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We have all heard the advice about starting slow, getting it exactly right, and gradually building speed.
That works.
But what about things we sorta know but don't really have down? Things that you can play fine sometimes but not all the time? Things that make you anxious because you know they might let you down? (Or, if you prefer, you let them down.)
That is to say, what do you do about things that you learned the wrong way? (Or in a way other than you now prefer to learn.)
You made your mistake in the past. (Or have changed something, such as your fingering or your picking.)
You admit that.
But now what?
Do you start over from scratch?
Do you ditch the line (or whatever) as flawed, unreliable, and never use it?
This thread is for advice on getting things right that weren't right before.
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09-26-2014 09:56 AM
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Personally, I think you need to be able to sing the lines, at least in your mind if not vocally.
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Mark,
It sounds like what you are describing are pre existing licks or lines
that are played the same way or almost the same, give or take the key.
That is essentially the same pursuit as the classical instrumentalist working on the
challenging passages within a composition.
The thinking of slow practice is not based on that tempo being the only
speed that we can get through a passage, but rather at a pace that allows the
mental space to concentrate on and make adjustments to minute details of our technique.
Correctly program the subconscious in a controlled environment so that it will in time run
on autopilot at a faster tempo.
On the other side of the practice spectrum, I remember one guitarist I met when
I was a teenager who a few years later went on to work with Nona Hendryx and
one of Stanley Clarkes fusion projects. He said that he always practiced fast and stayed relaxed.
He described the process like a camera lens coming into focus.
I'm not sure but I think this is similar to what Reg advocates.
Part of the game is uncovering the weak links in our technique that are causing the problems.
It might be a fun and informative exercise if you post the notation for a few such lines for group discussion.
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Yes, that's it exactly. I'll either post some examples in music notation or else a video of me showing what bugs me.
Originally Posted by bako
Thanks for the suggestion!
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You probably already know this, Mark, but you're not supposed to 'think' when you're playing/performing. Thinking is for the shed. If you've really practiced some line or phrase or whatever it should come out organically when it has become part of your subconscious memory. Singing what you play is a good idea, but you have to have something worth singing first!
Sometimes I find that if I start thinking about something I've already learned, like a bop head...I can't play it anymore!
I'm definitely not a 'master' just some observations...
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I was just going to say the above.
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I ran across this quote from legendary basketball coach John Wooden.
>>>>>If you're not making mistakes, then you're not doing anything. I'm positive that a doer makes mistakes.
<<<<<
I hope to correct my mistakes but it is worth keeping in mind the only way to avoid making any is to do nothing, which in itself would be the biggest mistake of all!
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I had heard one of the things that distinguishes greatness, or it may have been genius, is the genius or great artist is never afraid of failing. It's the lesser folk who are so terrified of making a mistake or failing that they don't even try. Give up before they start. I see this with so many of my students. You must be willing to fail. Be willing to be like a child playing. The child isn't worried about failing. She or he is just playing. That's the same attitude the practicing musician should embrace. Explore. Have fun. There are no real mistakes. Until there are. But mistakes are grown up hang ups, to use an old vernacular.
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Isn't this one of those "it depends" questions on a what is the problem. For me I'll start with the slowing down and most the time that can address something. If real tricky fingering issue I next will start breaking the line into smaller pieces and work on a piece then connect it next piece gradually working on the whole. Then still not working figure maybe I approaching wrong and see if I can rethink the issue. Last if it is something from a book or article I might try to contact the author and see if they have advice. With the internet most people have an email address, and I've had good luck with people replying.
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In looking back at lines that have given me ongoing trouble, I see two main sources of difficulty:
1) Technique
2) Picking
One thing that gave me a lot of trouble for a time was arpeggios that cross several strings from higher to lower, requiring a succession of upstrokes. I had a hard time getting that right, but I realized why: "I never did this before." I would try to play that passage at the tempo I could play everything around it without isolating it and realizing this would take extra work because it was requiring me to do something I wasn't used to doing.
But the more subtle problem was picking. And here I'm not talking about Benson picking or any other particular method of picking---they all work well if you do them right and not so well if you don't---but with a tendency I had of slightly turning my hand so that sometimes I hit the string I was picking (or a nearby one) with some of my flesh rather than (or in addition to) the pick. Worse, the pick would 'dig in' more sometimes and less at others. It was an "inconsistent inconsistency" that drove me batty until I realized what was going on. So I had to change the way I held a pick until I reached a point where that didn't happen anymore.
I think those are the two main reasons some lines have been unduly troublesome for me in the past. I should have realized that those mistakes were blessings----information I needed about something I was doing that was holding me back. Live and (gradually) learn.....
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I've had good luck with that too, doc. I'm surprised how generous most people are. Originally Posted by docbop
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Seems to me that you need to distinguish between different areas of musicianship. I am not an advocate of playing "exercises" divorced from the Mother Lode - the actual songs - unless you are an absolute beginner with little technical skills. Better to consider one's ability to execute songs. If you think about it, you are usually talking about providing a rhythmic accompaniment (which might include bass and harmony if you are not playing with a bassist) or articulating the melody. If you cannot get through a song without playing pretty flawlessly, you need to make exercises out of the challenging parts.
One should always be able to play the melody accurately. No need to "improvise" - the melody is already written for you. Similarly, you should be able to play the rhythm and even incorporate the bass line as necessary. These skills are the basics. If your technique is not yet polished enough to play without difficulty, make exercises out the challenging parts. Of course, there are levels of playing harmony parts from 'workman' to 'genial' as well.
The next level is being able to "improvise" on the melody - which means to take the original material of the phrases and go somewhere with it - flourishes on the melody. The melody itself is rarely so complex as to present overwhelming difficulties with its articulation if you have developed good technique. The next level of improvisation requires, however, good taste and imagination and total command of your technique. And as Henry points out, the confidence to take that leap. Even playing "fills" or those little phrases that are often like a call and response to the singer when they land on those long whole notes or when you take a solo.
I find that the hardest thing is making a tight and coherent statement that does not constitute running scales aimlessly. It is a lot about taste and "composition in the moment". Restraint is the key. Of course, if you are playing solo chord/melody style songs, you have to put the whole thing together seamlessly, but in this case your creative choices are more limited than taking a solo in a group context because you have to convey the bass, harmony, and the melody.
To illustrate my point - I am currently working on several songs and home recordings of classic jazz standards. One of the tunes I'm working on is What Are You Doing The Rest Of Your Life by Michel Legrand and the Bergman lyricists. I assume we can consider this tune a jazz ballad. Often I will record a scratch track of vocal plus guitar, latter intending to replay a more definitive rhythm track and vocal track separately. The scratch track is to define the songs architecture and points where a second "lead" guitar or other instrument might provide a solo and incorporate some 'fills'. Because the arrangement of the "rhythm" track is so full in itself, incorporating the harmony and that important descending bass line, it is a delicate thing to add those fills without stepping all over the melody and harmony parts. In fact, I may use my keyboard synth to lay down a 'string' track as part of the harmony bed for the melody which in this case is sung. I find that this part of arranging is far more difficult to do tastefully than crafting a "lead" solo generally.
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Hopefully the above post is responsive to part of Mark's reflections. I realize he is talking about technical execution of some of these elements. To respond a bit to the issue of playing slowly, when I go to record even songs that I know quite well, I often record a demo purposely at a significantly slower tempo for one reason - it gives me the sonic space and time to work out those fills creatively.
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Obviously there are different approaches, methods, opinions etc... And Jays approach must work well.... but I'm on the other side of the fence, or whatever.
I believe in working on technique away from performance or playing tunes. I don't really believe in learning technique for performing specific tunes.
Generally guitarist can't play something because,
1) they don't have the technique
2) they don't have the knowledge or understanding
If you need to play something slow or a million times to get it right or up to speed, it's usually one or both of the above.
If every time you try and learn some line, phrase, melody etc... and you need to slow it down and practice. You have again a problem with #1 or #2 from above.
By learning just the line and how to finger that line your generally just adapting what technique you already have to be able to perform that line... generally reinforcing the problem you have playing the line in the first place.
Your teaching yourself BAD HABITS.
As Mark was realizing he had some breakdowns in his techniques... you either plow ahead with your same technique, making it work through repetition or make changes with your technique to not have those breakdowns.
You fix one situation at a time or try and fix all similar situations with one try.
If you have trouble sight reading faster bebop style lines etc... would you practice comping. Or your trying to get somewhere faster... would you just go faster, or check for a faster route, I hate analogies and mine are lousy, but the point... try looking at a somewhat bigger picture.Last edited by Reg; 09-29-2014 at 09:30 AM.
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I agree, Reg. Part of my problem before was that I didn't appreciate the singularity of mistakes. That is, I thought each mistake meant "I suck" and that was that. But now I realize a) that isn't helpful and b) it isn't true, either. Originally Posted by Reg
One book that helped me realize some things was Mimi Fox's book "Arpeggio Studies on Jazz Standards." Before that, I had never played an arpeggio study or even thought of the many ways to play arpeggios. So when it came to patterns crossing several strings from higher to lower, I stalled. At first I thought, "I suck," but gradually I realized, "The rest of this is easy for me to play because it's like things I've played before. This part is hard because it's something I never did before." So I isolated that part until it got smoother. (This took longer than I wanted, but hey, what can you do?)
This was not a case of failing to understand what was happening. It was easy, both musically (-this is a minor 7th arpeggio; no mystery there) and technically (-you have to make several upstrokes in a row, or one continuous one, but don't rush it) but I just wasn't smooth at doing it.
But until I "grew up", I would doggedly keep doing it the way I had been, thinking that since I KNOW this already, it should be a snap to PLAY, but it wasn't. A dose of humility was much needed.
Looking bad, I realize I not only developed some bad habits as a mostly-self-taught kid, I held on to them longer than I needed to.
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Especially with Jazz players since the Jazz tradition is to pass knowledge on like a Craftsman to apprentice. Part of the Jazz scene was/is playing gigs was as much about learning from the elders in the band as much as paying bills. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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Reg - I think you misunderstand. I don't know how well Mark plays or how fluent is his sight reading nor if he has major technical deficiencies. I can only speak about my own experience and progress. To be honest, I don't make "mistakes" too often. I play what I intend. But when I play a song over which I will record a second 'lead' track, I sometimes record a slower version to allow me to exploit what I like to call the microtiming in the tempo for developing rhythmic and melodic ideas - in other words to explore the possibilities for what I will ultimately record as the final version. I rarely write out a solo note for note, simply because I don't have to, though if someone gives me a notation for a part they want me to play, I have no problem reading fluently. Nor do I play the same song the same identical way twice . I have no difficulty playing uptempo material, nor do I flounder around on the fret board, nor do I play randomly. I play what I hear, and I work on the quality of what I play in terms of melodic or harmonic improvisation. In plain English I have all the technique I will ever need. That is not a limiting factor for me at least. That is not to say that I don't rehearse songs or use my Sibelius tracks to play over to develop the solo that I want to play on the keeper tracks. I'm working on the quality of the arrangement whether I'm playing guitar or keyboards.
I read a lot about people working on Barry Galbraith's exercises or other sources, and I understand that. I learned classical guitar for four years from twelve years old or so with a weekly lesson from the founder of the State Classical Guitar Society including Sor Studies, Carcassi method, Guiliani etudes, and those of Hector Villalobos. But, as my skills grew, I always preferred genuine musical pieces like the Elizabethan lute works of Dowland or Bach's music including the Chaconne. In simple terms, studies are boring to me by comparison with the real music intended to stand on its own as such.
Unless I'm mistaken, I recall you remarking that you don't work on technical etudes either, presumably because you are past that point. For example I don't play scales per se routinely because my daily playing encompasses that. Sometimes I will do scale like practice, but I do it in the context of a real tune. Because I would be bored playing my Segovia diatonic scales. The only technical area in which I am not really fluent is two hand tapping techniques. I don't aspire to playing heavy metal, so I don't care.
What techniques are you working on these days? Do you play chord melody style solo guitar often? What type of tunes would you play?
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I've never been able to remember a line I have practiced to use in a solo. Melodies, arpeggios and some chord melody arrangements, yes, but not lines as such. I've never been able to retain a lick I've learned off a record and reproduce it during a solo. I keep having to make it up as I go along! Maybe that's what I like about improvisational music- I can get away with this odd memory deficit that I seem to have. Originally Posted by MarkRhodes
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I'm the same. I practice improv. Lines, phrases but hardly ever memorize anything. Melodies sometimes are a challenge too. For me they're tied in often with fingerings. Fingerings can vary so much on guitar. It depends on which scale pattern you're using, which for me depends on where I happen to be playing prior and later. Many variables. My ear is tied to visuals and visual shapes are tied to the fretboard. So when I just improvise it all flows without those preconceptions and confusions. These are my shortcomings. So I've never memorized lines to use in improv. It's never worked for me. The few times I've tried it it just doesn't flow, gets jerky and sounds contrived, which it is of course. Originally Posted by Cunamara
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I did a Skype lesson with Tony DeCaprio a week or so ago. It was interesting that he could improvise a line and then stop, take it apart step by step to show what was going on, and then still make it all flow together. Over 20 minutes he was still able to retain the entirely of the line from beginning to end. But then he's been a professional musician for over 40 years whereas I've been a hobbyist for 30...
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I can do the same. I do that with my students as well, if I can remember the line I just made up.
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Well, it probably doesn't work for you because you haven't done it enough. Not that you need to NOW. You're doing just fine. But a lot of great players---beginning with Charlie Parker---memorized solos by other players and also used certain lines and phrases over and over. That too is part of the tradition of jazz. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
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For me anyway it's about words. 3-8 notes is a word and 16 or more is sentence. I work on those words that I can recall in a micro-second. Speed is a bit of an issue sometimes but not technique, swing, phrasing or any of that.
We need our pets words, phrases or whatever we call them. Let's face it. I'm still going to be mostly a noodler forever.
Look at Bird. The finest improvisor to date. He had a unique style. Style is repetition, yes, and it's frowned upon theoretically but it can go along way. Blues, shredding and a totally unique style. That was Bird. I don't associate Bird with long solos. CC really brought jazz out of the world of 78's. I don't associate him with shredding either. That was Dizzy's thing. I associate him with originality.
If you don't get Bird you might be doomed to imitate him too much. Cop some Bird. It's jazz why not. Still you have to understand where he's coming from in regard to short series of notes. The first 4-5 notes of 'Honeysuckle Rose' screams Bird and jazz. Wear that out.
learn some cliches;
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I'm in same boat memorizing lines they don't stick especially the whole thing of trying to think ahead to set it up rhythmicly and phrase-wise. Just breaks the flow to me and gets into the "lick machine" sound to me. I end up with my own little ideas I guess they are easy to use because I developed them and they are part of me. Originally Posted by henryrobinett
I have guitar buddies who are totally memorized line based and can pickup new lines and incorporate them, but that is all they do no matter what style they play. They always want me to teach them things but as soon as I talk notes, arp's, analylizing even their lines, they get the trout looking and start to noodle. They can't break out of just learning lines/licks and what chord to use them over. So like they say different strokes for different folks.
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They memorize sentences because they don't understand the words. Originally Posted by docbop
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