Notes from day 1 and day 2.
Day 1. Diagnosis. Guitar players sometimes play with a flatpick and sometimes with fingers. On this day I began, once again, trying to improve my flatpicking. I spent this whole time playing slowly and noticing what I was doing wrong. Some of the things I noticed are symptoms of a problem (missing strings) and some get closer to the actual problem (pick angle, pick grip).
This is a much different process from practicing in order to learn a particular song or scale. In that case, you tend to concentrate on producing the correct notes at the correct time. But what I’m working on today is not whether I’m producing the correct notes, but how I’m producing the correct notes.
Day 2. More diagnosis, revealing problems that surely existed yesterday but I didn’t notice until today: losing concentration, right and left hands getting out of sync, pick angle drifting.
In theory, these mechanical issues should be resolved in the early years of learning to play, but in reality I think we’re always wrestling with them.
This is a much different process from practicing in order to learn a particular song or scale. In that case, you tend to concentrate on producing the correct notes at the correct time. But what I’m working on today is not whether I’m producing the correct notes, but how I’m producing the correct notes.
Day 2. More diagnosis, revealing problems that surely existed yesterday but I didn’t notice until today: losing concentration, right and left hands getting out of sync, pick angle drifting.
In theory, these mechanical issues should be resolved in the early years of learning to play, but in reality I think we’re always wrestling with them.
Notes from day 3, day 4 and day 5.
Day 3: Trying to deal with concentration. “Starting with upstrokes to mix things up – make things different – increase the need to concentrate.” Automatic pilot is the enemy when you practice. It is the opposite of concentration, and just yesterday I had diagnosed “losing concentration frequently” as one of the problems. Changing to upstrokes is a small enough change that it isn’t really any harder to play that way; it’s just unfamiliar, and that makes autopilot impossible.
It’s easy to practice scales; not so easy to practice concentrating.
Day 4: GO SLOW, one of the 7 Good Habits and the answer to the question, “If you wrote a book about practicing that could only be two words long, what would they be?”
When you take notes about the same subject everyday for a while, you develop shorthand and catch phrases. The phrase “right reps” occurred to me here – meaning “correct repetitions.” I thought, “Suppose I resolved to play a short phrase over and over until I played 10 “right reps” in a row.” The value of a catch phrase is that it’s easy to remember when there’s a lot going on, which makes it very helpful in practicing. You can use the right catch phrase as the organizing principle for weeks of practice sessions.
Day 5: Shorthand is beginning to take over. These are my instructions to myself before the day’s session, but there’s no mid-session or post-session reflection. Maybe I was interrupted; maybe I forget; maybe I just decided, for a good or not-so-good reason, not to write anything down. Was it because nothing happened that was worth writing down? Probably not.
It’s easy to practice scales; not so easy to practice concentrating.
Day 4: GO SLOW, one of the 7 Good Habits and the answer to the question, “If you wrote a book about practicing that could only be two words long, what would they be?”
When you take notes about the same subject everyday for a while, you develop shorthand and catch phrases. The phrase “right reps” occurred to me here – meaning “correct repetitions.” I thought, “Suppose I resolved to play a short phrase over and over until I played 10 “right reps” in a row.” The value of a catch phrase is that it’s easy to remember when there’s a lot going on, which makes it very helpful in practicing. You can use the right catch phrase as the organizing principle for weeks of practice sessions.
Day 5: Shorthand is beginning to take over. These are my instructions to myself before the day’s session, but there’s no mid-session or post-session reflection. Maybe I was interrupted; maybe I forget; maybe I just decided, for a good or not-so-good reason, not to write anything down. Was it because nothing happened that was worth writing down? Probably not.
Notes from day 6 and day 7.
Day 6: Another day working on right reps. I discovered some rules to try out: “no phrases longer than 10 notes,” for example, or “no musical momentum.” Both of these rules are meant to deal with concentration by keeping the raw material to a manageable amount, and by minimizing distraction (=musical momentum.)
Day7: At this point I had tried right reps for a few days and was ready for some structure. I decided to work with 10 short phrases (fragments of fiddle tunes, in this case) and time how long it took to play each one 10 times in a row correctly. The longest was 10 minutes 23 seconds; the shortest was 1 minute 6 seconds.
Day7: At this point I had tried right reps for a few days and was ready for some structure. I decided to work with 10 short phrases (fragments of fiddle tunes, in this case) and time how long it took to play each one 10 times in a row correctly. The longest was 10 minutes 23 seconds; the shortest was 1 minute 6 seconds.
Mount Everest. (photo by Vince Roach)
Reflection on the week.
Practicing is not just one thing; a lot can happen,
This week I diagnosed several problems, both mental and physical, with my playing. I addressed some (but not all) of them. I developed an exercise, made up some rules for it and figured out how to measure what I was doing.
This week I did not deal with any actual songs. I didn’t learn anything new about music theory. I didn’t work on the fingers-only (i. e., no flatpick) style of playing, which is a style I play in much more often. I didn’t even work on my left hand much; most of my attention went to my right hand. I didn’t write anything, or arrange anything. All of those are things I really should work on. But there are only so many hours you can spend practicing in one week. You can’t get to it all. That’s why you need goals, schedules, measurements and discipline. All, like working on the left hand, subjects for another day.
This week I diagnosed several problems, both mental and physical, with my playing. I addressed some (but not all) of them. I developed an exercise, made up some rules for it and figured out how to measure what I was doing.
This week I did not deal with any actual songs. I didn’t learn anything new about music theory. I didn’t work on the fingers-only (i. e., no flatpick) style of playing, which is a style I play in much more often. I didn’t even work on my left hand much; most of my attention went to my right hand. I didn’t write anything, or arrange anything. All of those are things I really should work on. But there are only so many hours you can spend practicing in one week. You can’t get to it all. That’s why you need goals, schedules, measurements and discipline. All, like working on the left hand, subjects for another day.
