Cape Cod Acoustics
  • Home
  • Your Lessons
  • Performance services offered
  • About Gene
  • Contact
  • Guitars, Ukes & Accessories
  • Acoustic Guitar Blog
  • Tips for guitarists
  • Guitar Gallery
  • More...

Reasonable practice expectations

2/24/2011

0 Comments

 
Right now I have a couple guitar students in what I would call the advanced beginner stage who are struggling through a phase that all guitarists face. It is rhythm related - as most issues are - and I've done my best to offer alternative practice options and most of all encouragement to help them move on. But as the old cliche goes, I feel their pain!

I make the point with all my students that the beginning stages of playing the guitar have to include a healthy dose of faith. Faith that following my directions and regular practice will help them conquer those first hurdles. In most cases they can intellectualize this but the immediate reality is difficult to ignore. They know what a piece of music is supposed to sound like, and they hear me do it at their lesson and on the CD that I always send home with them but what comes out when they practice is sometimes very hard to take.

I firmly believe that one of the biggest deceptions about playing the guitar is that from a non player's perspective it just looks too darn easy! You see someone strumming away, intent on singing and the guitar playing almost looks like an afterthought. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. Yes, the playing has to become somewhat automatic but I guarantee that someone who is obviously not concentrating on their playing (in the very least, in a visual sense) is playing something quite basic and repetitive. The more difficult a piece is, the more a good player looks at his or her hands, anticipating the next set of moves and checking that what they're playing is correct. In the 1970s I was fortunate to hear the great Andres Segovia in concert and I was struck by the fact that he watched his left (fretting) hand the entire time!

Getting back to the deception of ease in the beginning stages I often put it to students this way. You can sit a 3-year old down in front of a piano and while it's unlikely he will play anything truly musical, the plunking he does still sounds like a piano. Not so with a guitar. Until a beginner applies some basic technique regarding finger placement and gains the strength required to push down the strings it is impossible to even make the guitar sound much like a guitar! This is often a hard reality to deal with and can be very, very frustrating. But that's where the faith comes in. Playing the guitar involves correct technique but in the beginning it is mostly about strength. There is nothing you do in everyday life that resembles playing the guitar so there is no reason the muscles in your hand and fingers are prepared for the strength required to press down the strings. Plus - it hurts. The beginner is quickly divested of the idea that playing the guitar is easy.

So what about practice? How much is enough? How much is too much? I am reluctant to tell my students they have to practice a certain amount of time each time they pick up the guitar. This can often lead to frustration because in our adult lives there are many other things that are more pressing than playing the guitar. If I tell a student they have to practice an hour a day and they just can't devote that much time they naturally assume that playing less is why they can't accomplish their goal for that week's lesson. This is just not the case, almost always.

What I do tell them is to remember two things. Playing the guitar is exercise, plain and simple. Doing a moderate amount on a regular basis is far more productive than doing a lot on an infrequent basis. And focusing on just exactly WHY that chord change or strum just won't seem to happen is essential. Many adults practice diligently but at some point in time they're doing nothing more than practicing their mistakes. You must ask yourself why that change is difficult: is one finger always late in pressing down? Then that finger must be your focus. It's sometimes valuable to practice getting just that one finger down, then fill in the others. The sound won't be great but between focusing on that one problem finger and keeping a steady beat no matter how it sounds will lead to getting the entire chord in place sooner than stopping to set up the entire chord, then resuming the beat. You can't solve a problem by pure repetition alone.

My own practice regimen is variable. I don't really count what I do while I'm teaching as practice although it certainly does help to keep me limber. What I usually do is set a goal of learning a new tune and then approximate out how much time I can reasonably expect to devote to it to play the thing in a performance worthy way. If that is a few hours, so be it. I've been playing long enough to know that something that seems almost impossible will come together at some point.

There's that faith again. It is a corner stone of the musical process. A beginner needs to hang onto small successes and with more time spent playing it will be easier to keep their own playing in perspective. I know that's difficult when all you hear are buzzes and muffled notes but if you focus on why those buzzes are happening and try to correct those small things the bigger accomplishments will follow.

Peace & good music,
Gene
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Gene Bourque

    Archives

    June 2022
    May 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    November 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    November 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed