• Working Full Time & Finding Practice Time
• Tension At Lower Frets
• Mel Bay Checkpoint - Key of A Minor

Dear Jamie,

I have been reading most of the stuff you have been sending me...I live and work in india and of late the pressures at work have made me kind of overlook my practice schedules with guitarplaying....i am too tired mentally to sit down and give it my all...wondering if you could give some tips on rejuvenating my mind before every session

thanks
Hobby

Yes, Hobby, that is a real issue for all of us. I have always hated practicing when I am tired, so I have always arranged my life, from my teenage years, so that I am never tired! I do that by taking a nap every day.

I learned early on to divide my time so that I slept on period of 5 or six hours at night, and 1 or 2 hours during the day. This keeps me at maximum energy to practice to about 2 in the morning, which is what I did for many years. Now, of course, that will not fit everyone's lifestyle, but sometimes it didn't fit mine either, when I had a fixed teaching schedule, or one period in my life when I actually had to work a job that required one full day a week (the other days were half days).

I would work in even a 15 minute nap, and that would simply rejuvenate my energy enough to avoid feeling completely unable to concentrate for practice. I would sleep in the car between lessons when I drove to students, whatever I had to do. My nap was (and is) sacred to me, because my ability to work productively throughout the day and night depend on it. One time I worked in a supermarket, and used my 15 minute break for a 15 minute nap. Even if you don't fall asleep, you consciousness lowers, and can be remarkably refreshing. This technique is taught to high level executives in major corporations, by the way, and some even provide "napping rooms" for their employees, because they realized this is one of the cheapest and most effective ways to boost productivity. Winston Churchill (an enormously productive individual) once said "I recommend an afternoon nap in order to obtain the most from the human structure", so, we are in good company!

I was surprised when I was doing some research for an essay on achieving expert performance to find that this practice was found to be common among high achievers in various disciplines. Here is an excerpt from my essay "It's A Jungle Out There" that addresses this.

From "It' A Jungle Out There":

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!)

Tension At Lower Frets

Hi Jamie,

When I do the exercises " all aboard" , "the ladder" , "the butterfly" and so, it's almost ok at the 7th fret but when i try to move them, let's say to the first fret i have some difficulty with thumb and fingers keeping them at the right angle, the first fret seems to be to far to hold my fingers with the knuckles at the right angle towards the strings, I'm sitting with my left foot up some books like shown on your picture "sitting positions" I feel I'm not relaxed when it comes to fretting at the first frets. I feel something is wrong cause the difference in tension at 7th and 1st fret is enormous.

Can you give me some advise?

All the best,
Wim


Hi Wim,

No, nothing is wrong. The difference in the requirements for hand strength and stretch from the 7th to the 1st fret IS enormous, and usually underestimated, as you are doing, so a student thinks something is wrong. My student Jim who comes in once a month from Chicago thought he had genetically inferior hands because his left hand got nowhere in a year and a half of lessons he had taken before coming to me.

It has taken him about six months to get really comfortable and strong with good form at the 1st fret, carefully working those exercises down the neck, on the lookout for loss of form and extra tension. Of course, his hand has developed wonderfully as anyone's will who does things the right way. So, be patient, only push the demand on the hands a bit at a time, give them time to adjust, as well as giving the entire body the time to learn to be relaxed while the hands are meeting those increased demands of strength and stretch.

This is your chance to change your life as a guitarist, as Rick from Belgium did over the summer, after taking the workshop and a private lesson:

Jamie,

I wanted to give you some post-lesson feedback. It's been about a month since the workshop and our 3 hours of lesson time. I want you to know I'm really reaping the rewards of your one-on-one instruction BIG TIME.

In the left hand, I immediately felt 100% more control of bends and vibrato, suddenly I have a "mature" sound. Now my fingers have quieted down and stay close to the strings. I'm so much faster and feel less stress, and less stress leads to more endurance, etc. It's a long chain of trickle down effects that's hard to sum up in words. I just know that being shown how to do everything technically correct, is saving me a lot of growing pain. It's cool - I feel I'm learning new riffs much faster!

My picking technique is also much improved, I'm faster and have accuracy like never before which I notice in string skipping riffs and arpeggios. It's a powerful feeling to know you can hit the string you have in mind. Using the metronome and learning 1/4, 1/8, and 1/16 notes tuned me in to rhythm. You must play with intention! I look forward to continuing this journey to mastering the guitar. Thanks for setting me off with the right principles.

Shortly after your lessons I had to stop playing for 4 days because of travel hassles. I had been suffering from some tendonitis in each elbow before the rest period, but afterward it was gone. Since I've begun again, using your method, I've been practicing more, but feel no new occurrences of the tendonitis. I think it's the bio-mechanics!

I'm a new man.

Thanks VERY much - Rick

I got one of your recent newsletters and actually finally read it.The article was "MAKING IT". It was really a great article. I actually feel better about playing the guitar and continuing this journey that I embarked on 3 years ago.

What is really strange is that every time I hit a hard place which is like every couple of weeks, I encounter some ray of hope that pulls through to continue. I personally believe that it is God who is trying to keep me going in music. I thank you for all your help in this journey.

Fellow aspiring musician,
Richard Rios

Jamie,

Just wanted to say thanks for your continued generosity in writing these newsletters. It's funny how they often seen to arrive at just the right moment.

I've been playing 30 years, and play rather well in many people's eyes, and can work on a fairly high level. For example, when the symphony here needs guitar, they call me (which has led to such things as playing with Pavorotti and the entire orchestra - an awesome experience).
However, though it seems impressive to some folks, playing a job like that really only requires owning a tux, showing up on time, remaining confident while surrounded by seriously good musicians.

Anyway, to get back to why I wanted to thank you: despite a certain measure of musical "success" (and hey, certain amount of musical failure too! <g>) my particular weakness has long been a recurrent feeling of hopelessness about improving. It began many years ago, when one day I suddenly realized that not only did I have no idea how to get any better, my efforts were making things worse!

So I continued to play for money, but for some years I didn't try to improve at all, because I didn't want to go backwards (paradoxical, isn't it?). You could say I gave up. And as you just wrote, when you do that, you "live with some degree of torment about it" and I can attest that that is true.

Your book came along a few years ago at time when I was really searching again for answers to this dilemma, and immediately I knew it was right. I already knew locked-in tension was a problem for me (I started playing with symphony-level musicians at 15 or 16, way before I was really ready, but at that time a guitar player who could read at all could get the gig).

The book linked up with other things I'd known for years, like Roberts Robert's dictum to "practice so slow it is impossible to make a mistake." I knew that was right in 1975, but never understood just how slow "slow" really meant. I mean, he said it: "so slow it is impossible to make a mistake" but somehow never understood until seeming it laid out in your book with metronome markings. Four clicks per note at MM-60?!? Or slower if necessary - "so slow it is impossible to be tense!" Duh! Why couldn't I see the obvious for so long?

To close, even these days, with a much better idea of how to practice, I often fall back into the old habit of feeling that nothing is really going to help and that my playing is stuck. On those days, you could say that I've heard the truth, but don't really know it ("To Know and Not Do is to Not Know) but it really is remarkable how your essays show up with the right inspirational message at just the right time.

It is obvious these essays cost you time and effort. A mega-media corporate bean-counter would say don't bother, why spend time and effort on people who -already- bought your product? But I say the essays are in many ways more valuable than the product I bought, because they help keep people like me on track and reminded to keep looking for the truth in our own path and our own playing.

In a mega-media corporate bean-counter world, I'm been amazed again and again that you continue to take the trouble to write them and send them out free, and today I thank you for the help they've been.

Best regards,
Bill M

PS. If any of that sounds like the kind "gushing" that guy was complaining about, so be it. And as far as "cult-like": no. I think your central theme is the opposite of any kind of cult and could be stated as "Learn to see yourself and your playing directly, as it is. Stop waiting for someone with a magic wand to appear. Forget about magic and do simple, basic things at a deeper level than you ever imagined possible. Decide for yourself how simple and deep you want to be."

Following is a lesson on the fundamentals of understanding the minor tonality. If the links or images don't appear you can access it on the site.

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