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I realize this question seems very "meta", but I guess I'm trying to understand how you all practice. Not jam, or goof around on some old song, but actually work to get better.
I feel like the best way to keep interested is to blend technical work with scales and fingering exercises with learning songs to keep yourself interested. Yes, you may be starting with Twinkle Twinkle, but later it improves.
I have already bought "A Modern Method for Guitar", and plan on devoting a fair chunk of time to those lessons, but I still think that I'd need to crack open the real book and find a song that's on the simpler side to learn, and later to use as a basis for improv work. I worry practice would become too tedious without that.
Thoughts? How do you practice?
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02-19-2014 08:13 PM
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Probably one of the most important questions, IMO.
This is what I've been working on lately:
Fretboard knowledge -- This includes scales, arps, chord patterns etc. The "where" and "how" to play: Where sounds are located on the guitar and how to get there from somewhere else on the guitar. This is also technique practice. Maybe running a scale or arp through the cycle in a certain fretboard position, or up and down the neck... Maybe extracting a short chord progression and exploring new ideas now to navigate it.
Vocabulary -- In my case it's learning more bebop language, but this will differ from person to person. The "who" and "what" to play: copping ideas/licks from the people I admire and like and coming up with my own. This is also, *also* technique practice. Again, I try to find at least a few places on the fretboard to play an idea and try to get the ideas ingrained in my ears and fingers.
Tunes -- Incorporating the above in an actual musical situation and honing overall repertoire. The "why" play in the first place: the whole purpose of playing as far as I'm concerned.
When it comes to tunes, I'll run exercises on the changes for a while, like sticking with a motif and altering it to fit the harmony or change-running arps, or exercises with the melody like ornamentation and embellishment or simplifying/reducing the melody to its essence and embellishing that. Sometimes I'll look for places to insert vocabulary/licks and run with that, then start lightly improvising on the ideas. Then I'll cut loose and just straight improvise.
This isn't all done in a single session, more where I feel like I need the most work in a particular day. IMO most important, for me, is practicing ingraining and incorporating vocabulary and playing tunes, and everything else is a means to that end.
HTH.
p.s. no "when", only "now".
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Well, if I were to sum up what I believe is the most helpful thing to practice it would be this: apply exercises through tunes.
Originally Posted by kFries
But the problem is that you need to come up with exercises first, and what those exercises are depend greatly on your playing ability. So the exercises could be for example one of the following (a) play the song without a leadsheet and actually remember the tune; (b) hit a couple chord tones per chord; (c) apply some transcribed language to certain chords; (d) apply some transcribed language to each chord, modifying as necessary; (e) staying within a span of frets; (f) on the fly coming up with a motif, then milking it through the tune; (g) alternating improv with quoting the melody; (h) playing it chord melody style; (i) playing the head in octaves; (j) improvising in octaves; (k) not playing where the tune's melody would be but rather improvising where the space would be.
Books may work for you, but I've not really found any that are helpful. YMMV.
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The most fundamental thing you should be working on is listening to a lot of jazz and actively developing your aural perception via ear training websites such as Iwasdoingallright and musictheory.net. This must be apart of your daily practice routine. You should simultaneously work on your fretboard knowledge and tunes but you've got to be able to get to a point where you can perceive what you hear instantly.
As for the modern method book, practice it diligently. Very good book. Hopefully, you got the one with the DVD rom. The instructor on it is very thorough.
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I think the "how and what" should you practice depends on where you are as a musician. The answer may be very individualized based on your degree of experience and training.
I'm "old school", trained in classical guitar which is a great foundation. Why? You learn proper technique, articulation, and elementary knowledge like reading standard notation that are essential to further development. For me that was nearly fifty years ago. So with that as a premise, I'll describe my 'routine' from last night.
I often start with YouTube and subscriptions to certain musician channels. Bill Evans, Keith Jarrett, Joe Pass, Herb Ellis... you get the idea. I often look for what are new songs to me or listen to versions of a particular song I want to transcribe. "Listen to" is with guitar in hand or sitting at my keyboard synth next to the computer playing along. There are some great pianist teachers who graciously offer their talents and experience, like jazz2511, Doug McKenzie, an Australian jazz pianist who posts beautiful improvisations of jazz songs in which you hear his playing and simultaneously can follow the transcription in notation on screen plus a midi keyboard simulation as well as the video of his actual performance. Doug annotates his performance and sheet music with detailed comments on theory and practice from scales to technique. There is no better way to learn theory than as applied to concrete songs. And Doug is truly a master.
So last night I began with his channel, playing through several of his renditions. Then, I turned to Joe Pass, playing through a number of clips. After that, I turn to my Sibelius program, an elementary now legacy G7 software program that I consider the very best $69 I ever spent some ten years or so ago. I ended up playing through my transcriptions of jazz tunes I create as a library, like a very sophisticated Realbook. I play through it like an alphabetical set list. When I got to Body and Soul, I realized that the arrangement I wrote originally from a Sarah Vaughn recording was not a good key for my vocals, so with a click or two I transposed the arrangement instantly into a more suitable key for my tenor voice. Sibelius G7 is a key part of my routine, because as with BIAB, I can score a song for solo classical guitar to a jazz quintet, varying tempo, key, and performance parameters like degree of swing or rubato. While nothing replaces playing with other musicians, this is about as close as you can get. And unlike BIAB, every note is what I write or play via my guitars or keyboards.
Plus where are you going to find someone to play with at four in the morning? Which is usually when I may get inspiration to write my own compositions. Or on occasion I play through my extensive collection of classical guitar scores as my serious technical 'tune-up'. I don't play exercises any more. It is jazz tunes, classical, or once in a while other styles like country rock. I play usually two to three hours a day, generally from two to six in the morning, every day. My greatest regret is that I did not have these technical tools like YouTube and Sibelius when I was in my teens. For any serious young musicians out there, I consider a notation program like Sibelius as essential as your instrument. Where the rubber meets the road.
So that has been my nighttime routine for years now. And before there was Sibelius and YouTube it was just playing along to CDs and vinyl and selective transcribing for decades now. I did play in bands as a teenager and through college. Jazz and classical music have been my main focus since I was in college, a long time ago. That practice routine does not include home recording which I do mainly during the daytime on weekends, as my 'studio' is also our living room. For some reason the family does not appreciate full voice singing at four in the morning.
Jay
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Transcribing and learning solos from your favorite player(s) is possibly the most educational thing you can do.
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....hard....and smart.....
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I spent a lot of mental energy thinking about my practice time. How to divide it, what to study, how to configure my practice space, etc.
It's all important to think about. But my practice time really had no meaning until I set clear and precise goals for myself.
"I want to learn 30 pieces of vocabulary"
"I want to know the changes to 40 tunes"
"I want to be playing in jams with other musicians in 9 months"
When these types of mid or long term goals are set, it is obvious how and what to practice and for how long.
K
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I would highly recommend the Mike's Master class from Steve Herberman called "Developing a Personal Practice Routine." He goes into great detail on structuring your practice time for maximum benefit, including a list of specific technical goals for 8 different levels. $30 very well spent.
http://www.mikesmasterclasses.com/in...uct-flyer.html
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kFries....My practice routine has evolved over the almost 30 years i've been playing. I think to practice effectively you have to have a goal or desired outcome. The more specific the goal the greater the results. I think we all want to improve our playing,being able to articulate what that is,is crucial to actually improving. I practice some metronome time excercises both with and without my instrument to develop and perfect my internalized sense of time. I practice a mixed cd of Aebersold tracks of Be-Bop, and Coltrane Changes tunes all at 200 bpm plus to improve my comfort at fast tempos. I learn something everyday by ear sometimes just a few seconds worth of a tune or solo that I love to hear or sometimes entire tunes etc. just something everyday by ear. Sometimes I work on practicing/refining my original tunes. I couldn't practice like this 20 years ago, that's when I was devouring sight reading positional studies,George Van Epps guitar Method book,learning easier jazz tunes and solos by ear All Blues,So What etc. Ten years ago I was spending a LOT of time learning tunes that are needed for the gig I just got sick of always needing a real book and stand etc. The challenge for me has been when to know to move on to the next challenge...most of the time I feel like a beginner with more to learn than I ever could in 12 lifetimes. The BIGGEST waste of time as I look back was spending too much time and effort learning/memorizing tunes off the page instead off the recording. Ultimately it's all about hearing and playing.
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Thanks for all of your thoughts. There's a lot on here to aspire towards. I've got a long way to go before I hit the levels some of you describe.
A few of you talked a lot about goals, and I know that's important. I have a hard time sticking with technique/theory lesson type practices, so I'm setting a goal of spending 30 minutes a day working out of the Modern Method book and doing aural training (thanks for the idea, smokinguit). Should get me reading music again, develop my ears, and get me to unlearn all the bad habits developed over years of winging it.
The next goal will be to be able to play a new song every month. By this, I mean really know it, so I could play it at a moments notice. After a year of playing, I'd love to be done with the first level of Modern Method and have a 12 song repertoire.
This feels like a fairly conservative goal for the technique and theory (10-12 pages of the book each month), and a reasonable but challenging song goal.
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Hi
I happen to work as support for a ear training software, that helps you train your ear. This won't help you practice your fretboard technique much, but the whole it will help you train your ear, and understand the theory. There is a lot of different exercises in all the different aspects of ear training. It is for beginners as well as higher level musicians. You can customized the activities for your exact need.
It might be helpful. You can read more about it on this website: http://www.earmaster.com/.
I might also add that the program can be changed to specific jazz courses, and you can also change the notation to Jazz notation.
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Originally Posted by kFries
That's a good pace with Leavitt.
To answer your original question I would check out Jerry Coker's books, he addresses this very topic.
A simplification of a framework for your "workout routine" that can span multiple student levels follows:
1. Technique
2. Etudes
3. Repertoire
4. Improv
Expanded (very slightly):
1. Technique (scales,chords, arpeggios, intervals, finger studies, - and right hand isolation exercises)
2. Etudes (Studies) - Leavitt is a great fit here. There are many others as well.
3. Repertoire - Tunes!
4. Improv - you know what this one is. Combine it with #3 depending on your improv capability. Otherwise keep it simple until you can catch up with the material in #3.
The devil is in the details, so get to work!Last edited by fumblefingers; 02-21-2014 at 11:43 AM.
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The less time you have to practice, the more you should limit your goals and simplify your routine. If you only have an hour, work on only two or three goals.
There is a lot of overlap anyway. Learning tunes and improvising can encompass a lot of different skills.
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This is exactly what I was asking about! I thought the time split made sense, and now I have validation from somebody I've never met. As a child of the internet, this makes me happy. Seriously, thanks for breaking down the framework you listed. It makes complete sense to me. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
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For students, I have a similar breakdown
Technique
Add Knowledge
Play!
many different things will go under these headings. I tell folks allocate time to each based on their desires and fun level they want out of playing an instrument.
To improve, one must work on the physical part and the mental part (add knowledge). The playing is the fun.
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You've gotten some good advice here. It may be obvious, but I'll add-develop the habit of practicing everything in as relaxed a fashion as possible, and as slowly as it takes to play with perfect technique. Avoid practicing mistakes, you'll save time in the long run.
Also try to spend at least some practice time paying attention to the details-phrasing, slurring vs. picking, time feel, straight 8ths vs. very swung 8ths, dynamics, accents, etc. Recording yourself a lot helps with this.
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Originally Posted by kFries
You're welcome!
BTW - Leavitt's books cover both categories #1 and #2 but don't worry about that. Even his technical studies sound musical in most cases, so you can think of his books as "etudes plus".
I have noticed that practicing technique above and beyond what Leavitt presents, makes Leavitt a whole lot easier. (it makes everything a lot easier for that matter.)
A note about Leavitt's presentation of materials. You can follow them by rote, but the Berklee Guitar department has for some time taken a slightly different approach. They used to expose all 8 levels of technical barrier exams online, then 4 levels, now they show none. You have to be enrolled. Heck, even their "Guitar Scales 101" online course shows you all the scales in 12 weeks, including 3-octave scales. I can expand on this topic if it helps.
One more piece of free advice, it's a personal choice that every player has to decide but I would recommend CAGED fingerings over Leavitt's fingerings. I was trained in his way/the Berklee way and found that all that stretching is hard on the left hand. I further observed that most of the virtuoso players that I admire so much don't play a lot of stretch fingerings, especially in the lower regions of the neck.
Taking this approach just means that you will tend to shift more than stretch - most of the time, although not all of the time. You can still play Leavitt's materials with shifts, in most cases.Last edited by fumblefingers; 02-22-2014 at 06:00 PM.
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I hadn't even thought about the caged/stretch question yet. To be honest, I think I'm going to start with some of the stretch patterns, just to build dexterity. After that I'll start researching the caged fingerings and substitute them into some of the work. I do remember how much more relaxed caged shapes were back when I was fiddling around with blues. Originally Posted by fumblefingers
I'd love to have you expand on the Berklee comment. Not sure where you were going with it, but any way to find out what they do sounds great.
You're bringing up a great point with "practicing perfect". I was planning on using a metronome to let me practice patterns slow, than bring the speed up. With my song-per-month thing, two weeks could be spent at half speed to get the notes down, then speed it up to 3/4 and finally full speed to make it happen. Originally Posted by MattC
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In all honesty, I tried to reread the thread to figure out where you are in you musical journey in terms of reading notation, ability to play by ear, facility with the fretboard, hearing chord progression patterns and the like. These probably are the first things a teacher should ascertain. And a teacher might be a good idea, depending on what level you currently play.
If you are relatively young, I would recommend classical guitar lessons, especially if your reading notation skills are not up to par. A good technical foundation is important in the long run. If you feel you can hear progressions well and can read a lead sheet, then you can go quite far with a chord book and a Real Book if learning jazz standards is your goal.
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Originally Posted by kFries
KFries - it has to do with the order of learning things, and how long it takes to learn them. For example, all diatonic scales. Assuming it takes about a year each to go through Leavitt's books 1 and 2, it will take 2 years to learn the major and melodic minor scales. Then on to book 3 for harmonic minor.
Hint: there are other ways to do this. While there are many, I know of 4 ways as taught by Berklee and UNT instructors.
There's no rush but when you are starting out in Book 1, it makes sense to have a road map for learning. A lot of jazz guitar enthusiasts get lost because they can't visualize how to approach this.
This challenge applies to arpeggios as well.
This falls under the category of #1 - Technique, as opposed to #2 Etudes. The trick is not getting #1 pulled into #2 by following Leavitt's books by rote. In other words, make sure that each has its own distinct road map.Last edited by fumblefingers; 02-22-2014 at 09:20 PM.
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Re Leavitt's books: his fingerings are just alterations to the CAGED fingerings.
These alterations are arrived at very systematically by changing one pitch at a time
as he works through the key cycle.
The only difference is the names he gives to each fingering pattern.
Instead of C form/A form/G form/E form and D form he gives them the names:
Type 1/ Type 2/Type 3/Type 4 and Type 1A
If you have some playing experience in a general sense, I would suggest that you go to page 60
in Bk 1 and see how he introduces the fingering types.
He brings them in one at a time
So the learning curve is smooth as far as the single line work goes.
You will pick up the fingerings pretty easily [again, if you've played a bit of guitar already]
Then, on the first page of music in Bk 2 he shows you what you've learned in Bk1....a one page summary.
A brilliant bit of teaching in my estimation.
...I wonder if Bill had served in the military....because he used the good old basic training process,
tell 'em what to do,then they do it, then you tell em' what you told 'em.
When I was teaching....I had students go through Bk1 to get their feet wet with the reading and
when I thought they were ready, I'd have them work through from pg 60 [Bk1] at the same time as they
were consolidating the etudes etc in the first part of the book.
This gives a feeling of getting on up the fingerboard, learning the fingering patterns.....I would point out
how Bill's Fingering Types were just CAGED fgs by another name.
I would also supplement the CAGED learning with Bk1 of Bill Edward's Fretboard Logic.
He has described the basic CAGED system in the most concise way I've seen,linking fingering of your
basic open position chords to the single line scales......No music reading, just fingerboard diagrams
and the minimum of text.
Taking this approach to Leavitt's studies will jump start you and you can get on with the other topics that
have been suggested already.
Have at it!
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Just something I learned early on from my first music teacher when I was 12 and starting on the trumpet. Knowing when to put your instrument down and leave it alone.
When you hit the "wall"(and every one I've known has) frustration, nothing seems to work right, feeling overwhelmed, etc, etc.
Put it away for two days, put it in the closet or someplace you can't see it. Don't think about it, occupy your mind with anything but...............
Have been thru this with trumpet and guitar and it still(after close to 50 years) amazes me what a little break can do.
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I was told By Joe Pass If it's to hard don't play it lol, he told me to play in the boxes, if the chord is too much of a stretch he said by the the time you've fingered it you won't have time to play anything else and keep altered tones to the top 3 strings.
Last edited by TonyB56; 03-02-2014 at 01:13 PM.
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Wow, a 2 day break? I can't do that (assuming my arms feel fine). If I feel burned out I usually transcribe a line or learn a head by ear, or maybe take a tune I already know and run it through all keys. Works for me. Originally Posted by dragger201
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