|
|
The
Principles of Practice
Based on "The Principles of Correct
Practice for Guitar"
by Jamie Andreas
|
| IN
THIS ISSUE |
March
25, 2001 Volume 37
|
Q & A - Keeping Tempo
From March 4 (here is the other question I answered from the March
4 newsletter, which many people did not receive, and asked for.
It is an extremely important topic I hope you will take to heart
in your practicing, and in the demands and standards you place upon
yourself as musicians): I visited your web site today for the first time and I just
wanted to say that I found a lot of useful information regarding
guitar practicing. Reading some of your essays, I can't help but
feel more enthusiastic and motivated towards practicing and improving
as a player.
What originally brought me to your web site is that I was searching
amongst some sites for information regarding timing. I need to improve
my timing, as I have a tendency to slow down the tempo or speed
up. I can't hold a steady tempo for sh*t ! This is a bummer right
now for me, because I play rhythm guitar with another classical
guitarist.
We do a lot or restaurant/café gigs as a guitar duo. Playing
without a percussionist I need to be much more attentive to the
"rhythm section". I am making the both of us feel very
frustrated because I can't play a steady tempo, which in turn makes
my friend screw up on the lead parts, then he gives me flak, etc.
.. I really want to improve my ability to hold a steady rhythm.
I practice a lot with the metronome. What else can I do? Is it just that I need to keep practicing with the metronome?
Should I sing the rhythm mentally to myself when I am playing, to
help me be steady? I must admit, the guy I play with (who is a much
more advanced guitarist) can be intimidating sometimes. He is a
good friend and we try to get gigs to make some extra money. Sometimes
I play good, most of the times I can't hold the tempo steady and
it really gets him frustrated. Then I get ticked off when he starts
giving me flak due to my lousy timing. Sometimes he even ends songs
prematurely at the gig, because it sounds like crap with the lousy
tempo.
I just want to be able to hold the tempo steady so we can really
start to truly enjoy playing our gigs. With the added frustration
and pressure I am feeling these days, sometimes the gigs are not
fun. I always feel I am going to get reamed out. I am not a guitar
virtuoso, but I need to be solid on my timing as a rhythm guitarist,
this will help the songs to have a better groove and the better
we sound, the more gigs we can get.
Is there any essay on your site regarding the topic of timing?
What can I do? I appreciate any help. Thanks kindly for your time
and cooperation. Keep up the good work on your site! Jim D
Toronto, Canada Hi Jim, No, I haven't written an essay on that, but I am going to put it
on my to-do list! Jim, this subject you have brought up is one of
THE most important and fundamental aspects of musical activity and
development that we MUST be concerned with. You have no idea of
all the implications of the problem you are dealing with, and all
of it's causes. That is why I would need an entire essay on it to
lay it all out clearly. But it is so important that I want to say
a few words here, and at the very least, to let all my readers know
that they must work with this problem themselves, because one of
the things I want you to realize is that EVERYONE does suffer from
this problem to some degree. You just happen to have a severe case,
so it is showing itself in a very noticeable way.
Here are the main points to consider, and realize:
ALL guitarists have a tendency to "rush" the tempo. ALL
"rushing" of the tempo can be traced to two factors. One,
an actual lack of CLEAR awareness of the beat, so that the brain
cannot really compute the correct signals to send to the muscles.
Two, locked in muscle tension from years of bad practice that make
the muscles actually unable to respond to nerve signals, even if
they are given on time. Excess, and unfelt muscle tension "pushes"
us along timewise. I guarantee you that if you are playing and then
discover you have rushed the tempo, you will discover, if you stop
and look for it, excess and unnecessary muscle tension in the muscles
of the "playing mechanism".
That is why, as always, it gets back to "correct practice".
Here is a good image of how the muscle tension makes it impossible
for you to keep a tempo. It's like you were walking along the road
trying to keep a steady pace, and somebody kept coming and pushing
you on the back, tripping you and making you scramble to keep your
balance, and doing a few quick steps forward till you regained balance.
You must eliminate the tension that is "pushing you on the
back". It will happen especially at all the "hardest"
parts of whatever you are playing. The reason you can't change it
is because you are simply not aware of it as strongly as you need
to be. Believe me, if you were sitting in front of me, I would MAKE
you aware of it. But you have to discover it for yourself, and you
can do that by doing this: Take that metronome and choose something
you can play with NO TROUBLE. Take just a piece of something, one
verse of a song perhaps.
Get a tape recorder and record yourself playing to the metronome.
Listen back with FULL ATTENTION and make sure you have stuck to
that beat. Keep going over and over and over it until you come out
with the correct result. Move the tempo up a bit and repeat. Choose
something else and do the same thing. Wherever you lose the beat
is where muscle tension is accumulating. Your job is to discover
that tension, uncover WHY it is happening, and "practice"
it out of there with correct practice.
Until I write more on this subject, let me end by saying that loss
of control of the timing is the tip of the iceberg, underneath of
which there are many other problem situations to deal with and correct.
I have seen it in every type of player from rock to classical, beginner
to professional. I have had to work with the problem in the most
intense ways in myself, and I am very, very glad I did (and do)!
I once had a teacher who brought my sloppy rhythm to my attention
all the time. That was good. What was bad was that he did not FORCE
me to fix it. So, many years later, I had to FORCE myself! I NEVER
allow students to get away with faulty rhythm, it must be corrected
on the spot!
No one should allow themselves to go on playing another day without
addressing how this condition shows itself in their own playing. Jamie
A Question on last week's Featured Article on "Slash Chords"
Hi Jamie, In the discussion about what C/E means, you wrote "play
a C chord where E is the lowest sounding note, not the root, C."
Okay, this sounds simple enough, I would think to make the E the
lowest note on a C chord I would just not muffle the open E string
and that would do it. But you go on to say, and this is where I
get confused, "Of course, that requires a different fingering
to obtain the necessary three notes, (C, E and G for a C chord).
On guitar, you can get what you need often by just leaving out a
string in your strum, as in only strumming the first four strings
for the C chord and leaving out the root on the 5th string."
How does strumming only the first four strings of a C chord
make E the lowest sounding note? Best Regards
Jeff M Sorry for that confusion, Jeff. Here is the missing piece: the
note on the 4th string when you play a C chord IS an E. It is the
E one octave higher than the open 6th string E. And that brings
up a good point: the particular pitch (higher or lower octave) of
a note is just as important as the "letter name" itself
in terms of it's musical and harmonic effect on a chord. In other
words, I mentioned how having the E in the bass gives an entirely
different quality to the chord than having the root in the bass,
but the PITCH of that E is very important. The 6th string E on guitar
is generally too low to create a pleasing musical effect. It is
so low it will just be mu ddy. So the higher E on the 4th string
is usually used, and as I said, all you have to do is strum just
from the 4th string onward to get that. Other examples of easily obtainable "slash chords" are
: G/D (strum from 4th string on a G chord), E/B (strum from 5th
string on E chord), B7/D# (strum from 4th string on B7 chord). I
hope you realize Jeff, that if you knew the note names, at least
in 1st position, you wouldn't have had to ask that! So, maybe it's
time to buckle down and do that! (am I being pushy?)
Singin' and Pickin'
I play pre-war country blues. Clearly, singing adds tension
in one's playing. When do you recommend adding the vocals? As you
learn a piece or after you have learned and are fully relaxed with
a piece? Eric Hi Eric,
Good question, and one that speaks to a problem area for many people.
In fact, we could expand the question beyond singing, and consider
the whole idea of increasing the complexity of the demands we place
on our brains to get our body to do more things at the same time.
There are ways to go about it that work, and there are ways that
keep leading to frustration, breakdowns and "blown fuses"
(mentally). You probably already know firsthand about the ways that
don't work, so I'll talk about the ones that do! First of all, do not even consider adding a vocal part unless an
until you can do the guitar part "cold". I mean so that
you can play the guitar part with absolutely no trouble, in tempo,
no breakdowns, and all from muscle memory. That means you don't
have to even THINK about what you are doing. Understand that in
order to add the increased demand for complexity that singing while
playing represents, there must be a "free reserve of attention
available". ALL your attention cannot be devoted to the action
of playing the guitar. It's like driving. When you first learn, you are not even able
to carry on a conversation while driving. All your attention has
to go into the incredibly complex requirements of watching all the
events on the road, the movements of the other cars, deciding how
to react to all that, and still operating your own car at the same
time. You would never think in the beginning that you would reach
the point where ALL of that is done automatically, unconsciously,
without your conscious attention; so much so that you could carry
on a conversation while driving, or think ahead to what you were
going to do later on that day. But we all do reach that point, after
enough driving experience, which is after all, many hours of "practice"
that we all put in. But when it comes to playing the guitar, people try to "put
it all together" much too soon, and much too fast, and that
is where the problem in getting it all together always stems from.
So, understanding and respecting all of that, here is what to do
when working to be able to sing along while
playing: 1) Get the guitar part down cold first. Even if the guitar part
is complex (fingerpicking or runs thrown in) you may be wise to
"strip it down", simplify it down to just basic changes
first, and try singing along with that. At least, make sure you
can do that before you try something more complex. 2) Practice playing the guitar part and simply "hearing the
vocal in your head" as you play. 3) From there, play the guitar part, and just "hum" the
vocal. The point here is to slowly add the next level of complexity,
but in a simplified version that does not demand much attention
(as in remembering and singing the words). 4) Then, take just a few measures and VERY SLOWLY begin to put
it together. Rehearse a few times by playing the part and singing
it in your head. Then try doing it for real. As always, recording yourself and listening back can be a great
help in pinpointing exactly where problems lay, so they can be isolated
and worked on. Remember, if you have trouble making certain chord
changes (to the point where your tempo falls apart), then you will
never be able to sing and play at the same time.
A Pain In The Blades
Hi Jamie,
Whenever I play my guitar (usually fast stuff ( e.g Malmsteen ,Vai
etc ) my right shoulder starts to hurt, sometimes quite badly. This
has only just started to happen in the past couple of weeks and
whenever it starts to hurt I stop playing. It is really annoying
because I don't hold the plectrum very tight at all and my hand
seems relaxed.
And one last problem is when I play barre chords, my thumb starts
to hurt after a while. I think the problem with my right shoulder
could be from when I broke it nearly a year ago, but if this was
the problem then shouldn't the pain have started a long time ago? Thanks Mark Hi Mark, Mark, it is my unfortunate duty to inform you that you are one
of the millions of guitar players around the world who practice
while tension is being allowed in all the muscles of the shoulder
area, chest area, and upper back. All of these muscles are connected
to the humerus, the upper arm bone. Most players keep these muscles
in a state of chronic tension as they play and practice. It feels
"normal" after awhile, whereas you COULD have been made
aware of it right from the beginning.
You are not aware of this tension while you are practicing, you
think it is "how it is supposed to feel". When you abuse
your muscles long enough they send you a message which reads "Ouch!!!
Hey buddy, would you cut that out!"
The ONLY solution is to deepen your awareness so that you consciously
identify the accumulating tension as you are playing, and learn to
practice in a way that doesn't allow it to be there in the first
place. I have always seen this issue as THE fundamental issue for
guitar students, beginning or advanced, because if one does not
learn how to practice at this level of awareness, no improvement beyond
where you are now is possible. That is why my entire book is devoted to preventing this situation
from happening, and helping you get out of it if you are in it.
When someone comes in for lessons who has had years of this kind
of very damaging practicing and playing, I will say to them "it's
time to change your evil ways". It's not easy, but when we
realize that it is the ONLY answer, we will usually muster the willpower
to undertake it. Once we do begin to practice correctly, at the
level of awareness that I call "microscopic awareness",
then improvement is immediate. That's the good news!
And speaking of "the good news", it continues to come
in every day here at GuitarPrinciples, as more and more players
hear it, read it, and use it. Here is a note that came in the other
day from Clair in Canada (remember, this could be YOU!):
Hi Jamie,
I would like to heap some praise on you. You have changed my playing
completely. As the relaxation techniques begin to work I am becoming
steadily faster and more proficient. I have started playing late,
I am 53 and have been playing for 2 years. I have a high stress
job and this is the best relaxation therapy that I have ever come
across, especially when combined with the absence of tension inherent
in your program which I found just as I was becoming frustrated
by my lack of progress. I have been an athlete and a competitive weight lifter for over
35 years and I guess that my natural reaction to something being
physically challenging is to apply more force. That is what I was
doing during difficult passages on the guitar. Your book has, in
about 2 weeks, changed that completely. I can't thank you enough. All the best,
Clair H, Canada
Me, an Egomaniac!!??
Hi Jamie!
When I first read your e-mails publicizing your book I mistook
you for an egomaniac instead of a consummate musician. I want to
apologize for this! I thoroughly enjoyed and profited immensely
from "Principles of Practice" and keep it on the music
stand next to my other practice materials at all times.
Thank you for your obvious dedication to the guitar, music and your
fellow players. Your enthusiasm is inspiring and I look forward
to your posts as they are always helpful and relevant. Best wishes
now and in the future as you continue the important work you are
doing!
Regards,
Jim Hi Jim, Well, thanks. I appreciate that. But you know, you don't have to
choose between the two. I could be an egomaniac AND a consummate
musician. In fact, the first one comes more naturally I think, and
certainly requires less effort! And you do realize Jim, that if
I am in fact an egomaniac ( as many people believe), you have only
helped make my condition worse!
All
material copyright © 2003 by Jamie Andreas, GuitarPrinciples.com |
