5 things you can do, when you cannot play guitar

I was out running on Saturday and, in a moment when unconscious competence turned into unconscious incompetence, I tripped and fell on a gravel road. My picking hand is skinned, my left forearm gashed, and two fingers on my fretting hand are sliced to the bone. It looks like it'll be a while until I am going to be playing again, so I was thinking "How can I practice guitar without playing guitar?"

So I did some research and here's my top 5.

1. Don't. Take a break.

Sometimes we get wrapped up in the goals and plans we set for ourselves and any disruption causes stress and pressure. This is not constructive.

In 1953, Roger Bannister was attempting to break the 4-minute mile. Training was tough and as the date for the attempt approached, his performance had plateaued and he was suffering from a cold. His coaches response was to send him climbing for a break. Not altitude training like modern athletes, but a climbing holiday - a complete break. It did the trick. When the date of the attempt came at Cowley Road Athletics stadium in Oxford, Bannister was able to find a final burst of energy in the last lap that enabled him to collapse over the line in 3 minutes 59.xx seconds. 

It wasn't that the climbing had made him stronger, it had given him a mental break and time to re-group. So take a break, do something different, dial down the obsession.

2. Study some theory.

Brush up on some of the things you haven't used in a while or learn something new.

Groundhog practice

A few years ago I decided to try my hand at playing classical guitar. I'd been to see John Williams play a concert in Bradford-upon-Avon and I was spellbound for 90 minutes, sitting 10 metres away. When he played Asturias by Albeniz and Koyunbaba by Domeniconi, I don't remember breathing or blinking.

So, completely inspired, I set about teaching myself some technique and soon got stuck into some well know tunes.  My favourite was the Gavotte from Bach's 4th Lute Suite.  There were some tricky things to overcome but it went well until the 3rd section - there was a 3-bar sequence that I just couldn't get. My little finger just wouldn't play.

So I went back to the start, playing slowly and trying to add the new section, again and again. Slowly the speed and fluidity built up but every time I hit that section things fell apart.  Everyday was the same, the first two sections sounded great but when I hit the 3rd section it sounded like a cartoon bicycle crash! So I decided to put it to one side for a while and come back to it.

When I did come back to it, I had to brush up the first two sections again, and then I was ready to crack the 3rd section.  So it started again, there was a little improvement but it still sounded weak. This was getting like Groundhog Day.  Eventually, I compromised (also known as quitting) and ended up repeating the first two sections and half of section 4 to at least have a piece to play out of all the work I had put in. 

Does this ring any bells? Ever had a tune where you get to a tricky part of the solo and you end up playing something similar but simpler, because you just cannot get it under your fingers?  You go back to the start and try again and again. Yet, you can play the rest of it brilliantly.  If so, you may have doing Groundhog Practice.

Years later, it struck me that in all the time I had worked on the Gavotte, I had spent more than twice as much time on sections 1 and 2 than on tricky section 3.  Going back to start each time I screwed up meant this was inevitable. So it was no surprise that they sounded better.   This is a recipe for having a repertoire of incomplete tunes.

So here's the lessons I learned about practice and learning new tunes:

1. Don't start at the beginning and try to learn new tunes in order.

Play roughly through a new piece and find the bits you CANNOT do.  It is fun to play the parts you can, but that is NOT practice - it is fun. Play those parts anytime but not in your practice time.  The tune will only be as good as the weakest passages so find the parts you cannot play NOT the parts you can.

2. Practice the most difficult parts over and over, in smaller and smaller chunks.

Even if it is one bar.  Doing this in 2 or 3 minute bursts alongside other practice (scales etc) will help stop you from getting bored.  Put it at the end of your warm up.  Don't spend hours and hours on it.  Believe it or not, that can actually cement the mistakes in your playing.  Short-bursts are best. Once you have the tricky section mastered, you can look at the transitions in and out of it, and go back to practicing the whole tune.

It's not groundhog day, so don't do groundhog practice.

Major scale practice routine - pattern 1 (E-shape)

This practice routine will get the major scale under your fingers and under your skin.  Mastering the major scale will improve your playing in all sorts of ways.  You can read 10 reasons why you should learn scales here.

I developed this routine as an easy and quick way of keeping major scales in my warm up after I had completed studying Master The Major Scale by www.justinguitar.com.  The idea is that this routine is something to aim for if your scale knowledge is rusty (or non-existent if you are in denial like I was), and part of a regular warm up/practice routine if you are developing further from intermediate playing. 

The routine has 4 sections which can be learned and practised separately, but the end goal is to be able to play the whole routine, correctly and smoothly, first time every time when you warm up.  I leave speed up to you and your ego, but practise with a metronome at least twice a week.

Here's how to use it:

Section A, bars 1-4, is a straight-forward two-octave pattern played up and down.
Section B, bars 5 - 11, is the major scale played in thirds. 1st note, 3rd note, 2nd note, 4th note, 3rd note etc
Section C, bars 12 - 22, is played in runs of three notes. 1st, 2nd, 3rd; 2nd, 3rd, 4th; 3rd, 4th, 5th etc
Section D, bars 22 - 35, is played in runs of four notes.

1. Make sure you can play each section smoothly and consistently on its own. Check out www.justinguitar.com for more on this.  Sections C and D offer some fingering challenges which I'll leave to you to find ways of playing these that are smooth and comfortable for you.  Working this out will help you learn it.

2. Practice the transitions between sections. Part of the purpose of the routine is to be able to move easily between different note choices in your playing.

3. Play the routine twice everyday when you start your warm up.  Keep doing this until you never play it wrong. This is much harder than aiming to be able to play it right.

Tips

• Play it slow to learn it fast.
• Practice with your eyes closed, moving slowly from note to note, hearing and visualising your fingers finding the notes.
• Focus on using small, smooth finger movements and using just enough pressure to make the notes sound clearly.
• Once you've mastered pattern 1, move on to the other patterns.

Get the PDF.  Get the Guitar Pro 6 file.

For more advanced players, check out Adrian Galysh's @adriangalysh 3-note per string work out http://t.co/NLl1tpbxVi