Practicing and Developing Ideas

The subject of practicing has been something of a frustration for me for quite some time now. I often find that when asked to play something which involves applying a concept (previously discussed) to the guitar, I struggle, and nine times out of ten I’m not able to do it.

If you’ve ever failed miserably in front of, or said to a tutor that you “can’t do” something, you’ll probably know the look that most of them will give you – it’s sort of half disappointment, half disbelief, with a hint of superiority and a pinch of smugness – after which they’ll sigh and grudgingly go back to the beginning.

The assumption is that I clearly haven’t practiced the material – if you practice you’ll get it, and if you don’t get it, it’s clearly because you haven’t practiced. This assumption is, to my mind, complete rubbish and rather naive.

Seldom do people seem to think that maybe a student is putting the effort in, but is simply not using that time as effectively as he might, or doesn’t know how to practice. This is hardly surprising really, because no-one has ever told me how to practice. I’m not assuming that there’s a ‘proper’ way to practice, what I’m saying is that a lot of teachers seem to make no allowance for the method they initially present to a student not working for that individual. Thus, they don’t think to suggest different ways in which the same subject matter may be approached.

Finding the methods that work for me is the sole purpose of this collection of writings, and it’s very slowly coming together thanks to a few people who, instead of rolling their eyes, are happy to help me bounce ideas around and generally chat about ideas until something clicks – something for which I’m extremely grateful. I'd like to sincerely thank good friend and all-round guitar monster Nik Harrison, who always has something enlightening and inspiring to say, and is happy to share it. You can check out his work at:

http://guitargetpractice.blogspot.com/

http://www.youtube.com/user/nikharrisonmusic

What I’d like to outline quickly is some ways in which an initial idea may be expanded upon, for use in practice with a view to building up an archive of ideas for playing in general, but in particular reference to improvisation (which I also find incredibly difficult).

I think these are probably guidelines which many of you other players will have internalised already, but as with many things I need to state them in order to keep them at the front of my mind. Where I’m at currently is trying to come up with a short phrase – maybe just three or four notes – over a static chord and then to make conscious decisions as to how I’m going to develop that particular idea.

I like to think of improvisation as assembling pre-conceived ideas on the fly – sort of like trying to build a house with Lego bricks but no instructions. Whereas in practice you can take all the time you like, improvisation demands that you assemble the house within a given framework – against a stopwatch if you like. It just occurs to me that Scrapheap Challenge would provide another (and in my case perhaps more suitable) analogy.

Clearly you have to actually come up with a phrase to begin with, but once you’ve done so, what options are there to expand upon and develop it? I think a useful way to do this is to break up the phrase into a couple of different ‘properties’ –

-notes

-order of notes

-rhythm

With longer phrases, it’s also worth considering the general ‘shape’ or ‘direction’ – that is to say whether the idea in general ascends or descends. Within the rhythm of the overall phrase, you can also look at changing the time value of each note. Just by identifying these simple attributes, you can start to experiment with the various permutations these give. For example:

-repeat the idea as it is

-repeat the idea up or down an octave

-repeat the idea up or down a different interval (within this you could change notes to keep the idea diatonic, or simply shift it by the interval and use the chromatic notes for a particular effect)

-keep notes and order the same, but alter the rhythm

-keep rhythm and order the same, but alter the notes

-keep notes and rhythm the same, but play the notes in a different order

-reverse the order (play the idea descending rather than ascending, and vice versa)

There are probably many more ways I haven’t thought of yet, but I think this provides a good basis for starting to get some ideas together – all these are options before you even begin to consider the various techniques you could use to play each phrase!!! I’m going to end this particular section now, or I think it will start to undo itself – the purpose was to outline a ‘way in’ to what I find a very daunting area of playing, where there are so many options it can be difficult to know where to start. The important point is to try as many things as possible, to remember the ones that sound good and don’t play the bad ones again.