• Measuring Your Progress
• Love Me? Hate Me?
• From Our Readers

In order to make Vertical Growth as players, there are some very important conditions to be met. One of these, and one very often lacking in a player/practicers approach, is a systematic, scientific, method of measuring results. Of course, we all probably have some vague sense of whether or not we are actually making any progress as players. We all probably have those pieces or songs or leads we check in with from time to time to see if we are able to play them any better.

But to really kick your progress into high gear, you need something a little, scratch that, a LOT more focused. You need a system. You need routines that you can apply to various situations, routines that give results, and provide the feedback on measurement of results that you need to assess the effectiveness of the routines themselves. You need to know whether a particular routine you have devised to solve a problem or improve something is actually working.

Imagine going in to a gym to work out, and expecting to get results by randomly picking up weights each time you went in. How about, even worse, you never remembered what you did the last time! Sometimes you would work out with fifty pounds, sometimes a hundred. You know what would happen? At best, not much. At worst, a lot of sore or damaged muscles, and wasted time and money (but at least it would get you out of the house)!

Yet that is what many guitarists do when they practice. They will be working on, say, an arpeggio study or scale, and they will have no idea of the top speed they are able to play it, the speed at which their present level of development allows them to play that particular passage of music or exercise, before beginning to "fall apart." And it is very important to know that!

Otherwise, you will have no idea (or not a clear enough idea) of when you have made progress, when you have gotten results from a particular practice approach. Just as a bodybuilder must know what weight they are presently able to lift or press so that they can work out with the right amount of weight at their particular point of development, musicians must know the same thing when it comes to their technique, which is THEIR athletic ability to produce music on their instrument.

This means that if I am working on a scale, I must know the top speed I can play it. I must work up to that speed every day. I must then apply certain practice routines designed to get me past that top speed, so that if today I can play it at 120 beats per minute in sixteenth notes, I will be able to play it at 132 bpm next month.

And how do we do that. GET A METRONOME AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT! I swear, I should start my own metronome company, given the number of metronomes I have been responsible for having people buy over the years! It is required for all my students. I cannot produce results with students if they don't have a metronome, and know how to use it effectively in practice routines.

And once they do know how to use it, they have a powerful method and tool for learning things ON THEIR OWN. Then my role as teacher becomes more of showing them higher levels of playing, and introducing them to more complex situations that will be solved by using the same practice routines they have used on the ones previously mastered.

Here are some ways to apply these understandings to your immediate situation:

1. Get a metronome, and use it for all "technical" routines. Use it especially for all routines designed to increase speed, i.e., all scale and arpeggio studies;

2. Determine your top speed as soon as possible when learning a new technical exercise. This is the speed you will work up to each practice session;

3. Determine as soon as possible exactly where the exercise or musical passage breaks down as you go past your top speed;

4. Isolate those notes, analyze the movements of both hands required for producing those notes, AND FIGURE OUT WHAT IS GOING WRONG at that speed;

5. Move the metronome to much lower speeds, and look for the BEGINNINGS of those wrong things happening, and work with them there, at the beginning. For instance, if my top speed on a Gmajor second position scale is 120 bpm, and I notice at that speed my pinky is getting so tense it is beginning to pull away from the string, I will LOOK FOR THAT STARTING TO HAPPEN AT A MUCH LOWER SPEED. Once I see that (which I never noticed before), I can work with it there, fix it at the lower speed, and then I WILL SEE THAT PASSAGE START TO GET STRONGER, HOLD TOGETHER AT THE HIGHER SPEEDS.

The more you understand and DO these things, the more you will have the great confidence and pleasure that comes with knowing you can always make yourself a better guitarist because YOU KNOW HOW TO PRACTICE!

Love Me? Hate Me?

Well, the "Cyber-Wars" are continuing, as my writing is being posted around the Web, some people are hating me, and some people are loving me! Why do I keep re-creating my personal life in my professional life? Because I can't help it, that's why. I guess it's like this; just be who you are, and some people will love you and some will hate you, but nobody will be in the middle! Here are two samples:

Don't insult our intelligence. Your posts are nothing more than blatant advertising, which is not welcome on the forum.

How stupid do you think we are? You write as if your audience are all 4 year old mentally handicapped people. It reminds me of those silly "Perfect Pitch" ads and Tony Robbins way of pitching his books. A lot of hot air which tells us stuff we already know. So you've actually come up with your own terminology for everyday stuff. Wow. You have a really low opinion of people if you think they will part with their money so easily after reading your marketing hype.

Same thing with your website. Tone it down. You are so verbose, it's like you want to tire the audience into giving up and sending you money. Can't you be more succinct? Oh yeah, I forgot, you think everyone is really stupid and will fall for your marketing hype and bullshit.

I guess you are counting on the "there's a sucker born every minute" theory. Good luck.

I definitely got the feeling this person doesn't like me!

Fortunately, there are those who have ears, and can hear. So, I get a lot of these kind of responses too, usually from the more experienced and mature types:

Wonder how much better the self-appointed "Spam Police" would play if they read this essay with an open mind and applied the FREE knowledge generously offered here instead of throwing a tantrum.

Having played guitar for over 30 years and having taught guitar for almost 20, I can assure you that (A) Everything I've ever read by J. Andreas is 1st rate info and (B) This IS NOT spam...this is sharing knowledge...he gave VALUABLE ideas without ANYONE having to buy ANYTHING. He merely makes this info available, and if you want to buy his course, you certainly may access his website, but it's not required.

Thank you Stephen and Jamey for being so generous...please ignore the less-mannered folks. The hostile and threatened attitude of the first writer is very unfortunate, because he is preventing himself and others from getting something very valuable. Here you have all these people hoping that someday they will grow up and be great guitar players, maybe even do it for a living, and then they meet up with someone who IS a great guitar player, and did grow up and do it for a living. and spends a lot of time working to convey HOW to do that to other people. And these players cop an attitude!

The following reaction to last weeks essay was very gratifying to me. The writer relates his own experience, and makes some very insightful observations about a lot of what passes for "teaching" and "teachers." As exciting as it is to get that "talented," or "gifted" student, I have
personally always found it more exciting, interesting, and satisfying to help bring out in the "untalented" the ability for artistic expression they so desperately seek. And when I say desperately, I mean desperately, as evidenced in the story cited below:

Thanks for your wonderful, generous-hearted essay...reminds me that I once had a piano teacher in college who responded, after my third lesson in which I asked for advice on how to smooth out my scale playing: "You are not gifted. You may withdraw from my class now and I will give you a passing grade."

It seems from this, and perhaps from the quotes you offered from Bream and Segovia, that the attitude in much of the musical world is that the role of a teacher is as much to discourage those students who don't live in talent paradise, as it is to enable those who do.

There's a sad short story by Somerset Maugham, written in the early days of last century, in which a wealthy young man returns from 4 years in Paris where he had devoted himself completely to musical practice. His one goal is demonstrate his progress to his old teacher...who responds with faint praise. The student commits suicide, realizing that the teacher's message is a verdict: "You will never have the magical spark that it takes to be really great--you are not gifted!"

Perhaps I, too, am not "gifted," but I'm certainly motivated enough to have stuck with music for over 30 years since then, as a guitarist, and it still brings me increasing pleasure, despite the "teachers" I've had! Looking forward to getting your book ASAP.

Thanks again,
David Coffin

I've been poring over your book and some of the material on your great web site. In a very short few days you've catapulted me into a whole new rich world! When one comes across new information on a subject, the 'power' of the information can be verified by it's practicality and how quickly it starts to feel like common sense.

Bringing intense awareness to my bodies changing states of tension, No tempo and Posing are just such marvelous new concepts for me. I can't thank you enough, it's huge!! My hands have already lost a lot of the pain I have been carrying around with me as an accepted 'fact of life'.

With gratitude,

F. Cahill

All material copyright © 2003 by Jamie Andreas, GuitarPrinciples.com