The Art of Practice.

Hi fellow twangers. Nothing much to report from Tamborine Mountain. Spring is in the air down here while you Northern Hemispherers head into winter. We all feel for you.

My book PlaneTalk continues to sell all over the World from my site http://www.lorange.kirk.net. Thanks to all who order it, and the video. The lesson is also available online now from that same site, and the Slide Rule which comes with the book has become a Flash file. It functions the same way as the physical slide rule. If you're still wondering what the trick to keeping track of all music on the whole fretboard is, sign up. For the price of a lesson, you'll know it forever more.

Being a member of several guitar forums, the question of practice always seems to come up. That's what I'd like to touch on in this article.

The main thing about practice is:

Always practice what you DON'T know. Take it from me, there is an ever-growing source of stuff you don't know. The more you learn, the more there is to learn. Here are some examples of what I mean:

Start playing something you DO know, like a chord progression, or a riff or melody... whatever. You will sooner or later hit a snag in your playing. Practice that. It may be a chord shape your hand doesn't seem to like, or a wide interval jump that always stumps you. Work on it until you feel comfortable with it. You might want to simplify whatever it is. Some hands are just not designed to get around certain shapes. I know mine isn't. I have adapted my playing to suit my hands and stretch etc. No one player can play everything well, we all have limitations, so figure out how to smooth over those speedbumps. How do you know when you have? When the music sounds right.

Try playing a favourite lick or phrase, then figure it out backwards. You'll be amazed at what can come out of that approach. Try the same with chord progressions.

Try playing simple lines only using your index finger... pretend to yourself that the others were lost in some horrible accident. Then try using only your ring finger; then your middle finger. This kind of practice will help free up your left hand and get you away from the humdrum of playing everything the same way all the time.

Practice playing the same lick in several different positions. PlaneTalk reveals the trick for doing this so I won't go into detail.

Practice looking at a chord shape -- any chord shape -- then playing all the notes within it as separate lead-line notes. Make melodies of them and play them with vibrato without holding the chord down. This is essentially the secret to improvising.

Practice playing one note beautifully. Forget about lightning-speed flurries of notes. That can be impressive, but never as impressive as one note well played. It's one of the hardest things to do.

Practice singing or humming along with your lead lines. This is best done when you're alone, as it can drive others crazy listening to it. The point here is to get you thinking about melody rather than scales. It's often easier to hum a line than to play it, but if you're working on both at the same time, they eventually marry up so that everything you play you can also sing in your head.

Practice seeing your entire fretboard as a chord rather than isolated clusters of notes. We all know the three note A chord and some of us know the barre A chord at the 5th fret, but in reality, chords occupy the entire length of the fretboard. The positions follow strict rules (also revealed in PlaneTalk) and come from one template.

Many players see practice as playing the repertoire you already know. This is wrong in my view. If you already know it, by all means play it, but don't see it as practice unless you're really scrutinizing what you're playing and stopping to tie up loose ends. If you are playing stuff you already know, try imagining you're someone in the audience listening to it. It won't take long before you hear something you think you can improve on.

Remember that scales and chords and melody and harmony are all the same thing. I have always seen chords as boss and I keep track of them when I'm playing. When the chord changes, the choice of usable notes changes. The new chord shapes highlight which. This to me has always been easier on the grey matter than switching between scales and modes. The fact is, chords hold all that information in a very concise, graphic and logical way. Again, PlaneTalk reveals how.

Practice tuning your brain as well as your fingers. Try to get a grip on how music fits together. Once you understand how scales generate chords and how the key locks everything together, you will be able to access the music all over the fretbaord; you'll be able to hear chord changes; you'll be able to anticipate and think ahead... You guessed it: another PlaneTalk revelation.

Every minute of practice you put in familiarizes your hands with the instrument and with music itself, so obviously the more the better, but never sit there putting in the time if you're not enjoying it. Playing music never was and never will be a contest. I personally find it almost impossible to not pick up my guitar at every opportunity. That's how much I love it, even after 43 years. I keep three of my guitars on stands just behind me here at my desk, and I play them all the time.

Finally, for any slide players that may be reading this, I have posted The Slide Guitar Forum at http://www.bottleneckguitar.com. It's brand new, so it's short of posts, but hopefully it will get going. You can also join the Slide Guitar Web Ring if your site qualifies. Also, a reminder that there are some free Dropped-D tuning slide lessons at the PlaneTalk site.

All the best and keep on twangin'

Kirk
http://www.kirklorange.com
http://www.lorange.kirk.net
http://www.guitarforbeginners.com
http://www.bottleneckguitar.com