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Do Not Disturb Introduction and Time Management Oh well, so you wanna seriously start practicing, huh? Do you have all the tools you need? A guitar, some exercises, a metronome? Cool! Now, what about time? Time is an important factor here. And not only do you need to make some time for your practicing, you also wanna use that time efficiently. Believe me, short practicing- sessions on a REGULAR basis, and used efficiently are way more valuable than one big practicing session every once in a while, interrupted by all kinds of distractions. Time Management First of all, you want to designate an approximate amount of time you wanna dedicate for your practicing. I know that sometimes it's tough to do, cuz all kinds of stuff can happen. Also, when you do have a 9 to 5 -job and a family, it's sometimes very tough to set aside a chunk of time to practice. But let's say you have two hours. That is already quite a lot of time. I know, lots of players, like Satch and Vai, always mention in interviews that they used to practice 10, 12 or even 18 hours a day. Now, let's just say that that is true. What's important is that it isn't easy to work up to that amount of practicing time. And you do have to work up to it, most likely. Let's say you're still in school, and the summer-break just started. I wouldn't recommend to try sitting down and practicing 12 hours on day 1 of your break. Especially not if you didn't practice on a regular base or only practiced like 30 minutes a day in the time before that break. You need to work up to a long session. Some have less problems with that than others. Let's compare it to cars... Some cars are able to speed up to 60 mph within just a few seconds, others need way longer. But it doesn't end here, cuz after the car speeds up to that speed, the question is for how long it can maintain it, and how soon it'll run out of gas. So, the car that needs longer to speed up isn't necessarily the inferior car, cuz it might be able to run for way longer or run more efficiently, saving gas. I am sure that there are people who can, from one day to the other, start to practice for hours without a problem. But in general, you need to work up to it, by starting with, let's say, an hour a day. Otherwise, it'll be a frustrating and exhausting experience. There's no reason to burn yourself out. If you force yourself to sit down to practice for like 8 hours for the first time, it's pretty much a waste of time. If you are not used to a long practicing-session like that, it will be a pain. You'll feel bored, you won't really be able to focus, and maybe you won't find the motivation to pick up your axe the next day. As I said before, set yourself small, realistic goals. So anyway, you decide to sit down for one or two hours to practice. Now, are you sure you'll be able to practice without any distractions? It's especially difficult to do so if you have a wife and children, or live together with other people. Because they might interrupt you. And I, for one, have problems telling the people around me "Guys, leave me alone, will ya?" ( OK, you COULD put that into nicer words but I guess you get the idea ) But let's say you have two hours and you tell everyone around you before you start that you'll be busy for that amount of time. So basically, they'll leave you alone. What about the phone? Got one? Oops, a cell phone too? Now, my best advice would be to unplug them or turn them off while you practice. I know that that is difficult, because you don't wanna miss people calling you, it might be important. But believe me, a phone call can really mess up your practicing. Your concentration is interrupted, you'll most likely talk for a while, and afterwards it is tough to get going again. When I practice, I usually turn off the cell phone, and I switch my regular phone to a mode where it doesn't ring, but the integrated answering machine will pick up the call silently and take a message. It's not my favorite thing to do, but it's necessary IMHO. My advice would be: if you don't wanna turn off the phone, and you get distracted by a call, and you lose, let's say, 15 minutes (make that 45 min. if it's your girlfriend calling… just kidding!)… you should try to get back that time at the end of your session. Put in an extra 15 minutes… What about other distractions? Well, I do have a certain room where I always practice (if I am not "noodling", which is a different thing! "Noodling" means, playing the guitar but not really practicing with full concentration. I often do that when I am watching TV or something... doing hammer on- and pull off exercises which I do not need 100% concentration for). In that room, I also teach. There aren't many distractions there. It's my "exercise zone", I feel comfortable there and it's meant to be used for practicing. There's a desk, and left and right of it are some cabinets with instructional books and my "folders" (more on that later). On the desk, there's a sequencer, which I can use to create backing tracks (quite specific ones… I can program certain chord progressions, drum-beats etc. So I can make custom-jam tracks based on what I am working on). There's the amp, a tuner, my guitar. On the walls, I have certain quotes by some of my favorite players, plus pics of them. I find it motivating sometimes to look at those pics. That's my practicing environment, and I feel comfortable there. No distractions, just a regular place to go and practice. Practicing Schedule This is something that works for a lot of players (not all of them, though). A practicing schedule can help you to organize your practicing time. You separate that time into smaller segments, and then you assign those segments to certain topics. An example would be: Monday practicing time available: 120 min. a. Warmup 10 min. b. Picking exercises 20 min ( incl. Breaks ) c. Legato exercises 20 min ( incl. Breaks ) d. Sight-reading 20 min ( incl. Breaks ) e. Break 10 min. f. Rhythm exercises / Timing / Chords 20 min. g. Picking reprise (i.e. working on an etude such as the "Perpetual Motion") h. Jam (Jamming on some backing track or drum-beat, focusing on the stuff you have been working on, to apply it… I call that the "digestion progress") Of COURSE, this is just an example. First of all, you could split up the 2 hrs completely different, making some of the segments longer, or shorten others. And you can OF COURSE change the content. If you don't wanna work on sight-reading, you can work on something else. Don't forget subjects such as theory, scales / patterns, bending, phrasing, vibrato. All those can be included into your schedule, based on what you wanna or need to work on. I am sure you noticed that there are a lot of breaks mentioned in that schedule. A lot of people forget about the importance of taking a break in between. Everyone has got a certain attention span, and of course it can also be physically exhausting to work on stretches or picking for too long. So you need to take breaks to a) not hurt yourself, not damage your sinews and muscles and b) to be able to concentrate on the exercises. During those breaks, put away the guitar, lean back, relax. Try to think of something else. Or do something completely else (something that won't need too much concentration… you wanna build that up for the remaining practicing time)… i.e. drink a cup of coffee, eat a snack, look out of the window or WHATEVER. A good friend of mine, who is a great instructor, once recommend the following method: Pick a certain exercise and then practice it like this: Play the lick for 1 min. Take a 1 min. break Play it for 2 min. Take a 1 min. break Play it for 3 min. Take a 3 min. break This might look odd, but for some of my students, it works really well. You won't exhaust yourself, and you'll be able to focus all the way through, because you have got those short breaks. Especially short, few-note-exercises (like the PG lick) can be kinda boring if you play them over and over for several minutes. And you might notice that you play it worse the longer you keep repeating it. Noises start to creep in, the accuracy slowly goes out the window. That is because, if you play something like that exercise for too long, your mind will start to wander, the attention's gone, you'll lose focus. So short breaks between constantly repeating the exercise will really help to stay focused. Try it. None of those suggestions (schedule, breaks etc.) will work for EVERYONE. Everyone's different, requiring a different practicing regimen. But try the stuff I am suggesting here, maybe it's just right for you. What to practice Alrighty, young guns, lemme tell ya what it was like back in da old dayz… Seriously, we live in a time where it's rather easy to get exercises and instructional methods for pretty much every technique you wanna work on. 10, 15, 20 years ago it wasn't quite that easy. There were some TAB books and methods, videos and mags. But surely not as many as today, and for sure there was no internet. I mean, say, you wanna work on picking... So you run down to the store to buy both the Petrucci- and the first Paul Gilbert-video. Then, you get the newest issue of GUITAR ONE and GUITAR WORLD with some workshops by guys like Satch, Petrucci and Dimebag Darrell. Next, you go online, download a few video-clips or songs by Petrucci, and while you're at it, you go to some websites and print out some instructional articles. Then you download some jamtracks to work with, and in the end, you have a huge pile of exercises you can use. And here lies the problem for many of us: How do you pick the material you wanna work on? Or... do you actually work on methods, exercises and transcriptions thoroughly, or... do you do it the way many of my students used to do: I borrowed them some books and TABs, and they brought back that stuff the NEXT DAY, saying "OK, I am through with that"... I was like "WHAT?!?!" And when I asked them to show me, I realized that they i.e. picked up the first book, played through each exercise slowly, got bored then (or wanted to check out the next one), and thereby went through like 40 lessons in one afternoon. That is not THOROUGHLY working on stuff. The best thing is: Get ONE video, ONE book, or maybe only ONE article (like i.e. "Art Of Picking, Pt.III"), lock yourself in your room and work on the whole thing, taking your time. That means, check out each exercise, start playing it slowly, get familiar with picking directions and fingerings. Then get your metronome and start working on speed, while maintaining accuracy. What I am trying to say is that today, we have an overload of instructional material. It's tough to pick single exercises, and to work on them for a while (until you can really nail that exercise or etude). Instead, many of us tend to get bored too quickly, thinking "Man, I downloaded another 30 articles, let me check out those"... so you browse through dozens of articles and TABs, but you never really focus on anything. Yes, I am generalizing here. I know many players who have the discipline to focus on one exercise and work on it, without losing their attention or getting bored too easily. They buy a book, and work through it slowly. Sometimes, that takes weeks, but they keep going and really learn the stuff thoroughly. And that is something we should try too. Because it really makes no sense to rush through all that material. You wanna focus on certain licks and techniques and work on them. Let's say a teacher asks you to memorize and recite a poem. Let's say it's a poem which was written like a 100 or 200 years ago. You know, when the poets used weird words which are not really that common anymore these days. Now, unless you have a photographic memory, you'll need to take your time when learning that poem. Not only should you try to memorize each stanza, each line, you should also try to understand it. That's when you start to actually UNDERSTAND the poem (which is most likely the reason why your teacher told you to memorize it), and understanding it can make it easier to recite and memorize it, cuz you know the context. If you rush through it, you might be able to memorize certain lines, certain words, or maybe one whole stanza, but you'll most likely not be able to recite the whole thing, you will not understand the poem itself, and most likely, your recitation will be rather monotone. Guys with a photographic memory will be able to memorize the thing quicker, but… that does not mean they understand it! If they don't, their recitation will be pretty much like turning on a tape-recording of someone reciting it. Anyway, take your time with stuff. Take my "Picking, Part III" article (the compendium). If you're not too familiar with picking, if you're still working on it, that article (or rather, the TABs in that article) can keep ya busy for weeks. Especially if you work with a metronome and care about accuracy. Same goes, of course , for other articles, methods and transcriptions. So instead of downloading, xeroxing and buying thousands of lessons, TABs and stuff, pick one or two and actually work your way through them. Work on smaller segments, work on single aspects of your playing. Make sure you're in time, make sure each note sounds good. Try to move the exercises around, to use them in different keys / areas of the neck. The Folder Method Let's talk about the famous "folder method" that John Petrucci mentions so often. He says that, when he got serious about playing, he used to collect exercises and sort them by subject. I.e. taking exercises which were supposed to help improve the picking-technique… he put all of those (plus transcriptions he made himself, like i.e. Steve Morse-licks) into a folder entitled "picking" Same goes for stuff like "tapping", "legato", "Chords", "Arps" etc. Then he put all those folders into a cabinet, separated into three basic sections: "technique", "creativity" and "musicality". So when he sat down to practice, he first picked an aspect of playing, then took an exercise out of the respective folder, and worked on that. Next, he went on to another topic, again using one of the exercises out of another folder etc. That way, the practicing material is organized, so you don't have to weed through a bunch of books and magazines looking for a certain exercise. Also, it's a neat way to break up your practice routine, cuz you can pick a different exercise every day. I use that method in a slightly different way. When I was starting out and learned to read TAB and had developed basic sight-reading skills, I started to collect song transcriptions from magazines and books in two big folders, sorted by artists. At first, I only put transcriptions of songs I liked and knew well in there, later I started to put in pretty much every transcription I could get my hands on. The reason for that was that I was interested to become a versatile player, able to play different styles of music. Those transcriptions were not only a good way to work on my reading skills, but also to figure out specific ""trademarks" of certain styles, such as reggae, pop, etc. I would sometimes skip through those folders, i.e. working on a riff by Van Halen, and next I'd learn the chords of an obscure Toto-song etc. I later started to transcribe a lot of stuff (which is another point on your list of activities to put on your practicing schedule), and put my transcriptions into those folders, too. A while later, when I really started to focus on specific techniques, trying to improve my chops, I made two other folders. No.1 would include all technical exercises I could get my hands on, separated by techniques (i.e. "picking", "string-skipping", "sweeping", "legato" etc.). Also, there was a category called "Misc.stuff" (which included columns and exercises that wouldn't fit into one of the other categories, so I would pick out one of those exercises to break up my routine a bit), and one called "Etudes", which would include lots of longer etudes and full songs that would help me to apply certain techniques. (There would i.e. be transcriptions of stuff like the "Crossroads"-duel, "Y.R.O." by Racer X, guitar arrangements of some classical pieces by Bach and Paganini etc.) The other folder was called "style studies" and featured lessons by / about some of my favorite players. There would be licks, columns and exercises by guys like Steve Morse, Steve Vai, Paul Gilbert etc. I would work my way through some exercises from folder no.1, and then, to break it up, look into some of the stuff in folder no.2 etc. This again requires some attention to choosing stuff and actually working on it for a while, instead of just browsing through it and not focusing on anything. Some of the exercises would be a solid part of my everyday practice-regimen, others I tried "in between", just to break up the routine and avoid getting into ruts (which can happen if you focus on certain techniques, exercises or scale patterns too much) Try it out, maybe it could be helpful to you too to organize your material in a similar manner… Some more practicing-strategies Split it up One thing that I heard Steve Morse talk about was that it sometimes is a bit more efficient to do two or more shorter practice sessions throughout the day, instead of doing one long session. You usually don't have to warm up for the second session anymore, cuz you have practiced a while before that, and also, your mind is focused again, your attention span is up again. If you practice for too long, your attention starts to decrease, your mind wanders. You need to take a break if that happens, because practicing without being able to focus isn't really productive. That "split up your practicing time and do several shorter sessions every day" approach Morse talked about kinda stayed in the back of my mind, and one day I noticed that I had started to do just that! I would get up before school and work on some stuff like scale patterns. Then, after I got home from school, I would grab something to eat, and play for a little while. Then I'd do homework, meet up with some friends, go shopping or something. In the evening, I'd sit down for a longer period of time, really focusing on the exercises etc. And, compared to my previous practice regimen (doing one long, uninterrupted practicing session every day), this method seemed to be way more effective. I noticed a bigger improvement, and also I felt way more focused throughout those shorter sessions. I was reminded of that when I was out on tour with a band recently. We spent a lot of time on the bus, and of course, there is that period of free time between setup and soundcheck, or between soundcheck and the gig. And what about that free time after packing in and going to sleep (or the drive to the next town after the show)? Well, I just grabbed a guitar whenever I had a chance too… I was sitting in the tour bus, doing mechanical exercises (you can do those even if you can't hear yourself well… on a bus, with an unplugged electric guitar, you really can't hear yourself that well), or I'd take advantage of the power supply of the bus, using a small practicing combo or a POD with headphones. Before the soundcheck, I'd be practicing again. Same after the show. And I noticed that my chops increased a lot throughout that period. It just felt so natural to pick up the guitar and do some exercises. Throughout the gigs, I'd be able to be all relaxed, cuz my chops were definitely up to par… I was warmed up, the guitar almost played by itself. Another prove that sometimes, it's more efficient to do smaller practicing sessions throughout a day, instead of doing one big one. Fixing Problems I have talked about this a lot in some of the other articles. Lemme sum it up one more time: If you find a problem when you practice, find out what exactly the problem is, isolate it, and eliminate it. That means, if you i.e. are trying to learn a solo off a record, and there's a certain lick that gives you a problem, stop working on the rest of the solo. Isolate the part that gives you trouble. Either work on that single lick, or make up an exercise that'll help you to play that part. An example? Well, let's say you are trying to learn that cool Frank Gambale solo. The beginning is kinda easy, gives you no trouble. But the middle is difficult, because there's this fast run, played with economy picking. What do you do? Will you play the whole solo over and over again, always slowing down or making mistakes when that run comes up? WRONG DECISION! What you should do (and again, this is just a recommendation, it works for myself and many of my students, so maybe you wanna try it, too) is: Take that run by itself, and work on it. If you are still having trouble with economy picking, work on it by making up an exercise using that technique. It helps to work on very small segments which you later put together. Once you feel comfortable with that part, move on to the next, or, if the other parts don't give you trouble, put the whole thing together again. No rocket-science here, but I have seen people working on etudes or solos, and some of them always tried to play the whole thing. Every time they got to that little trouble part, they were stopped dead. Instead of isolating the problem and working on it, they wasted a lot of time, attention and nerves on trying to play the whole thing, while it was only a tiny lil lick that was giving them a problem. Oh, and by the way, I used to do the same thing myself, so this "isolating"-method is "Vandenberg-approved" Conclusion Finally, I'd just give you some final thoughts to think about and keep in mind: - I think that "5 minutes of practice makes me a guitarist-improved-by-5-minutes". That means that every little piece of practicing can help you to improve. Sure, sometimes, if you're not in the mood, not warmed up, or your attention is exhausted, the net-effect of your practicing session might not be as satisfying as it is on other days, but I just feel that every time I pick up the guitar, I am working on my technique and musical vocabulary. Which is a good motivation to pick up the guitar tomorrow. I stopped planning ahead too much, thinking for too long about what I am gonna work on. The point is "THE BEST TIME TO START practicing IS RIGHT NOW. SO PICK UP YOUR GUITAR AND PLAY" - There might be days where you don't feel like playing. Maybe you're just busy, or you're depressed or distracted by stuff that is going on in your life. If you don't feel like picking up your guitar, DON'T! Sure, sometimes you need to get yourself going, need to motivate yourself. But it is not a good idea to force yourself. If you do, your heart might not be in it, which can prevent your practicing session from being effective. Instead, it can become a negative experience - Keep the big picture in mind. Don't get frustrated if it takes a while to get a grip on that certain technique / lick / solo / chord progression. Remember that everyone has a bad day, or certain problems with a specific aspect of playing. Patience and working on it will usually take care of that. - Try to keep it interesting. Try new licks and exercises in between. Pick out some cool licks from a record you like. Separate your practicing schedule into different activities, like strict practicing- jamming- transcribing – theory etc. - If you ain't got a guitar with you, and feel like practicing, try to go through some exercises etc. in your mind. This is another essential part of practicing. Try to imagine how you play that lick, where to put which finger, what it sounds like etc. - Analyze yourself. You should try to figure out what works for you and what doesn't. What practicing-strategy has the best effect for yourself. Everyone has a different approach to things. Strategies and exercises that work for one player might not work at all for another one. So try to figure out what works for you, how to get the most out of yourself. A good teacher can help you with that, but it's best if you try to figure it out yourself. - Don't spend your whole life sitting on the edge of your bed with a guitar and a metronome. Apply what you worked on to actual music, by jamming with some friends, sitting in with a band. Play in front of an audience, whether it's really small or big. That's another part of your development, and a good learning experience. Get used to the situation on stage… it's so very different from sitting in your bedroom with your favorite amp, being able to hear yourself well. Get on stage or into the rehearsal room and play music instead of worrying about speeding up that certain lick by 1 1/2 bpm for years! I lucked out... when I started out, a good friend of mine used to come over to my house at least once a week to hang out. Well, after I had started to play, I usually played something for him every time he came over… stuff I had worked on, songs I had learned. Oh boy, that dude must have suffered quite a bit, especially in the beginning. But after I got better and learned how to improvise etc, he actually seemed to enjoy listening to that for a while (he'd come over at like 3 PM, and I'd play for him for like 15- 30 minutes. After that we'd hang out and do the stuff kids used to do... watch stupid movies and TV shows, play some games on the computer (the good ol C64), go outside to play, eat loads of unhealthy food...) - Let playing and practicing be a labour of love. There sure are times when being a musician requires a lot of work which isn't a lot of fun, unpleasant stuff you have to take care, situations where you have to work hard without it being that much fun. But in general, it should be fun to play, to practice and develop, to become a better musician and create music. |
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