out my recent article on the subject if you want to read a little more around that argument HERE), I decided to write today’s post based on the presupposition that we want to memorise and how we might go about that.

Well, there are a number of modalities we can employ when memorising music:

  • Kinesthetic or tactile
  • Aural
  • Theoretical or analytical
  • Visual

And whilst we may naturally feel more predisposed to one or two modalities over the others, the more of these we can use when memorising music, the greater we will know and understand the piece, the stronger the memorisation will be and less opportunity there will be for having one of those troublesome blank spots!

Kinesthetic or tactile

This is basically the touch, feel and movement of the hands and fingers around the fretboard and on the strings. You may find if you’ve just been learning a piece from the score, and without thinking too much about it, start to play it away from the score, you’ll probably be relying heavily on your “muscle memory”. The muscles in the arms, hands and fingers, along with just a wee bit of help from your grey matter, will seem to take on a life of their own and play the music for you. The memorisation of the music has started to build itself into your muscles, into your neurology, through the very repetition of bars, phrases, sections and whole pieces. Your unconscious mind (which knows a lot more than you probably give it credit for!) has started the process of memorisation.

However, you might find that if you then start to actively think about what it is you’re playing, about where your fingers are and where they’re going next, the ability to “remember” and play the music suddenly starts to crumble. That’s because this is only one part of memorising music – only superficial memorisation really – and we need to bring other weapons into the memorisation arsenal.

Aural

This modality might be the next one that starts to build up. It also may build up in conjunction with that of the tactile memory. This is the memorisation of the sound of the music being created.

So do you know where the melody is going? Where are the phrases and sub-phrases? Where is the melody? Is there more than one line? What about the bass?

And we’re concerned not only with the melody, but also with the harmonies. Can you hear the various chords in your mind’s ear? Can you hear how those relate to the melody line?

When memorising you may forget where the fingers need to move to, but you can hear the music “playing on” in your head. You know where you need to go aurally, but the fingers and muscle memory isn’t perhaps quite up to the same speed!

That’s where the next modality comes in so very useful….

Theoretical or analytical

This is where we get to know the piece really inside out. And there’s absolutely nothing stopping you when from getting to grips with the analytical side of a piece from the get go. In fact, taking some time to dissect a piece, exploring and understanding its theoretical make up, is probably going to help you learn a piece much faster, regardless of whether you’re memorising or not.

Knowing time signature/s, key signature, key modulations, rhythms, and elements such as melodic and/ or rhythmic motifs and harmonic “signposts” including chords, and key notes at the start and end of phrases and sub-phrases within the piece, are fundamental things you can start out with. If you want to get really stuck into analysing your piece and getting to know it inside out I challenge you to recall it by writing it out bar by bar on stave paper!

Which brings us nicely to the last modality…

Visual

The visual memory can link back into the first modality we discussed – the kinesthetic or touch – knowing what the movement of the hands look like as we play. But we can also memorise what the music on the score looks like – yes it is possible! And undertaking the exercise of analysing the score, recalling it and writing it out can help with that. As a first port of call, however, we can learn to “see” in our mind’s eye the shape of the music on the page.

Another way of visual memorising a piece is to imagine playing the piece away from the guitar – can you see in your minds eye how you play the piece with your left hand? Where are the gaps in that visualisation? Are there any gaps in the aural recall? Can you also see what the right hand is doing?

Full on stuff! But the more and more of these modalities and exercises you can build into your practice the stronger the memorisation is going to be. Then you can forget about it (so to speak) and just play!

As always, there is more than one way to skin the metaphorical cat, so let me know how you go about memorising the music you play.

 

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