• Make It Practical, Not Personal!
• The Necessity of Crystal Clear Conception of the Music

In his famous essay "Self Reliance", Ralph Waldo Emerson said "to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true for all men - that is genius". Well, whether doing so will necessarily make you a genius or not, I'm not sure. But, I have found that at least checking out the possibility that what is true for me in own heart is true for others is certainly a policy that can lead to very interesting, and often enlightening results.

One area where this is so is not, as you may think, the area of all my wonderful thoughts and feelings, but rather, the area of all my worst parts. I have found throughout my life, almost without exception, that all the parts of myself I am least happy with, least proud of, the parts that are the most crazy and downright destructive in my life; I have almost always found these parts to be shared by my fellow humans.

To put it in plain English, no matter how crazy I think I am, I can feel confident and consoled in knowing that there are a whole lot of people out there at least as crazy as me!

And in addition to making me less alarmed about myself, this awareness has often led to things that are quite useful to myself and others. One of these things (surprise) has to do with practicing the guitar! And, it is something that, when understood, can have a fundamental, and I mean major, positive effect on your progress. In fact, it can begin, determine, and continue, the very course of your movement forward. Needless to say, I instruct all my students in this understanding.

Here is what I am referring to. I have noticed while practicing, that if I listen real close to the "inner voices" (which often simply have no real voice, but are only feelings), if I listen real close at those times when I am having trouble with something and am just not able to do something I am trying to do, I hear a particular voice that comes from the part I affectionately call "crazy Jamie".

This "crazy Jamie" voice says, "well, personally, I think the reason it's not working out, and you can't do it IS BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN'T DO IT! It's as simple as that. Just face it.". Now, I have to tell you, I usually don't listen to this voice for too long. But I know that it has often stopped me in my tracks, and most importantly, it prevented me from looking further for a solution to my trouble. I would realize this later on, when I would find the solution (maybe a year later!). I would realize that I could have seen it much sooner, if I did not stop and listen to that voice, and because of that, not really, not powerfully, not with my full brainpower, looked for solutions, or at least a new direction.

Erase that! The problem is not really that I stopped and listened to that voice. My mistake was that normally, that voice is droning on, like an undercurrent of feeling which rises up when the going gets tough, and I never really AM listening to it, it is just droning on and affecting me
nonetheless! When I do really stop and listen to its pathetic little whining, I tell it to shut up and get out immediately, which it does! And then I get to work right away, thinking, experimenting, and learning. These days, I have to admit, I'm pretty good at it!

Now, here's the thing. I have noticed from my observation of many hundreds of people that this little inner drama is very often going on in their heads as well! I don't know how, but we all caught this thing, or at least a whole lot of us. Every time we hit some bump in the road, we make it PERSONAL, not PRACTICAL! We don't even question it! Every time something doesn't go our way, a little voice in our heads is ready to tell us that it is probably our fault, anyway, and we have no right to expect anything better.

Somehow, this bad thing that happened is a reflection and a statement on our basic nature. It's like what soldiers talk about when the guy next to them gets shot. They feel guilty because they didn't get shot, they somehow feel responsible for what happened to the guy next to them. Or a little kid when his parents divorce; they always figure it is their fault. It's like "Our Fault by Default". In our minds, the imperfections of life somehow become our fault by default; unless we really use our intelligence to see through this.

If, for example, you are trying to do a fast little lick on your guitar, and you keep screwing it up, and can't seem to get it, what happens? You get a little upset, you try again, same thing happens, it's all messed up. The more you try, the more messed up it gets. That crazy little voice starts playing, "you just can't do it, you're not good enough". As if to defy it, you keep on trying, and keep on proving the voice is right (or so it seems). A lot of the time, a good helping of self pity will be added to the mix, as in "man, I should be able to do that, it's not fair, this whole guitar playing thing stinks!"

Now, what should happen? Something more like "hmm, let me see what those fingers are really doing at that spot. Oh, it's the pick, I keep missing the string with the pick right there. Oh, I see, I tense my wrist right before that, and that is why I miss the string. I think I'll try some no tempo practice here and focus on that, and work it up with the metronome. And I think I'll do that every day for 15 minutes for the next month, and see what happens." Now, THAT is making it practical, and not personal.

So, here is my advice. BE LIKE THAT! At least when you practice the guitar. When you are having a problem with something, don't make it personal. Make it practical. Observe, think, then observe again. Understand the relationship between the sounds you are making (or not making) and the way your fingers are behaving. Understand the relationship between how your body feels and the way your fingers are behaving. Understand the relationship between what is going on (or not going on) between your ears, and how your body feels, and how your fingers are behaving.

Examine yourself very honestly and see if there is a glimmer of the feeling I am talking about at those times when you are having a problem with the guitar, especially when it's "throw the guitar out the window time".

And finally, if by any chance it turns out that I AM the only one who has ever felt this way while practicing the guitar, please, don't tell me. I don't think crazy Jamie could handle that!

In the old days, (1960's), when an aspiring rock guitarist wanted to copy those licks that Hendrix or Clapton was playing, they had to take that vinyl record and wear it out by picking up the needle and playing the same spot over and over again. One of the tricks was to slow the music down by playing the 78 record at 45rpm's, so the individual notes could be heard more
distinctly. You hoped that the music would get into your ears before the record wore out!

It was true then, and it is true now, that it is absolutely essential for the practicing musician to get the music into their brain and body through the ear, first and foremost. This is especially true for any kind of rock music. It cannot be learned (as can classical), just by having the notes or tab in front of you. Like flamenco guitar (another "folk" or homegrown style), there are too many nuances to the style, too many details that can't actually be written down exactly. This music must be heard, and absorbed through the ear.

It is our crystal clear conception of the music, each note with all its qualities of tone, length, rhythmic position, articulation and volume that act as the guide to our brain as it directs our muscles to reproduce that music. Often, the root of a player's inability to play something correctly is they simply do NOT have this crystal clear conception of the music itself, each and every note.

These facts have been appreciated and stated by many great musicians over the years. Paco de Lucia, the flamenco wizard with his blazing speed has said "the secret is in learning how to listen"! You wouldn't think it was such a big secret, since we're all supposed to be listening with those two ears we have, especially when we practice and play. But, we don't. And when
someone like Paco says something so simple, my advice is to, well, listen!

One of the ways I developed my ability to "listen" and to "hear" with the degree of subtlety and precision required for more advanced playing, was to begin the practice of slowing down to half speed with the aid of a micro-cassette recorder, everything I played and practiced, and also, doing the same with the playing of the great players I admired. The improvement and benefit I obtained has been absolutely essential to my development as a player, in short, I don't think I would play at the level I do without making this a part of my practice approach.

If I was practicing a fast scale, I would play it, then play it back at half speed, examining every note to make sure it was right in all its aspects. Of course, often I would discover that the note wasn't even there, which would lead to a whole series of investigations as to why it wasn't
there (where were the fingers that were responsible for playing that note, why were they where they were?).

Over time, I noticed that I was developing what I called "ear speed", the ability to hear and distinguish all the qualities of a note, even though the notes were extremely fast (which really means that the notes are extremely "short" in length). In other words, because of my habit of slowing things down as part of my working procedure, my ear was getting "sharp", and it
reflected in my playing.

I found that the "ear speed" was translating into "finger speed", as my brain was able to give more precise instructions to the fingers as to when and how each note was to be played. (Of course, physical tensions must still be uncovered and removed during practice, or the fingers will not be able to respond to the instructions anyway.

One of the problems in copying our favorite electric guitar player is that so much of the music is so fast, it is quite impossible to make any sense out of it whatsoever. Even with the tab staring at you, the ear and brain often cannot really organize the sounds into discrete units that can be
comprehended, digested, and processed into the fingers through persistent, correct practice. Of course, the greater the gap between your present level of ability and the difficulty of the music, the more this will be the case.

For awhile now, I have been taking various pieces in my repertoire, and assembling from my CD collection recordings of the same piece by different artists, and slowing down certain sections to half speed with a micro-cassette recorder.

It is amazing how you begin to get a handle on those incredibly fast scale passages when you hear them over and over at half speed. You can begin to actually "see" and "feel" the notes after awhile. Its like your mind and awareness are able to get into the space between the notes, making you aware of the beginning and the end of each note, and what the body actually does to create the beginning and the end of each note. I maintain that this is the same awareness the player who is playing the fast scale passage actually has, although it may be subconsciously.

It is also very enlightening to hear the different solutions, in terms of phrasing and fingering that different players will use for the same passage. I remember one particular examination of a passage that taught me a lesson.

I was working on the Villa Lobos Etude #1, and trying out different fingering solutions. There is a G note on the 8th fret of the 2nd string that must be played right before an extremely fast shift to 12th position.

I was curious how John Williams (who plays the 16th note passage at 144bpm) played this part, so I made a loop with Slow Gold of the section to study it. Quite to my surprise, I was able to hear at ½ speed that in fact, John Williams did NOT make this shift from the fretted G note on the 2nd string. Instead, he changed the music, making the Gnote and octave lower, thereby
enabling him to play an OPEN G note, giving him a lot more time to make that needed shift to the 12 fret. Later, studying Segovia's recording the same way, I found he did the same thing.

I wonder how many players are wearing themselves out trying to do things they THINK the great players are doing!

After studying this part in that manner, my ear speed improved to the point I could hear the note quite distinctly without it being slowed down.

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