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.

Active Learning, Self-Awareness, Conscious Application

It's become very apparent to me lately that I've been taking very much a passive, rather than active, role in my own learning, particularly with regards to engaging with material when I practice.

I'm not just referring to working through patterns or exercises without thinking of the notes involved or the contexts to which they might be applied, but also on the much more basic (and fundamentally important) level of physically playing the guitar. This concept and it's application (or lack of) seems to me to epitomise the problem of things being taken as being 'obvious' - and just because we know something, we don't necessarily apply it as a conscious and consistent part of playing.

I recently took a guitar lesson where the first exercise was to play 10 individual notes, and after playing each one, to rate it from 1-10. It took me a good 10 minutes to grasp what I was being asked to do - play 10 notes, one at a time, anyway you like; loud, soft, dull, bright, muted, with vibrato, maybe bend it, the list goes on... What this exercise pertains to is the translation of what you intend to play, and how close this is to the actual sounds you make when you do play. I found this to be enlightening and scary in equal measure - my average was 8/10. This doesn't sound too bad until you consider we're talking about single notes played one at a time. What this means is that the average note I play on the guitar is only 80% as good as it could be. Scary.

This might seem like a very pedantic and overly-analytical way to look at playing an instrument, but think about it a bit more and it makes sense. Everything else - double stops, chords, flashy solo runs - are made up of single notes. If each note isn't as good as it could be, it stands to reason that neither are any of the above - neither is the rest of your playing, in fact.

I'm not suggesting that for each chord I play, I'm now starting to pick out each note and trying to 'hear' it individually - I don't think I could do that anyway. What it does force me to think about is applying this idea to my playing in a very active and 'aware' manner. Firstly, by consciously assigning a 'purpose' to a note/chord/progression before I play it and attempting to implement the rating exercise until it (hopefully) becomes second nature. Secondly, I'm starting to experiment with different chord voicings, and thinking in terms of what sounds good or appropriate in context versus what is physically convenient to play on the instrument. Clearly the 'best sounding' note or group of notes might not be playable in the time in which you have to play it/them, so you start thinking in terms of which parts of a piece you find most musically important, and to structure your playing around emphasising these parts.

That's taking things from a very basic to a very advanced level, and this whole concept is a life-long part of study rather than something to master in a few weeks or months, but without being aware of it and actively applying it to practice you're never going to be as good as you can be, which is surely the ultimate goal of any musician. It certainly is for me.

I suggest you try the exercise for yourself and you'll see what I mean. Once you've done it a few times - even as a warm-up when you practice - it'll start to become a constant state of mind, and I think you'll feel the benefit pretty quickly, as I am doing.

Combined with the thoughts that will follow this entry, this is now starting to form a much more informed way of playing for me, helping me to think about what I want to play and how I want to play it. I'm still a long way from being able to do this fluently (as improvisation, for instance) but I finally feel I'm taking a few tentative steps in the right direction.

To paraphrase Jerry Donahue; starting to become more of a ‘guitar thinker’ than a ‘guitar player’.

Too Obvious?

Having already begun to think about and write down some things I'd like to cover in this blog, I can't help but notice that I seem to be using the phrase 'this might seem obvious but...' an awful lot.

The problem with the 'obvious' is that it's often assumed and therefore seldom stated. This seems to be a particular problem when discussing ideas that are seen to be relatively 'basic', or when the person teaching a concept has become so familiar with it that they can't remember what it's like to find that concept completely alien.

It's highly likely, then, that I'll end up repeating a lot of things ad nauseum. Firstly, I'd like you to consider whether you are quite as familiar with the concept in question as you think you are. Whether the answer is 'yes' or 'no', I'd ask you to read it anyway and see if you get anything from the way I'm thinking about it, or to see if you can suggest anything which may help myself or others to get more from it. If the answer is still 'no', then my apologies.

I'd rather overstate something and look slightly daft for it than to assume a person is already familiar with it or finds it clear first time round and thus render the concept completely unreachable for them. I've been there and it's not cool. The main purpose of repeating it is that I have to do this myself to drill it into my own head, and for the most part it takes an awful lot of drilling. Hopefully this will help to make the approach or application I'm thinking about clear - if the content I'm trying to apply is new to you then there are tonnes of lessons you can find through Google that will probably explain things better than I could, and may provide you with a perspective which you find more useful than mine anyway.

Welcome to My Head

As this is the first post in my first web-log, it seems like a good place to say 'Hello' and to provide an outline of the purpose behind the entries that will follow.

I say 'entries' rather than 'articles' because what I intend is to use this space as a jotter or notebook in which to scribble my thoughts as I explore various musical concepts and ideas, rather than as somewhere to post complete and structured pieces.

Though I have been a student of music, and specifically the guitar, for 5 or 6 years, I cannot claim to have progressed as far as this time frame might suggest. Lately I have found myself revisiting what could be considered some very 'basic' ideas in order to aid the understanding and application of more 'complex' ones. Far from being tedious, I have found this to be (and continues to be) enlightening, specifically where an old concept has been presented to me in a new or different way, and one which resonates with me and gives me ideas. In many cases what has been relatively blurred for long periods of time has been cleared up almost instantly. This is very refreshing and exciting for me, but also frustrating that I could have gained a much better understanding of a concept much earlier were it presented differently. I hope this will save at least one person a lot of headscratching, time, and feeling at a dead-end musically.

It is, therefore, the manner in which ideas are presented as much as the ideas themselves on which I would like to focus. I find there is no shortage of material in tuition books or magazines, but that the variety of content is seldom matched by variety in ways of interpretting it. This may sound obvious (indeed, a magazine article couldn't possibly present an idea in five different ways) but I also find it very frustrating. I personally gain much more from the active discussion of ideas with other musicians than from years of reading textbooks or following tuition method books (though these have their place also).

What I hope these scribblings will provide is food for thought and fuel for discussion. Any ideas I might outline are in no way intended to be 'final' or anywhere near 'complete' and I certainly wouldn't claim to be 'giving someone a lesson'. I expect to learn just as much as, probably more than, those who feel they would like to read, comment on and contribute to these ideas.

The content will doubtless start with very simple ideas, but afterall, these are the foundations of more complex ones. If you find something confusing, unclear or plain wrong then please say so. Likewise if you find something of use. The best outcome is if someone can suggest and extension to, improvement upon, or alternative approach which will open even more doors, both for myself and others!

It's unlikely anything will be covered that hasn't been before, but I thought it may be interesting to document the process of my learning a concept as it is fresh and evolving, rather than once the information has been fully absorbed and 'solidified' within my understanding (if a concept is ever fully 'understood').

I hope that what I've written sounds not pretentious, but clear and makes some kind of sense. I hope you will feel free to contribute and that we can provide some really helpful ideas for anyone who finds themself stuck in a rut musically.