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Can you suggest some good exercises that can be done without the instrument, and at max with a piece of paper and a pen??
I was wondering, there must be something useful to do when you wait in a line or sit around waiting for something.
Any ideas??
Thanks
C
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09-30-2009 09:13 AM
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I do things like time myself reciting every note in every scale around the key circle, reciting major and minor triads around the circle. I also sometimes will hear a tone and try to figure out intervals from it under my breath so I don't seem like as much of a freak.
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Rich Severson over at guitarcollege.com has a 5 cd set called Theory for the Road. So while you're driving, he covers alot of material.
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Visualize yourself playing a tune that you have memorized.
If you've got the music for a new tune, visualize playing it - saves a lot of time later on, when you have the guitar in your hands.
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visualize playing scale patterns and arpeggios and imagine the sounds. many great musicians "practice" away from their instruments.
the late narciso yepes could learn an entire new concerto on an airplane ride, and perform it upon landing.
it is well studied that there is not much difference in the actual learning achieved, whether practice is physical or only done in the mind.
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The last thing you want to do when your not playing the guitar is thinking about it. You need to be fresh when you pick up the guitar,get a stress ball and keep it in your pocket, take it out and work both hands-it works -
wonders..LG.
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You can't train your fingers if that is what you want to. You can visualize scales or whatever.
Or, the best of all: ear training, harmony, transcribe songs by ear. Compose without the instrument and notate it, etc
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Since you are allowing yourself the use of a pen and paper, why not think of some lines which theoretically would sound good but that you would never normally play. I.e. they are not part of your stock licks collection. This could help your study of just about everything (chords, arps, scales, specific songs, tension, resolutions, rhythm, playing inside/outside etc etc.) and you might get some cool new licks out of it too.
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My Ear Training teacher advocates developing your ability to hear and remember music in your head, that is without an instrument and without using your voice.
So you could practice reading music without your instrument and hearing the lines in your head. That's one of the things I'm working on, it's difficult for me.
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Thanks everybody for the great replys.
I´ll definately do some visualization, concerning chords scales and whole arrangement. I guess this is the way to realy know the tunes you want to play. Also I like the idea to write liks down and see how they sound later. That could be very surprising (at least for me, because half of the time I have no idea
)
Also I want to record an ear-training thing for I-Pod, where you put it on shuffle and you have to name the things you hear.
I was thinking of intervals, triads, chords with different tensions, scales and standard progressions.
any further Ideas on that one?? should I rather record a guitar or a piano for that (known vs. not so well known sound?)
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Here is one, take a specific key and record yourself playing little kids jingles. Short and easy and none that you already know. Then shuffle and play them back and see if you can write out the melody.
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My composition teacher in college would write directly onto to score paper in pen creating her compositions without even humming.
She set the bar high, showing what is possible without an instrument.
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Where is the fun in that???
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I have a pick and a "fretboard" on a piece of paper in my pocket at all times.
Sometimes I practice my picking on the side of my pants. Upstrokes, downstrokes, alternate picking etc.
Sometimes I pull the paper-fretboard and do some visualization work. Scales, arps, sequences, licks, melodies, fretboard note memorization, etc.
Sometimes I do left hand finger independence using my right forearm as the "fretboard".
Sometimes I grap a piece of paper, and write down all chord, scale, arpeggios formulas, notes I can think of.
Sometimes I'm singing intervals.
Basically, I aim to do this sort of work 2-3 hours per week. This way I don't spend my actual time with the guitar on something that I really don't need a guitar to do.
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If you have an iPhone or touch, download Karajan ear trainer. It cover intervals (ascending, descending, played in harmony), chords, scales, pitch in general, time signatures, and bpm.
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As a guitar player, I find it difficult to practice anything useful without a guitar in my hands. It the instrument I communicate through, and a large part of the difficulty with this instrument is knowing it inside out (fretboard, scale patterns, etc), which I only learn by playing that darn thing.
However, there is an exception. What I find the most useful to practice without a guitar is timing and rhythm. Often when I listen to music, I "play drums" with my hands, or just tap the beat when I'm driving, waiting in a line, etc. Tapping with the left foot, my left hand, tapping only on the 2 and 4, etc, all sorts of ways to lock that meter into your body. That really helps over time. Timing and rhythm is so important, and you can really practice it anywhere, anytime. It helps!
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Thnx for the pdfs, FatJeff!
Originally Posted by FatJeff
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Take a look at my "Mental Calesthenics," at this link: Originally Posted by chachi
http://frogstoryrecords.com/
It's listed near the bottom of the lessons page.
Hope this helps.
Steve
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Pick a song out of the Real Book and memorize the changes. You can imagine the different chord voicings you'd use to chomp over the changes.
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I'll recommend something outside the box then .
Konokol . The most under-rated musical training system in the world .
Either that , or fall in love ... as a musical excercise .
It makes your phrasing intense !
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Try sit ups and push ups.
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I'm working through Joe Elliott's "Intro to Jazz Guitar Soloing" with the study group here, so lately I fall asleep running through sequences of seven arpeggios in major and minor keys, visualizing them on the guitar.
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I see the fingerboard in my head....
I hum a tune or improvisation and see my fingers on the fingerboard...
But I have been doing this for some time now...
time on the instrument...pierre
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As others have said, reading away from your instrument helps. My old teacher told me how he used to teach at a school in Berlin and he lived in an apartment with really thin walls so he couldn't practice late at night, which is when he would get home. So he took the omnibook and just read rhythms off the page, after a while his reading on guitar got better, and he was able to sight sing melodies as well as the rhythms.
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