I listened a little closer

As I was uploading the short, I watched it one more time watching the thumb. What do you know? There were some pauses in my playing that I was sure didn’t exist. I’ve worked for years and years to get that thumb consistent and independent but sometimes one falls back into old patterns..

You gotta record yourself

I make it a habit to record myself quite a bit and this is why. We have plenty of resources so there isn’t an excuse to not record yourself. You can make up excuses like I did to not record like “It’s too much to organize after awhile” “I don’t have the time to listen” ” I don’t like hearing or watching me play” . The list goes on and on but there are more reasons to record than not.

• The tape doesn’t lie: Every note, every dynamic, every nuance is going to be on the recording. you can’t ignore it. You can, however, improve upon it.
• A great way to document progress
• You can’t rely on your memory or impression of your practice session:
  • An inflated sense of how well you did can mask the mistakes you did make. Like I said, the tape doesn’t lie.
  • Conversely, maybe you had a bad day and your playing sucks and practice was a waste of time. (I’ve had this happen to me). The next day, I’ll listen to the session and I’m like “wow” that was pretty damn good!
• A repository for song ideas to come back to when you’re stumped

The list can go on and on but the reality is that there isn’t an excuse in the world to not record yourself. I have found that recording for YouTube has been a great way to stay consistent. I have to review each video to cut out what I want to post which means many times over I listen. Just like with the short I posted, I find something to improve upon and/or work on more!

Below is the YouTube Short in question: see if you can spot the anomalies in my thumb

My brother was my hero:

He would tell me stories about his time playing in bands and how it felt great when the people in the crowd would start dancing. It was a sign you had won them over and the night is going to go well. My band, “Alias Smith and Jones,” played a gig the other night and when some couples started to dance to what we were playing, I felt my brother strongly. So strong, I barely kept it together.

My brother passed away almost two years ago and he was my inspiration for playing the guitar. I remember watching him go to gigs, loading his gear all dressed up (this was the 80’s mind you. It’s not a coincidence that I wanted to do the same. Took me a little bit longer get on stage but when I did, he was my biggest fan. I would call him after every gig and we would talk about it and dissect it like a professional football player goes over game tape. We now had this in common and it was no longer him telling me stories but us both going back and forth. I relished having those conversations with him. Now that has been taken away from me and I struggle coping with his death.

Healing since my brothers death

The conversations still occur but now it’s a one way deal, but I talk with him everyday. I swear I could feel him last night and for a brief instance we were sharing that moment when the couples were dancing. Like I said, it took everything I had to not break down but once i composed myself, I smiled and relished in the time we had to talk about playing guitar and being in a band. Life will never be the same and I’m not sure how to heal or how to cope but I will. Billy Bob Thornton said it best when he said that you never really get over a siblings death, your “half happy and half sad” at anytime. But a he said, if that’s the burden of honoring him, I gladly take it. on.

My brother was and always will be my inspiration and everytime I see someone dance to live music, I think of him; Love my big brother and I’m grateful he got to see me play and I miss him dearly.

I’ve heard and read many artists state that some of the best performances that they have given were ones that can’t even remember.  By this, I mean they give into the music/performance and go into a sort of trance, I guess you can say.  I’ve seen this in many guitarists that I admire from Eddie Van Halen to Bruce Cockburn and the result is usually a performance that strikes awe in my heart.  I say to myself, “how can I play like that?”

Let the music take control:

I’ll be honest, this is something that I still struggle with.  Two reasons:
1.  I want to remember my performance so I actively think about it while playing.  This hinders me because then my mind isn’t doing what it’s supposed to do; play the guitar.  The outcome is that I will either have a brain freeze and forget a passage or my playing because sloppy.  Either way, it’s a performance that I would rather forget rather than remember.
2.  I want it to be perfect so I over think and critique myself as I play.  Same result as above.

Play For Yourself:

Why is it that when we practice, we are at our best?  If I had a dollar for every time I said, “why can’t I play this now?  I was nailing it in practice…”  The reason is that when practicing, I’m playing for myself and no one else.  It’s just the three of us: Me, my guitar and the music.  Throw a crowd in there and the nerves kick in and all of a sudden the piece is harder than expected.  Why can’t we play for ourselves when we are in front of people?  For me, it’s that I don’t want to come across rude or narcissistic and I fear that the audience is judging me harshly.  But these notions are all conjecture and speculation that I have put out there with no real proof that it is true. I’m hindering my ability to play to my full potential.

Let the Music/Life Guide You:

A dear friend of mine Robin Easton (blog here), recently wrote a post suggesting that we should trust our hearts and trust life to teach us in life.   This can be applied to our playing as well.  Trust our experience, our training and our hearts when we play. Play for yourself and let your heart and music guide you into a great performance.  Note, that doesn’t mean that every note will be perfect,it might even be a bit sloppy but some of the best performances that I have ever witnessed weren’t technically great but the passion; the emotion was there.  The musician let go and let the music guide him/her into something that I felt privileged to watch.  This I suggest to you sounds scary to even me because this requires an act of faith and to embrace the unknown and dare I say relinquishing control.  But the idea of control is a myth because we can’t control things like if the PA goes out or if a crying baby is in the audience, etc… Giving in and letting go of the control is probably the biggest act of control that you will do.

Like that old cliche’ I’ve heard over the years: “Play like no one is listening.”

*Note: Thank you Robin for inspiring this post!

Top 5 Mistakes:

1. I don’t sight read the whole piece when initially getting to know the song.  This keeps me from getting the full picture and I tend to have trouble putting it all together. I can’t tell you how many songs I learned where all I could perform was the first minute or so.
2. Try to play it at full tempo too soon.  This tends to create mistakes or bad habits like poor fingering or timing issues.  I’m getting better at playing slower tempos and then working my way up but still “fall off the wagon” every once in a while.
3. I don’t give it a rest when needed.  I get so obsessed with the song, I think the more I practice, the faster I learn and the better it will be.  I have found that the opposite can be true. Sometimes stepping away for a day or two gives me a fresh perspective and I tend to play the piece better when coming back.
4. I focus on the “fun” or challenging parts or a piece but neglect the rest. The result is that I might be able to play certain parts well but the rest of the piece is sub par and in turn, the performance suffers.
5. I don’t warm up properly.  I sometimes jump into the song without any warming up which can result in me playing like crap.  This is especially true when the song is technically difficult.

I’ve been working on a piece that I’ve toyed around with for years but was never really comfortable with it.  I learned the it using tab and a recording that came with the songbook.  At first glance, the piece appears to be easy learn but it has to be played at a fairly high tempo (200bpm) so frustration began to kick in.  No matter how much I practiced it never sounded or felt right.

So what did I do?  I decided to look at the standard notation part of the transcription and noticed something that the tab doesn’t show.  I was not separating the melody with the bass line completely.  In short, my index and middle were playing notes my thumb was supposed to be playing.  The result of this mistake was the melody was getting muddied up with notes that weren’t supposed to be there.  So I made my thumb do it’s job and the song began to fell better; there is now a clear separation between melody and the bass line.  Only problem is that I now have to re-learn a bit a of the song to un-learn some of the bad habits I developed.   A small price to pay to get it right.

What’s better? Tab or standard notation?  For me, it’s both.  I can learn a song much faster using tab but the musicality comes out using the standard notation.  The separation of voices, dynamics subtle nuances that only standard notation can provide.  Tab is ideal with the help of standard notation but if you can read music well, then there is no need for tab, theoretically.  So maybe the edge goes to standard but that takes nothing away from tab because I owe of ton of my repertoire to tab.

Meet My Friend

I’d like to talk about my good friend, the big red button. By this, I mean the Record button. Now, I’m not talking about recording in the sense of producing CDs, videos or demos. That comes later. For now, I’m talking more along the lines of creating a progress report.

In the Beginning

When I was a young lad, one of my favorite things to do was plug my amp into a dual cassette recorder with a mic input, play anything, record it, then take the tape to school to generally irritate all of my friends. Later, I figured out if I took the tape and put it in the other deck, recorded its contents onto another blank tape with a drum machine plugged in and going, I could multi-track. After I repeated the process with multiple guitar tracks and a borrowed bass, the line noise had built up so much that you could barely hear the instruments. Plus, it was a one shot deal per recording so I learned to either live with the occasional mistake, or just don’t make mistakes. But I had a recording that not only captured a song idea for later use, but also a small snapshot in the development of my technique.

Monitor Your Progress

Now I’ll shift gears for a second. One thing that I find as I practice is that day to day, I never get better. It’s like a body builder who lifts, looks in the mirror, and sees no change. This can be very discouraging. But one thing that body builders are encouraged to do is have pictures taken of themselves periodically during their development. Over time, the changes are more noticeable. The same is true with playing and developing technique. This is why I highly recommend getting a big red button.

Resources are Everywhere

These days, with a computer in every home and a plethora of affordable recording hardware and software, there is no excuse not to push the big red button every now and then. That is, except for one; nerves. Very few things, save for live performance, can bring sweat to palms like knowing that the button has been pushed and it’s time to do your thing. Just remember this; it’s just you and the button. The button doesn’t judge, it just captures. You be the judge. But you have to put something down to judge.

Mistakes are OK

Also with most systems, along with a big red button comes a big Delete button. There’s no shame in using the big Delete button. You want to capture your best effort at that time, so don’t be afraid to try again and again and again until it’s as good as you can get it. If you can’t get it as good as you want it, step away from the button, work it out, come back, and push the button again.

It Gets Easier

The two things that I’m thankful for after years of using the big red button are, one, that I have something to listen to and say “Wow, I actually have progressed since then!”, or “That’s an area I’m still not happy with, I should focus on that”. The other is that I’ve become proficient and confident enough with the recording process that I can create real projects, make my own CDs inexpensively and on my terms, and help others with their projects.

So like The Chemical Brothers say “Don’t hold back, the time has come to galvanize, push the button”.

Links:

www.herculescastro.com  (Home page of our guest writer)

I’ll admit that I’ve let a few stories pass my lips.  Just recently, I caught myself telling a guitar version of the “fish story”.   I was in a conversation with another musician who plays fiddle/guitar and I exaggerated my daily practice routine.  I let it slip that I practice at least four hours a day or more.  Over the next couple days, I replayed that conversation over and over in my head and wished I hadn’t said that but no one’s perfect.  I do practice quite a bit but lately, I’m lucky to get 40 minutes of practice in, let alone 4 hours.  It’s been pretty busy at my paying job. 

So why do we let out these little white lies?  I can’t tell you why this one slipped out of my mouth.  I would like to think it was my way, subconsciously, to motivate my ass back to practicing more.  Who knows?  I’ll leave that up to the Psychologists or others to figure that out but  I can tell you one thing; I’ve practiced a heck of a lot more the last couple of days just to keep me honest.  Four hours a day?  Well… I won’t go there.  Especially in writing.

So what’s your guitar tale?  Leave a comment and get it off your chest.  You will feel better after you do.

Keep Practicing!

A couple of nights ago, I came across a site called GuitarCardio.com and I’m loving it.  It’s a scale exercise program where you choose a key (or all keys), select a difficulty level and a starting place for the scale.  A series of scales will then be given for you to work on.  It’s like a workout plan for you fingers, hence the name “cardio”  I’m thinking.  The dynamic nature of this system sings to me because I’m not getting bored with the same scales over and over again.

This program is still in it’s infancy so there are some drawbacks like the scales don’t cover the entire fingerboard, lack of customizability and no metronome, to name a few.  Brad Heintz, the creator of GuitarCardio.com addresses bugs and feature requests in his blog and  has great plans to extend the features and functionality of this program.  So maybe we’ll see scales over chord changes and modes in upcoming versions.

Check out the site and give it a whirl and let Brad know what you like and would like to see at GuitarCardio.   Brad is open to suggestions and critiques which should make this program the best it can be.

Keep Practicing!

wife that, at this pace, I might finish it in another year or so.

Anyway….

In my “Back To Basics” post, I mentioned that I needed to work on technique for a bit because I was stuck in a rut and needed to change my practice formula.  Last weeks obstacle was focusing on one song and forgetting the others.  At one point I was saying to myself, “You’ve been playing for 20+ years and you can’t play shit!”   (insert primal scream here).  Just a bit of unnecessary negativity to keep me from playing my best but I’m better now.

Moving on…..

So fresh off of my trip, I come back more relaxed and with a fresh head.  I decided to write down all of the songs that I’ve been working on the last 6 months.  Next thing you know, I had ten songs on that slip of paper to prove that I just might might be able to play this guitar I was cursing last week.   I’m now using this list as a guide for my practicing, treating it as a kind of set-list of sorts.  After finishing the list, I feel a sense of accomplishment and I’m more focused and don’t ignore the other songs.

Lesson Learned?

I’ve read and been told many times to keep a journal of your practice and structure it so this revelation is nothing new.  I used to be able to keep track of everything I do in my head and it was easy but as I grow older and have more things to keep track of, my mind is beginnings to let me down.  I try with the best intentions to keep a log/journal of my playing with bit of success but always fall back into the same old bad habits.

Will this be the start of a continuing good habit or will I be like a dieter falling off the wagon who binges on doughnuts and milkshakes? I can’t say, knowing me, I’ll improve a bit and then stop and have the idea all over again.  We’ll see, but now I’m craving doughnuts.

Similar Posts:

Guitar Meditation

The little light came on above my head and I had an idea when watching Muriel Anderson on YouTube.  I noticed that she was using the classical position using a foot rest or crossing her legs.  Trying to emulate Tommy Emmanuel’s style of both feet on the ground stomping away,  I strayed away from using the classical position.  My foot stool collected dust while my aches and pains began to grow.  The guitar wasn’t supported well enough and I had a tendency to slip on my lap.  I would then contort my body to keep it steady which put a lot of pressure on my arms and back.  After a few songs, I noticed that I began to ache and needed a break.  The frustration as began to grow as well.

After my moment of enlightenment I dusted off the old foot stool and began to play the classical way.  I immediately noticed the difference and was able to play a lot longer and was able to relax.  I have to keep in mind that I always play a bit better when I make a change so we’ll see how this holds up in a week or two.  I’m pretty hopeful that my aches and pains will subside.  Will keep you posted.

1. I need to make a real attempt to finish/develop an idea.  I was playing well and was happy but I was playing a bunch of licks and nothing else.  My playing was all over the place.
2. When playing a song, I must finish it.  My wife noted that I will play the first minute or so and then stop.  It definitely annoys her and is a pretty big reason why I struggle with the endings of songs.

One more lesson worth noting, not on the list, but still worth mentioning is that Adirondack chairs were not made for guitar players.  They are comfortable but there is no way to play a guitar with those arm rests getting in the way.  Regardless, it was a good guitar day and it’s days like this that motivate me to keep on playing.

Sidenote:  If you are Posting to YouTube, what are you using to record? I’m using  the Flip Video portable video recorder.  It’s a solid unit for a starter but will want to upgrade sometime because I would like plug in a microphone.

Stage 1: Learning

This is the initial site reading of the song, either by tab, regular notation or just jamming along with it on CD or iPod.  I the progress to a point where I can play the piece fairly well with the music in front of me.  Depending how many times I’ve heard this song, I can progress pretty quickly in this stage.

Stage 2: Fixing and Polishing

This is where I need to sit down and work on certain parts that might have given me trouble during site reading.  I still don’t have it memorized and maybe not playing it at a slower tempo.  By the time I’m finished with this stage, I’m playing it at tempo and it’s pretty much memorized.

Stage 3:  Re-Evaluate and/or Re-Learn

I hate this stage!  This is where I think I have it “performance ready,”  I’ve been playing it practically perfect time and time again for a few days.  I’m confident that it’s ready to go and then I start to stumble and begin to forget or mess up parts of the song.  What’s frustrating is that sometimes it’s a part that I never had trouble with, ever.  I’m not playing as well, my articulation and tempo is all messed and I can’t seem to get it right.  It feels like what I learned just fell right out of my head.  Here is where I have to take a step back and re-learn the song, sort-of-speak.  I will play the song slower and make sure my fingerings are correct and use a metronome to work on the rhythm.   If I have a recording, I will listen to it over and over so it’s ingrained in my head.

Stage 4: Performance Ready

Finally ready to go.  It’s memorized and even if I go a few days without playing it, I can perform it without worrying too much about stage 3 coming back.  Here is when I can take some artistic licenses with the piece and try to make it a bit my own.

Why does stage 3 happen for me, it’s hard to say.  I have heard that lack of sleep can inhibit your ability to memorize/learn a piece.  I have also heard that maybe I never learned it properly in the first place and I was just practicing my mistakes over and over again.  I’m thinking that might be what’s troubling me. I focus so much on one section of the song, I neglect other sections.  I find it helps to record my practicing so I can make notes on what to work on.  I just have to get past watching or hearing myself play not-so-well, at times.

So how many stages do you have?  Is it two, four five, more?  What techniques do you use to overcome your stage 3?

I have been using this site as resource for as long as I can remember and am surprised how much it has grown over the years to have such a library of music.  Check it out and see what you think.

Links:
Music for classical guitar
http://www.eythorsson.com/