• Thinking: What a Concept! Part Two
• Jungle Out There, Part Three

When it comes to my growth as a player, I have always been more interested in how a great player practices, than in how they play. When I watch them play, I am seeing the result of their practice. But I want to know how they GOT that result. So I want to know how they PRACTICE.

And when I want to understand how they practice, I look for one thing: how do they THINK about what they are doing? How do they think about this thing called "playing the guitar"? Whenever I discover something about how a great player THINKS, I immediately start experimenting with thinking that way, and understanding where that way of thinking is coming from. I recommend it to all of you.

I can remember various times when I would hear or read a comment from a great player, and that comment would give me great insight into how that person THINKS, the ATTITUDES that he or she uses to look at the world through. I would then follow that thought process, I would adopt that "view point", and look at things in the same way. That would lead to new discoveries. I would "see" things they had seen, because I was using the same thought process, looking out from the same "point of view".

Some examples: I read of Pepe Romero advising a student who was having trouble with shifts to "focus mentally on the muscles that make the shift". Now, this said worlds about how a great player, known for his great technique, thinks about the technical aspect of playing the guitar. I immediately began to study anatomy, and think along the same lines. The results were incredible.

I read of Carlos Santana talking about how when he plays, it's only good if it makes him cry. This said so much about the state of emotional intensity and involvement that a great player experiences internally while playing. It means there is no room for mediocrity in the emotional content of our music, and our relationship. It means that WE must be moved by our own playing, or composing, or no one else will!

Julian Bream has talked about getting the correct "flow" and "feeling" into his arpeggios. This told me that this great player works very much from a kinesthetic sense of the connection between how his body feels while playing, and the sound that he hears. It also said that he achieves his musical goal while playing by an intense focus on the desired outcome.

So, I recommend to you that you become very interested in how great players THINK (and feel) about what they do. What and how a great player thinks about what they do determines what they do. And what they do, day by day, determines what they become. That is true for all of us. For non-players, simply enjoying a great players playing is enough. But for us players, we need to dig deeper than that.

Many, and I may even so most, guitar students do not really, truly, and constantly THINK when they practice. They are more like a fighter in the ring who keeps swinging blindly, with his head down, so he doesn't even see what is going on around him. He's blindly hoping he will be effective and successful, but most of the time, he's in for a bruising! How do we get to be "thinking guitar students"?

Thinking is a "turning of the wheels" mentally. However, you must make sure the wheels have some "grist" to churn while they are turning! In other words, a large part of the thinking process is the taking in of new information, so that it can be processed, combined and re-configured with existing knowledge, and thereby lead to new insights and discoveries. There are two ways of taking in new information: the people we meet, and the books we read. Make sure you make full use of these resources as they are available to you. Not all of us get to hang around great players, but all of us have access to books written by and about great musicians, and great people in general. You should ALWAYS be taking in new information, processing it, and using it. Understand that READING and THINKING are intimately connected. The person who wants to grow to their full potential READS, and also makes sure they find and recognize who and what is most worth reading!

In my teaching, I have one central overarching goal: teach the student how to teach themselves, and that means teaching them how to think. That is why my book deals with the "Principles" of practice. A "principle" is an "avenue of thought". When we have a problem to solve, we need to look at that problem from the viewpoint of the appropriate Principle, and let our thinking process be guided by that principle, and see where it leads. This is walking down the "avenue of thought".

One of the Principles of Practice says "if a mistake is being made in playing, it is always because the finger needed to play the note is not relaxed and ready in the right position BEFORE it is required to move to the note". This is an "avenue of thought" I often walk down when I have a problem. By contemplating this principle, I am led to discover the answer to my problem, or at least a part of the answer.

The "answer" to our problem is contained within the problem itself. Thinking is the process by which we truly define, and then penetrate the problem, and bring it into focus, so that the answer, which often appears as a new direction to move in, begins to materialize. The Principles we use to guide our actions will determine where we travel, and how well and how far.

Prelude to "Jungle: Part Three"

I had no idea when I published the excerpts from a certain guitar teacher's letter to me last week, that his stated belief in the absurdity of the average person aspiring to greatness would bring in such an interesting response. He happened to use Michael Jordan as an example of "unattainable excellence".

So a number of people wrote to me with an interesting bit of news about that god of basketball players, good ole' Michael.

It seems that Michael (I am a kid who wants to grow up to be a great basketball player) Jordan, while in High School, was dropped from the team, because his coach thought he had no potential! People wrote to tell me that this teacher's viewpoint and supporting argument were actually proven wrong by his own example, Michael Jordan!

In other words, Michael Jordan once had someone tell him he could never hope to grow up to be Michael Jordan!

The truth begins to emerge, doesn't it?!! And, the truth will set you free!

Don' be afraid to connect with your deepest desires, and believe that you can bring out of you what you feel is in there. Listen to the voice INSIDE you, not the voices OUTSIDE you.

There is a field of study, called "expert performance". It is basically the study of "people who are great at doing something", and trying to figure out why they are the way they are, and how they got to be that way.

Anyone who begins to turn their thoughts to the subject of what is called "expert performance", begins to notice a few things. The first thing that will strike you is how often you come upon the fact that these "expert performers" had the experience of very early instruction with "expert teachers".

Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Liszt, John Williams, the Romeros, Tiger Woods, all world class performers in their fields, and all recipients of excellent training, while very young.

Then we learn other things. We learn that these people, as the years went on, began to make their respective fields of study the focus of their lives. This brings about a crucial developmental stage. At the end of this stage, the person emerges, like a butterfly from a cocoon, as an "expert performer".

We notice other interesting things as we study this subject. We notice an interesting historical trend, where in any field of human performance, an individual will emerge who is far superior to anyone around him at the time. He is able to do things few, or no one else, can do. Then as years go by, usually one or two decades, more and more people pop up who can do the same things, just as well.

When Paganini, the great violin virtuoso of the 19th century came on the scene, he was so far beyond the violinists of his day, that people thought he had made a pact with the devil. He jealously guarded the secret of his technique, and would scoop up all the music from the orchestra after a concert so no one could study it. One enterprising fellow followed him around to spy on him and learn the secret of how he practiced, but only managed to peep through a keyhole one time and catch him lightly stroking the violin strings (that should ring a bell with you Principled Players, Light Fingers, anyone)!

As advanced as Paganini was, nowadays, any average, ordinary professional concert violinist can do what he did. The same is true of that icon of classical guitar in the 20th century, Andres Segovia. There are thousands of people the world over who now play at his level of technical ability, due to the advancements and increase of education in the study of the classical guitar.

There are many more examples of this in the field of music, and sports, (such as the 4 minute mile). They all serve to illustrate the fact that when we are wondering about our own ability to achieve a new skill, such as playing the guitar, there is every good reason in the world to absolutely abandon the way of thinking that says "some people just have a gift for it, I don't", and to adopt the way of thinking that says, "there is a method that can be used by anyone to develop this skill, and it is simply a matter of discovering that method, and USING IT!

I am deeply indebted to an early user of "The Principles" who is doing graduate work in this field, and sent me an article from an issue of "American Psychology". It contains much relevant material on this subject, as it reports on the results of scientific research done in recent times. So, thank you Cynthia for that illuminating report.

Here are some excerpts relevant to our discussion:

"The role of early instruction and maximal parental support appears to be much more important than innate talent, and there are many examples of parents of exceptional performers who successfully designed optimal environments for their children without any concern about innate talent".

Translation: whatever age you are, the most important thing for you to do is NOT to ask whether you have talent or not, but to CREATE your own learning environment, teachers, books, practice time, etc., and constantly use it and improve it. The "talent" will follow.

"It is possible to study and analyze the mechanisms that mediate expert performance. The critical mechanisms reflect complex, domain-specific cognitive structures and skills that performers have acquired over extended periods of time. Hence, individuals do not achieve expert performance by gradually refining and extrapolating the performance they exhibited before starting to practice, but instead by restructuring the performance and acquiring new methods and skills. INDIVIDUALS IMPROVE THEIR PERFORMANCE AND ATTAIN EXPERT LEVEL NOT AS AN AUTOMATIC CONSEQUENCE OF MORE EXPERIENCE WITH AN ACTIVITY (MORE PRACTICE) BUT REATHER THROUGH STRUCTURED LEARNING AND EFFORTFUL ADAPTATION!"

Translation: this statement is extremely important. It means that get to be good or great is not a matter of "doing more of what you are already doing, or tend to do" (refining and extrapolating the performance they started with). Getting better, becoming good or great is a matter of acquiring NEW METHODS AND SKILLS. And these methods and skills can be TAUGHT. They can be copied by anyone, you, for instance, and when you do the same things, in the same way that the experts do, you will get the same powerful results they do!

"Our analysis has shown that the central mechanisms mediating the superior performance of experts are ACQUIRED; therefore acquisition of relevant knowledge and skills may be the major limiting factor in attaining expert performance."

Translation: This says it all. The "central mechanisms", the key things that make an expert an expert, are ACQUIRED! They are GOTTEN somehow, not inborn. Now, guess how they are gotten? By proper instruction and proper practice, that's how! And the better the teacher, and the more diligent the student, the faster the process!

Do you realize what good news this is for all of us who want to be great guitar players? It means it is entirely possible; it is just a matter of finding the correct methods, and learning how to use them.

Do you realize what good news this is for all of us who just want to be able to play well, to be "good" guitar players? That is even easier, because it takes less time! There is absolutely NO GOOD REASON why anyone who wants to play well is not able to learn how to do so. There is absolutely NO GOOD REASON why anyone who wants to get better than they are cannot do so. There are, however, lots of bad reasons.

When the misguided teacher whose remarks I published in last week's newsletter told me I was wrong in saying anyone can learn to play as well as they want to, he was, in reality, wrong. He is, in fact, ignorant of the true state of affairs when it comes to learning advanced skills in particular areas. He wishes to perpetuate the myth and cult of the "gifted artist", and exclude others desiring entry into the special club. He will help those who already have some "talent", and he will limit and harm others who don't.

When he said " your method could cause a marginally talented person to think they have done something "wrong" when they have followed the formula and failed.", he really missed the whole point. The main idea is to realize that if you have "failed", if you are not getting results from your practice, you ARE PRACTICING WRONG! And the sooner you realize that the better!

Likewise, if you are not getting results from your lessons, the lessons are WRONG, not you!

Let me end by making one last point. When I say anyone can become as good as they WANT to be, the operative word is WANT. What people SAY they want, and what they REALLY want are often two very different things. It is easy to SAY you want to be a great guitarist; it is another thing to back that up with your actions. Here is another interesting excerpt from the above quoted report:

"Expert performers design their lives to optimize their engagement in deliberate practice".

The term "deliberate practice" means the kind of practice that is designed to cause improvement. In sports, it would be considered "training", as opposed to just "playing the game". For musicians, it means effective, correct practice intended to create an improvement in actual playing ability, what I call Vertical Growth, as opposed to just "playing the instrument".

The report goes on to talk about how expert performers will generally arrange their lives so that they can practice at least 4 hours a day, and will arrange an afternoon nap so that evening hours can be utilized for more practice. This is exactly what I did when I was young. , I took a nap after school, and later after my part time job and spent the rest of the time practicing the guitar and studying music. No, I didn't keep up my grades in other subjects, and just got by as well as I could. I felt I had started guitar and music late (age 14) for my goals. I had no musical training as a child, and felt a great pressure to prepare myself to be able to do music for a living. So, I would never allow anything to stand in the way of my practice, and made many sacrifices because of it, but I was determined that it would be guitar first, and everything else about life second. That is how people act when they REALLY want something. If I had had the advantage of the kind of training that I can now provide for people, I would have made incredibly better progress in half the time, but you do what you have to do! (Would that have made me do my homework? Probably not!)

So, I stand by my contention that with the right information and the right approach, anyone can become as good as they WANT to be on the guitar. Most people have more modest goals with the guitar. Many people write to me and tell me they don't intend to be great on the guitar, they just want to be good, and I think that's wonderful, and absolutely possible for anyone. I am dedicated to making it possible for anyone.

I was thumbing through a book today, and came across a quote that says exactly what I am always trying to get across to my students:

"Great people are merely little people expanded, great lives are ordinary lives intensified". (Wilfred A Peterson)

Believe it, it's true. Do all you can to expand yourself. Do all you can to intensify your life.

Hi Jamie:

Last year I opened a popular music school, and I plan to use your book as a guide to the guitar classes. I hope you don't mind.

Carlos

No, Carlos, I don't mind at all, I am quite happy about it, and hope to see it happen more and more. I believe it should be the foundation of anyone's approach to learning the guitar. Good luck!

Hi Jamie,

I received the Principles book from you a few weeks ago here in Australia. I'm just writing to say thanks and let you know the immediate effect it has had.

Along with a few other contributing factors in my life (it's funny how a number of significant things co-inside) the principles in your book have helped me turn a corner I've been stuck on for the last few years.

Nearly everything in the book is a well-articulated point that I've heard before, but I feel like you've put a thread through all of them and pulled it tight bringing the disparate pearls of wisdom into a single bag of jewels.

As a teacher I feel very responsible for the influence I can have on the foundation of my students' playing. I have a new stronger belief in my ability to do this thanks to your shared experiences and ideas.

I don't want to sound too over the top - but I understand the excitement YOU must get when someone like me tells you what a difference you've made.

I look forward to continued correspondence if I find some ideas and experiences of my own that I think would be relevant to your website and the people it reaches.

Thanks once again

Elliott F

Yes, Elliot, it is very exciting, and inspiring to me to know that my work is making a fundamental difference in the lives of guitar players, and especially the people teaching them! Thanks for writing, and I hope to hear more good news!

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