In my lengthy journey as a musician I have discovered many facets to becoming a well-rounded, versatile musician. There are so many elements to address on the road to being considered a good musician. Today I am going to focus on what is perhaps the most fundamental of all- practice.
Let's face it- practicing is the first thing we begin to do when our musical odyssey begins. I can still recall my first guitar lesson at Lindisfarne College, in Hastings, New Zealand.
I was 14 years old. A friend had suggested that I go to guitar lessons with him. He was already very good and I, on the other hand, was very bad. I had never even considered learning a musical instrument before that time. I loved listening to all kinds of music and I remember my Dad playing the guitar at parties, but learning the guitar or any other instrument had never held any special appeal.
Anyway, to cut a long story short. my first lesson was extremely difficult. I couldn't read music, my fingers wouldn't do what I wanted them to do, and to compound it all my friend was laughing at my feeble attempts to strum the chords to 'Yellow Submarine' by The Beatles.
However, it wasn't difficult to realize that I would have to do some serious practice if I wanted to learn and improve. So that is what I did and I have been practicing ever since!
Before I begin talking about The Three Ultimate Practice Tips I want to explain to you how I developed them.
I have been studying the guitar for 22 years. I first started being paid to teach privately when I was 16 years old. At the age of 18 I was teaching College night classes to people ranging in age from six to eighty two! I went to University to study music and graduated with the one of the highest exam results in the country. I have attended master classes from some of the world's premiere classical and rock guitarists. I have taught literally thousands of students from New Zealand to Dubai and beyond. So in brief, I have spent a lot of time both teaching AND being taught. During this time I have analyzed, refined and developed what I believe to be great methods for practicing.
The following tips do not contain mantras that say "Thou shalt practice for 18 hours per day until thy fingers bleed' or that you must practice XYZ scales or arpeggios. Rather, it is a vessel which you can customize and fill with goodies that suit your lifestyle and situation. All of our lives are different and unique, therefore it is ludicrous to try to suggest that a single set of highly specified 'must do's is suitable and practical for all.
"It's all about harmony baby"
The Three Ultimate Practice Tips
Tip 1. Know your outcomes. Every time you begin to practice you should know what it is that you are expecting to achieve from your practice time.
Tip 2. Make effective use of your time. Time. Everyone on planet Earth has 24 hours a day to do stuff. The time that you allocate to practicing should be used in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Tip 3. Develop a routine. Contrary to popular belief a routine doesn't necessarily mean doing the same thing at the same time everyday. A routine has to be devised that can fit in with anything and everything else that you have to do in the course of a day.
Here are some personal examples of each of The Three Ultimate Practice Tips:
Tip 1. Know your outcomes.
Whenever I practice I know what it is I want to achieve during the session. Just last week I played the Disney classic "When you wish upon a star" here in Japan. I totally ruined the bridge, thankfully, I was able to cover up my mistakes, but I knew I had to revisit that section of the song. The next day, it was time to practice and that was the first thing I did. I revised that bridge section for about 15 minutes. And I revised it again just before I went to the gig that night.
My priorities have changed as the years have passed. Years ago I used to devote a lot of my practice time to theory and technical development. Nowadays, most of my practice time is spent expanding my repertoire and developing my tone. Nevertheless, to this day I still know my expected outcomes of each and every practice session.
Tip 2. Make effective use of your time.
I am going to use my experience as a teacher to discuss this tip. Over the years this is probably the tip that I have tried to share and instil in the countless number of students and band members that I have taught and worked with and in turn have been taught by. A recurring phenomenon amongst so many individuals is this:
They are playing a song; they reach bar X make a mistake; they go back to the BEGINNING OF THE SONG; they reach the same bar X and make the same mistake; they go back to the BEGINNING OF THE SONG; they reach the same bar X..........I think you see the pattern.
This is one of the most inefficient uses of time that I have ever encountered. I have been extremely well-taught and I have also underpinned that exposure with professional development courses for teachers and my own explorations into the subject of effective methods of practicing and I can say with a high level of confidence that you should not encourage this type of behavior in yourself or in others.
You should attempt to address the particular part of the song that is causing you consternation. Be a problem-solver and try your best to figure out what it is that is causing you to falter at that point. Is it because it hasn't been memorized? Are you rushing it? Maybe its actually the preceding bar that is causing the difficulty!
This type of phenomenon also has the somewhat nasty side-effect of introducing anxiety into your performance of that song as you know that 'X' section is coming up and your nerves and tension can increase during your approach to that part, which is not good.
A quick fix to avoid this is:
Tip 3. Develop a routine.
A routine is not immutable. A routine must be adaptable, flexible and of course realistic. In my dealings with adult students I would find that many of them would come to their weekly lessons without having done any practice. I would ask them what happened and I would hear various excuses such as 'my girl fell of her horse so I had to take her to the hospital', 'the boss made me do too much overtime' etc. It was easy to see that they just didn't develop their routine in a flexible manner.
Quite often they would tell me that they had planned to practice an hour a day but they just couldn't find an hour to sit down and practice. So I suggested that they break their practice down into smaller segments e.g. 10 minutes in the morning before breakfast; 20 minutes during their work break; and 30 minutes while watching television at night. The key was flexibility and harmony with their lifestyles. Most had never thought of that approach because they still carried over the principles that we learn in schools where most lessons are taught in hour long classes for practical reasons.
Let's face it- practicing is the first thing we begin to do when our musical odyssey begins. I can still recall my first guitar lesson at Lindisfarne College, in Hastings, New Zealand.
I was 14 years old. A friend had suggested that I go to guitar lessons with him. He was already very good and I, on the other hand, was very bad. I had never even considered learning a musical instrument before that time. I loved listening to all kinds of music and I remember my Dad playing the guitar at parties, but learning the guitar or any other instrument had never held any special appeal.
Anyway, to cut a long story short. my first lesson was extremely difficult. I couldn't read music, my fingers wouldn't do what I wanted them to do, and to compound it all my friend was laughing at my feeble attempts to strum the chords to 'Yellow Submarine' by The Beatles.
However, it wasn't difficult to realize that I would have to do some serious practice if I wanted to learn and improve. So that is what I did and I have been practicing ever since!
Before I begin talking about The Three Ultimate Practice Tips I want to explain to you how I developed them.
I have been studying the guitar for 22 years. I first started being paid to teach privately when I was 16 years old. At the age of 18 I was teaching College night classes to people ranging in age from six to eighty two! I went to University to study music and graduated with the one of the highest exam results in the country. I have attended master classes from some of the world's premiere classical and rock guitarists. I have taught literally thousands of students from New Zealand to Dubai and beyond. So in brief, I have spent a lot of time both teaching AND being taught. During this time I have analyzed, refined and developed what I believe to be great methods for practicing.
The following tips do not contain mantras that say "Thou shalt practice for 18 hours per day until thy fingers bleed' or that you must practice XYZ scales or arpeggios. Rather, it is a vessel which you can customize and fill with goodies that suit your lifestyle and situation. All of our lives are different and unique, therefore it is ludicrous to try to suggest that a single set of highly specified 'must do's is suitable and practical for all.
"It's all about harmony baby"
The Three Ultimate Practice Tips
Tip 1. Know your outcomes. Every time you begin to practice you should know what it is that you are expecting to achieve from your practice time.
Tip 2. Make effective use of your time. Time. Everyone on planet Earth has 24 hours a day to do stuff. The time that you allocate to practicing should be used in the most efficient and effective way possible.
Tip 3. Develop a routine. Contrary to popular belief a routine doesn't necessarily mean doing the same thing at the same time everyday. A routine has to be devised that can fit in with anything and everything else that you have to do in the course of a day.
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Here are some personal examples of each of The Three Ultimate Practice Tips:
Tip 1. Know your outcomes.
Whenever I practice I know what it is I want to achieve during the session. Just last week I played the Disney classic "When you wish upon a star" here in Japan. I totally ruined the bridge, thankfully, I was able to cover up my mistakes, but I knew I had to revisit that section of the song. The next day, it was time to practice and that was the first thing I did. I revised that bridge section for about 15 minutes. And I revised it again just before I went to the gig that night.
My priorities have changed as the years have passed. Years ago I used to devote a lot of my practice time to theory and technical development. Nowadays, most of my practice time is spent expanding my repertoire and developing my tone. Nevertheless, to this day I still know my expected outcomes of each and every practice session.
Tip 2. Make effective use of your time.
I am going to use my experience as a teacher to discuss this tip. Over the years this is probably the tip that I have tried to share and instil in the countless number of students and band members that I have taught and worked with and in turn have been taught by. A recurring phenomenon amongst so many individuals is this:
They are playing a song; they reach bar X make a mistake; they go back to the BEGINNING OF THE SONG; they reach the same bar X and make the same mistake; they go back to the BEGINNING OF THE SONG; they reach the same bar X..........I think you see the pattern.
This is one of the most inefficient uses of time that I have ever encountered. I have been extremely well-taught and I have also underpinned that exposure with professional development courses for teachers and my own explorations into the subject of effective methods of practicing and I can say with a high level of confidence that you should not encourage this type of behavior in yourself or in others.
You should attempt to address the particular part of the song that is causing you consternation. Be a problem-solver and try your best to figure out what it is that is causing you to falter at that point. Is it because it hasn't been memorized? Are you rushing it? Maybe its actually the preceding bar that is causing the difficulty!
This type of phenomenon also has the somewhat nasty side-effect of introducing anxiety into your performance of that song as you know that 'X' section is coming up and your nerves and tension can increase during your approach to that part, which is not good.
A quick fix to avoid this is:
- Scan through the song before you start to learn it
- Identify the section or bars that you think will give you the most trouble
- Start learning those sections or bars first
- When you are confident with that section or bar learn the preceding bar(s) and play through, then learn the section or bar(s) that follow it and put it all together.
- Move on to the rest of the song
I have a ratio called "The 90:10". It works like this. For many songs you will spend 90% of your time just mastering a small section of it (10%). The figures are of course approximations, but you will find the proportions are close to accurate and fairly general. There will always be outliers like songs that don't cause you any trouble or songs that are a nightmare from beginning to end!
Tip 3. Develop a routine.
A routine is not immutable. A routine must be adaptable, flexible and of course realistic. In my dealings with adult students I would find that many of them would come to their weekly lessons without having done any practice. I would ask them what happened and I would hear various excuses such as 'my girl fell of her horse so I had to take her to the hospital', 'the boss made me do too much overtime' etc. It was easy to see that they just didn't develop their routine in a flexible manner.
Quite often they would tell me that they had planned to practice an hour a day but they just couldn't find an hour to sit down and practice. So I suggested that they break their practice down into smaller segments e.g. 10 minutes in the morning before breakfast; 20 minutes during their work break; and 30 minutes while watching television at night. The key was flexibility and harmony with their lifestyles. Most had never thought of that approach because they still carried over the principles that we learn in schools where most lessons are taught in hour long classes for practical reasons.
- Develop a routine that fits in nicely with your life
- Be flexible with it and revisit it if you are unable to follow it
- Always look for options and avoid a regimented approach
All the best with perfecting your practice!
Joshua Henare Rogers holds a Limited Authority to Teach (LAT) from the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), a Licentiate of the Trinity College of London with Distinction Diploma (LTCL with Distinction), and a Diploma in Business Studies from the Waiariki Institute of Technology in New Zealand. He has taught guitar and music theory in several colleges in New Zealand and Dubai. In addition to this he has also taught privately and at children's institutions in New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates, and Bahrain for over twenty years.
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