Tag: practice

Guitar Practice? Go Hard or Go Home!

Nicole Neal3 Comments

Hah hah! Go hard or go home – a phrase borrowed from various training partners and competitors that I used to hear bandied around a lot when training for and participating in bicycle racing (days long since banished when I realised the risks were relatively high of breaking a collarbone, arm, hand or other fairly important appendage for a guitarist!).

Now this phrase is full of machismo, “I’m harder than nails me” sensibility which is really not what we’re about in learning and crafting our art on the guitar. It’s not that element of the phase that I’m talking about.

What I am talking about is the element of perpetually challenging ones self. Not physically, but mentally and musically. Not taking the easy option to play what is known, but to tease out knots, to sight-read, to develop technique. That is what I mean by “going hard”.

Now I’ve just literally this weekend come out the other side of an extremely busy 6 months or so. This busy-ness has meant I’ve had to cut back on my practice time – that’s ok; there are things one needs to turn ones attention to in life aside from the guitar (believe it or not!) from time to time.

But now is time to climb back on the metaphorical bicycle, and get back into some good solid practice with the guitar again.

So in my practice sessions this weekend I got to thinking about a former training acquaintance of mine on the bike – every couple of weeks I saw him it would be “ah yep, been off the bike a while so just doing something easy“. He was always doing something easy. Never pushing himself, never challenging what he could do. Perpetually using the excuse of having been away and doing something else as a reason to coast and just tap the pedals over.

I thought to myself “I don’t want to be Coaster Guy! I don’t want to use the excuse of just easing into it“. Not that I ever really do or did, to be honest, but I like to check in with myself to make sure I’m not falling into the coasting trap! It’s easily done.

And so I got to thinking of that phrase “go hard or go home“. I got to thinking about it in terms of the challenge it urges one to take every time one straps on a pair of running shoes, steps on a bike, or something else physical and I applied that to my approach to guitar practice.

I emphasise that this is not about physical challenge (that should never be the case with the guitar), but a mental challenge. Challenging myself to solve at least one issue per session. I’ve said this on many occasion on this blog, but to progress on the guitar (and any other instrument), you’ve got to have some very focussed, deliberate practice to progress. Practice focussing on the bits you can’t do so well yet, and being mindful of how you’re working those knots out as opposed to practicing in mistakes by playing the same thing over and over. And focussing on the bits you can’t pull of so well yet means things being a little bit tough.

I read a great little article this week from the AMEB website about practice, which echoes a lot of the advice and thoughts I expound on this blog. And I enjoyed one paragraph in particular:

Skip the easy stuff!

Let’s face it, we LOVE the easy parts. I love to hear myself fly through the passages I have down pat, only to slam on the brakes when it comes to a new or difficult section. Don’t waste time practising what you can already play well. Go right to the problem sections at the start of your practice time and sort them out first. Just playing the easy parts may be fun but it is not productive. Tackle the hard stuff first!

From http://www.ameb.edu.au/top-10-practice-tips-for-2014

So now it is time to climb back on the metaphorical bicycle, and get back into some good solid practice with the guitar again. No excuses. So I challenge you to go hard or go home too! Challenge yourself mentally and musically with every session and experience your playing really progress.

One Of The Most Important Skills In Developing Your Classical Guitar Playing

Nicole Neal3 Comments

There is one skill in learning classical guitar and any other instrument for that matter which, if you don’t cultivate it, will seriously stymie your development.

What is that one skill?

Focus.

I’ve spoken about focus and its power and importance to learning and playing the guitar previously on the blog. I strongly believe (and have evidence from my own development) that short, focussed, regular and consistent practice sessions are waaaaaaay more beneficial for your learning and progress than longer, meandering sessions. For what reasons hopefully this will become apparent.

I’ve just finished reading a book this week called Focus The Hidden Driver of Excellence by psychologist and journalist Daniel Goleman. Not a bad book, goes off on a few interesting tangents and drifts away a little at the end (not focussed?!), but has some pretty cool and potentially useful insights as well as some good reminders about focus and its importance. I highly recommend you check it out.

One of the topics discussed by Goleman is that of the “top down”, thinking brain system and the “bottom up”, automatic brain system. The former requires a lot of energy, your brain draws down quite a considerable amount of power when asked to perform “top down”, puzzling it out tasks, or address something new and novel. The latter, the automatic brain system, requires much much less energy; it’s the brain on auto-pilot doing something its done thousands of times before, pre-programmed movements.

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This is why when learning a new piece, or puzzling out which fingers go where, is seemingly so tricky. You’re asking your brain to do something new, and that something new requires a lot of energy. It’s a natural human thing to want to conserve energy, and flip back into the automatic “bottom up” system, so this is probably why it seems so tempting, just so darn easy to just slip back into playing what you already know.

But it’s really worth persevering with the new, mentally hard stuff, I promise you. Slipping back into playing what you already know is not really helping you learn and develop (that is unless you’re drilling something you’ve already nutted out, is more or less sorted already and are committing it to memory). Aiming to do some stuff in each practice session that stretches you mentally is how you make progress.

Think about it – when you’re first starting out learning to play you have no choice but to go through that brain-melting “top down focussed state. Then you start to get to grips with things a little more, a little more, and you can play some tunes. And then comes a choice – (a) carry on down the path of always relatively easy, non-challenging, but not really developing as well as you might or (b) stretch yourself again and again, treating a part of each practice session and each lesson as if it were the very first, and watching and hearing yourself really develop.

Classical Guitar

My top tips for attaining focus and tuning into your “top down”, learning state:

Well, some days you’re going to be more in a focussed kind of headspace than other days, but there are a number of things that can help you get into the zone and ready for some good quality, focussed practice:

  • Think about what it is you really want to get out of your practice session before you start it and think about the things you might need to do to achieve that. Don’t just go into it mindlessly.
  • Chunk down your work on a piece or a technical exercise into small bite-size chunks. Focus on one thing at a time. Focus on getting that one thing right. Focus on what you’re doing, how you’re doing it and the sound you’re making. Focus on consistency in your playing and approach to whatever it is you’re working on. This is when you can start sending things down into the “bottom up” automatic system in the manner that you can build upon without tripping yourself up each time you come to play it.
  • Always aim for quality in a practice session over quantity. Don’t worry about time, other than breaking things down into small chunks. Work in whatever time periods feel right for you. If you’re not used to quality, mental concentration then the first periods of time will be quite small. That’s OK.
  • Avoid the temptation to check any incoming messages or calls on your phone, tablet or computer, emails or calls. Set you phone to silent, flight mode, turn it off or leave it outside the practice room.
  • Focus on the task at hand. Don’t concern yourself with what’s coming up in the rest of your day. Lay aside for a time any concerns, worries, day-to-day kind of stuff and just be present, right in the moment for your practice. Give it all of your attention and energy for that period you’ve set aside. And enjoy it!
  • And don’t chastise yourself, or force yourself if it’s not happening for you. Don’t struggle on with it – put your guitar away for a while, do something else and come back to it later. It takes practice to get focussed too – rather like the classical guitar the more you try it, the easier and more automatic it becomes 😉