People are so sloppy in their use of words. Everyone commonly uses words the meaning of which, they have no idea, nor do they much care! It is unfortunate, because when we do try to understand the meaning of the various words we use -their real meaning, the meaning that called them into being in the first place - that understanding gives us power.

"Practicing" is an interesting word. If people thought about that one for even a little bit, they would be forcefully brought to the inevitable conclusion that whatever it might be that they do when they sit down with a guitar to get better, it sure doesn't deserve the word "practice". To "practice" means to "do", not to "try". We wouldn't go to a doctor with a medical "practice", and have him "practice" on us, unless we felt pretty confident we were going to see some RESULTS, and hopefully, the ones we want! If all the patients that go to a doctor stay sick, or die, I don't think the doctor is "practicing", at least correctly!

No, I think we feel justified in expecting at least a good number of a doctors patients to get better. But people will still say "I have practiced guitar today" when, day after week after year, there is actually no change in their ability to play. They do not "get better"!

Most often, when we properly examine a word in order to understand its real meaning (the purpose for which it was called into being, and the understanding that is the core of that word), we realize one thing very strongly: we realize that we truly have no idea of what we mean when we use that word! We just use it because everyone else does. We actually have no clue as to what it really means, and, if we check around, we will see (as Socrates saw when he made everyone he spoke to examine their own words), no one else does either. This is a very hopeful step, because it means now we have a chance of discovering the real meaning of the word.

Practicing Is Training

If guitar players did that with the word "practice", they would think of the activity more along the lines of the word "training". It is obvious that guitar practice is supposed to be more like "training" in the sense an athlete would use it, or even in the sense of a "dog trainer". If you took your dog to weekly training lessons so he would stop biting the neighbors and pooping in the house, and you found yourself still getting sued, and still trying to get the stains out of the carpet, well, I don't think you would say that "training" is occurring. You would conclude that perhaps SOMETHING was occurring every week, but it wasn't "training" because nothing has been trained!

That is how guitar players should think of practicing. They will then realize two things:one, "practicing" is not what they are doing, and two, they need, really need, to find out what practicing is. They should set about doing so. They should go on a quest to find out what practicing is, so that they can make that "training" happen, so that they can see results that translate into being able to say "hey, I can really play the guitar, and I can keep on getting better"! After all, you'd look for another dog trainer, wouldn't you?

Of course, if you are reading this, and know of the existence of GuitarPrinciples, and "The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar", you have already come to the end of your quest! Anyone who reads this newsletter, and all the material on the site, cannot fail to understand what practicing the guitar, and getting better, is all about.

To Exercise Means To Use

Another severely misunderstood word in common use is the word "exercise", and Lord knows, guitarists do a lot of exercises! And, there are tons of books full of exercises, and most guitar players own at least a few of those tons! So, it would behoove all guitar players to understand the inner meaning, the subtle meaning of the word exercise, what it is, and what it isn't. Then, you may discover a few disconcerting facts: no, you are not ever doing real exercises, and no, you don't know what real exercises are, either! You may find that, instead of doing exercises, you are taking tests. And that is not good, because exercises are done to GAIN ability, and tests are taken to measure and prove ability, they do not give it.

Many guitarists play scales. Many guitarists play scales badly. Many guitarists practice scales badly. That is because for them, a scale cannot be an exercise, it can only be a test. It cannot be used to gain ability, so it will only test the ability. And the guitarist who has never done the exercises that would eventually lead to being able to use a scale as an exercise to gain ability (and those exercises are contained in the Foundation Exercises found in The Principles), will fail the test.

To exercise means to use. When we exercise judgment, we are using judgment. To exercise means to call upon something to be used. In order to do the exercise, we must be able to call upon things we already have that need to be used in order to DO the exercise (not TRY to do it), and we must use those things we already in the doing of the exercise. Doing the exercise will cause changes to occur, and new abilities to develop. That is the whole purpose of any exercise, to use something we have, to get something we don't have.

The things being called upon develop with use. But the right changes will only occur if the right things are being called upon in the first place, and used in the right way. Otherwise, wrong changes may occur.

A scale for a guitarist is extremely complex. It calls upon many already developed skills from a player. Many players do not have, at the time they begin scales, the required skills that need to be called upon to DO a scale, really do it properly (relaxed and independent finger action). So they call upon what they have, and what they have are weak, unco-ordinated fingers that cannot presently operate with the independence needed to execute a scale reasonably well. As they use their untrained fingers, and untrained shoulder and upper body muscles (all of which have everything to do with playing the guitar), those overly tensed and strained muscles force unprepared joints and ligaments to act in a highly un-coordinated manner, and guess what: the wrong changes occur! Incredible tension, which the student is not paying attenion to, and is trying to ignore and play through, locks up the fingers, arms, and beyond, and so is locked into the muscles. Remember, bad practice does make us better; at playing badly, that is!

What happens from bad practice is a lot of un-coordination, a lot of tension, a lot of missed notes that get worse with speed. Also a lot of frustration and other nasty stuff. Because of the powerful effects of muscle memory, the player in this condition who does not figure out a way of dealing with all of this, becomes like a knot that is just being pulled tighter as time goes by. Bad practice keeps making the knots tighter.

REAL Excercises

Real exercises for the beginning guitarist hardly exist. The real things that need to be done and that CAN be used by the beginner because they call upon abilities the beginner already possesses, are not to be found. You will only find the things that are only possible to be done really well by someone who can already do them. What can be used by someone in the seventh grade cannot be used by someone in the second grade, and from a technical point of view, all guitar methods begin around the seventh grade.

A real exercise is something that, when it is really done, causes a change. A real exercise has power, because power is the ability to create change. When we really do a real exercise, it changes us. That is a big part of practicing the guitar, really doing real exercises.

A real exercise is both a question and an answer. It is going on a quest, and it is arriving. A real exercise takes you somewhere, it is an experience, it trains you, it teaches you.

The genius and the genesis of a real exercise is in the asking of the right question. A question is, don't forget, a "quest", it is a looking somewhere. If you don't look in the right place, it doesn't matter how clearly you see what is there! At any given time in our development as guitarists, there is a "right question to ask". There is a right place to look, and to find, there is a real exercise, to be really done. Being able to find the exercise, and to do it, is what being able to practice is all about, and being able to practice is what being a great guitarist is all about.

In the beginning, the right questions to ask are "how do I hold the guitar, and how do I touch the strings". Of course, those questions are also asked repeatedly through the life of a player, and new answers are constantly given. The key is to be able to begin the quest. The Principles, and the Foundation Exercises are a way. There certainly are other ways, but I suspect they would all contain the essentials of the way that I have created (and of course, I never could have "created" it without a lot of study on what others have said and done).

Understanding The Principles, and knowing how to use them on the Foundation Exercises (the set of basic exercises contained in "The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar" that gives the student the truly proper foundation of technique required to play well and continue to get better), enables anyone to truly practice the most basic and necessary exercises for guitar. Those exercises change the student, the mind, and the fingers, gives them power to create change, and begin the quest. Doing the exercises correctly takes you somewhere, gives you, your body and mind, an experience, and that experience becomes part of what you are as a player.

After working with the Foundation Exercises, you are not going to find it so easy to mindlessly allow your body to retain knots of tension as you practice, knots of tension that you don't know about, and are not paying attention to. Your mind will understand, and your body will feel the danger and discomfort of doing so. They will feel it because doing the Foundation Exercises for the left hand will have introduced you to what it is supposed to feel like when you touch the string with your finger, and not just for the finger, but for the whole body.

You will have experienced what it is supposed to feel like as groups of fingers move across the strings. The difference between this and the usual "death grip struggling" performed by so many students is astounding. Thousands of players have testified to it, and thousands more will.

Finding The Right Exercise

Great players have a genius for finding the right exercise for themselves at any given time. This is because they know how to think, and because they are driven by great passion. These qualities give them the drive and the insight they need to ask the right question at any time, and so, to teach themselves. The first step in finding the right exercise is to know what we want, absolutely and with crystal clear clarity. This is why many players cannot practice or find the right exercises. They don't know what they want. Because they are at the level of development they are, they don't know what they SHOULD want. They don't know what to listen for, what they should be feeling physically as they make their moves, and what they shouldn't be feeling. Often they don't know they don't know what they want, and that of course, makes it hopeless.

The second step of finding and using the right exercise is to know what we need in order to get what we want. It is one of the primary functions of the teacher to teach the student what they should want, and what they need to get it. The third step in finding the right exercise is to know whether we are in fact getting what we want. If not, we need to continue our quest and our work.

As we practice, we discover ever deeper levels of what we need to get what we want. For instance, perhaps I am learning a hot lick by my favorite player. The first level of what I need, and should want, is "to play it like it sounds on the recording". After practicing it, I should test myself by recording it to see if I have gotten what I want. If it doesn't sound like the recording, more intense work is needed, and "exercises" must be developed.

This is done by continually asking "what is wrong, why is it wrong, and what can I do to make it right?" Of course, there may be twenty things wrong, and twenty things needed, but with experience, we learn to take them one at a time. Perhaps the bends are flat. Why?

We start from the known, from what we can observe, and then inquire further. Well, in order to be in tune, the string must be bent a certain distance. I am not bending it far enough, I am trying, but it isn't happening. Why? Perhaps it is my exact hand position, arm position, thumb position, etc. You investigate like Sherlock Holmes, you think, you observe. Perhaps I notice that I am trying to bend the strings only with the effort of my fingers, and perhaps I notice that it doesn't look like what I see really good players doing.

You devise an approach. "If I keep my thumb over (like I read somewhere on GuitarPrinciples.com), and use it to oppose my fingers, while at the same time using forearm rotation, and conduct that power through my firm fingers, rather than relying totally on finger strength, (as described in "The Anatomy of a Bend") I can get more power to the string and bend it more, with more control. Oh, goody!

But, ooh, that hurts. Yes, but the first time you either make the right thing happen, or do something so that the right thing is more likely to be able to happen, it will probably feel a bit weird, but you have stumbled across an exercise! The right question has been asked, "what do I need to get what I want", and the exercise, because it has brought you what you need, or closer to what you want, has answered in the form of "do this, and you will get what you need".

How I Developed The First Foundation Exercise

Another illuminating example of how to create the right exercise is how I developed the first exercise in The Principles. I was teaching a 70 year old man who had been trying to learn to play for many years. Well, he couldn't! It became clear to me that he was so locked up with muscle tension with every move he made that he could not make one movement smoothly, or play two notes in a row evenly. It was clear I would not be able to teach him anything at all. All his previous teachers could only "pretend" to be teaching him by keeping him busy learning more things to play in the same lousy way he played everything else.

So, I observed, and I asked questions. What do we need here, and what do we need first, before anything else? Well, as I observed poor old George, I saw he was tense from the moment he began to take his guitar out of the case! He could not even sit with the guitar and stay relaxed, even when not trying to play anything. So, how about we learn to simply hold the guitar and be relaxed? How about, before I try to teach this guy new strums, or how to fingerpick, I teach him to do something much more basic than that, and something he CANNOT do right now: simply sit with the guitar with his right hand in position, and maintain that position, and stay relaxed; no movement, just stay relaxed.

True, he could not sit with the guitar and remain relaxed. When he sat with the guitar, he tensed up without even moving a finger! But what he could do was become more aware of that tension, feel it more, if he sat and only focused on the feeling in his body as he sat with the guitar, did not try to use his hands, and merely tried to be aware, and relax any tension he felt.

So, an exercise was born, a doing of something that was possible that would lead to the ability to do something not yet possible. So, I told him "go home, sit for an entire minute in the right position, with your right hand in postion over the strings, and just stay that way, don't move. Pay attention to your body and your breathing, observe the tension arise, and release it. Do this many times a day".

And that became Foundation Exercise #1, The Chair, and it was the beginning of George being able to make music that deserved the name music. I realized two things: George would never have played the guitar well without me having done that, and that this exercise was part of the solution for many similar people struggling to play the guitar.

No matter what it turns out to be, or how much trouble it is to find it, you must find the right exercise for each playing moment. Not doing so is like trying to sew before you have managed to thread the needle! Finally finding the right exercise, the right "doing", is like threading the needle, you will notice as you sew (practice) that things somehow manage to stay together better!

Speed

Now, understand that since we are dealing with "body learning" here, one very confusing element is speed. Everyone thinks they want speed. You don't want speed, because speed is the RESULT of other things, it cannot be "gotten" directly. It appears when the other things are there. You cannot play scales fast simply by trying to play them fast. Exercises for "speed" very often don't look like exercises for speed at all. If you saw me practicing some of my "speed exercises", you may think I need somebody to wake me up before the battery on the metronome wears out! Speed comes from relaxed control, and as I go about developing that relaxed control, I may be moving about as fast as a snail with no particular place to go!

I may have noticed that when I play a certain scale, I break down at a certain speed because my 4th finger tenses every time I use the 3rd. This origin of this problem with "speed" has nothing to do with speed, and the right exercise for it won't either. I need to train my 4th finger to not tense when my 3rd finger plays. The exercises I may have developed for that, to take me where I need to go, and give my fingers the experience they need, may make someone watching me wonder if I know how to play the guitar! (it will involve various tools and exercises in The Principles such as posing, no tempo practice , the gradual pressure technique, and string pushdowns) Building speed, and practicing the scale fast will certainly come in to play at some point, but only after this kind of work has acheived its purpose. And this kind of work will be continually returned to, and interspersed with speed playing.

Finally, understand that "testing" is important, in fact, vital. Many players get stuck because they do not test themselves properly. They never check to see if they can actually DO what they have been working on. They stay forever in the "putting it together stage". Testing, in fact, is a part of the "exercise discovery process", it tells us if we need to work to solve problems by finding the right exercises (and the answer is usually "yes, we do!).

Principled players should read "The 3 Stages Of Practice" (Chapter 5 in The Principles) for a fuller understanding of this process. Good luck to everyone in finding the right exercises, and doing them in the right way, to move your playing forward.

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I very much appreciated this letter from Donna, our "teacher in training" in response to my whining last week:

You are absolutely NOT AN IDIOT! Instead you are someone who is dedicated to speaking the truth and making great players, rather than a quick buck. I have noted in my 42 years, that when money is the ultimate goal, there is way too much compromise and the outcome is never what it could truly be.

I want to thank you again for your relentless, hard work at spreading the truth about guitar playing; and not making profit your number one goal. I think that is the downfall of so many guitar teachers and guitar methods. I would have never had the confidence to teach if I had not had the principles behind me. I truly want to be a great teacher and a great player. And, through your teachings, I know I can get there. It just takes hard work, but the work will pay off. Unlike all the years of my practicing that didn't pay off. I, myself, have such a long way to go and so much to learn/unlearn. Angie is so very lucky to begin learning through using the principles.

Just the other day, I was talking to a woman and her daughter who are taking lessons, but not using the principles. The mom told me how she switched to electric guitar because acoustic was "just too hard". Then she started to tell me about her struggles with bar chords. I fervently told her that she needs to get on your website and get your book. So many players are territorial about their "secrets" of playing. They either don't know why they are doing what they are doing, or they want to keep it to themselves. Thank you for spending so much time figuring out why you can do what you can do and for sharing it with the world.

Somewhere in the Bible it says, "The truth shall set you free". What you have done is shared the truth with guitarists and it is setting us free from the struggles of awful practice technique so that we can become the guitarists and musicians that we want to be. I have no doubt that the Principles will become the guitarists' bible (it is mine already) in due time.

Yesterday, I received a demo from a classical flutist. He recently lost his guitarist (a classical guitarist) and wants to work with me. Me? I am floored I know I would not have the confidence to work with him if I didn't have the principles behind me.

So, I'm going to go for it. I know that all of us who have learned from you would dare not forget where are skills have come from. Anyone who asks me how I can do what I do, is told to go to your website. And, btw, you should really consider writing another book or two or three or all the essays you have written. You are an excellent writer. I am just finishing up reading a book called "Zen Guitar". I has been a good read, but your essays contain everything and more than is in this book. You have pulled from lifestyles, virtuoso players, the everyday player, religions, etc. Your scope of intelligence is always amazing me. You deserve to be making some income from your essay writings! I find that over the last year, I just thumb through Acoustic Guitar Magazine, because I would rather read what you have to say - which is the truth.

Very Sincerely,
Donna

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