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 

12-bar study no. 2 - dominant 7th arpeggios

This 12-bar study takes you through the dominant 7th C-shape, A-shape and G-shape arpeggios.  It uses a 12-bar blues progression in E major .  Like the first study this makes it  easy to hear when you need to change pattern.  It also reinforces the fact that when you are using arpeggios for melody or solo lines, you need to change with the chords.

Here's how to use it.

1. Spend 15 minutes learning patterns for C-shape, A-shape and G-shape dominant 7th arpeggios. (justinguitar.com has a great page for this).  5 minutes on each.

2. Play a basic 12-bar progression in E.  Listen for where the changes happen.  (If you can record this into a looper or get a backing track, even better).

3. Spend 15 minutes learning the 12-bar study.

4. Play. (With backing track or loop).

5. Play it slow to learn it fast.

Get the PDF.   Get the Guitar Pro 6 file.

OMG! All that practice and now I have to play an audience? Part 2

When you learn to play an instrument, you put in the practice based on a bunch of rules and ideas you pick up from teachers, books, recordings, a higher power, your ears etc.  After a while you get to the point when you feel you are ready to 'take it to the people', and that is when you encounter the most complicated instrument in existence.

An audience. 

Yes, it is the audience you are really playing.  And it is never the same twice and there is NO practice. You are straight in at the deep end, every time, and it is always the first time. 

Last time we talked about getting over that awkward moment when you step in front of the mic for the first time and have to break the ice.  But what about after that? How do you keep the audience with you?

When I was first playing gigs, I was obsessed with Bruce Springsteen.  I loved the way he would weave stories about each song, and how he seemed to have the audience hanging on every word.  So taking a leaf out of his book, I tried to do the same.  (I wasn't short of self-esteem at the time!)

Cue tumbleweed. Instead of rapt attention, all I got was the sound of drinks being ordered and increasingly loud conversation.

It turns out that people don't come out to listen to me talk. They come out to listen to me play.  They come to dance and sing.  And it seems that those long, rambling anecdotes only really work when the audience a) knows and loves the performer already, b) knows the songs really well and c) the stories have some kind of resonance or romance.  Bruce is able to create pictures of gangland New Jersey where lovers struggle heroically to break free, because we know he has lived through it.  And me?  Well let's just say that I don't.  Unless I am playing to friends and family, I am just some guy talking too much. There has to be a strong connection before you get the audience's permission to talk a lot.

So the lesson here is...

STEP TWO - Engage often, keep it short and sweet.

Don't rush from one song to another without ever saying anything to the audience. Saying nothing is as bad as talking too much. You might as well be an ipod.  Here's some things to try. 

Talk to people. 'Hello [insert town/venue name]' works at Wembley Stadium. I have checked on several occasions and it doesn't work so well at The White Horse, McGinty's Sports Bar, or the village hall/local venue, unless you have strong following already and they are all there. In which case banter, banter, banter.... 

Respond and talk to individuals. If you see someone singing along or dancing, make eye contact, ask them "Did you like that one? Well,this one is for you." It's easier for you because you have a focus. And everyone else gets involved because you are using a microphone. Be careful not to keep talking to the same person all night. That is a bit dull for everyone else especially if the person is drunk and shouting back a lot.

Introduce your favourite songs.  'We like this one. We've been playing it since....[first heard it, it reminds us of....]. But don't be a musicologist. "This song was first recorded in a small town outside of Tupelo on an accordion and a recorder by {someone they've never heard of}. Elvis' second producer's nephew played it to a guy who played sax for {someone they've never heard of} who got to number 5 in Albania with it in 1957 before Fat Boy Slim sampled it on Gangsta Trippin". 

Similarly, don't introduce every track the same way - you'll sound like a wedding DJ.  Try this - "Are there any {insert band} fans here? [Yes]. This is for the guy in the blue t-shirt buying me a pint!"

Talk about what's happening - in the gig or in the news. What do you see going on?  I played a small outdoor acoustic gig on the day Amy Winehouse died.  I saw the news on my phone about 30 minutes before we went on.  We quickly learned Rehab and I announced 'we are celebrating Amy - this is called Rehab. You know the words'.  It was sunny. Everybody sang (bellowed actually) and overlooked the fact that I was playing on ukulele. 

If its a birthday or a wedding - choosing tracks or news from the day X was born/turned 18 or 21/got married is an easy way to find something engaging to say. 

Use a little humour.  I play 500 miles by The Proclaimers. I find it impossible to resist the temptation to sing it in a really bad fake Scottish accent.  I introduce it by asking if there is anyone Scottish in the audience. If I get a 'yes' I make a profuse apology for what I am going to do to their accent.  IMPORTANT: Sarcasm doesn't work in a crowd. I don't know why. I wish it did. I think it is because with sarcasm, half the joke is in your head.

Include the band.  I play with a band called Fraudio.  Liam, the singer, does a great job of introducing some songs while the band is playing the intro. The first time I rehearsed with them I discovered that this wasn't an accident - it had been rehearsed or at least agreed. And that is only professional.

The overall aim is to play off the audience as much as you can. Some preparation is really important - thinking about it for the first time in front of an audience is a horrible experience. Take some time over it so that you can do it comfortably without stumbling. I know my examples will look artificial - the first few times you do it, it may feel artificial - but it will get more natural as you find your own tricks.  And as http://www.youtube.com/user/MrStuClark told me once, it doesn't matter if you stretch the truth a little. He once introduced www.adamrafferty.com at a gig I booked saying, "Fresh from Obama's inauguration party...". Nobody batted an eyelid - it was completely believable.

Finally, be prepared to stop doing some of the things you do. Anything that gets silence or tumbleweed needs to go, no matter how clever it is.  It's all about their response to what you're doing.

Next time, we'll explore nerves and getting over mistakes...

Pros practice until they cannot get it wrong - bullshit!

Lately I have been seeing a lot of memes on Facebook and Twitter about practice. You know the sort of elite forces nonsense "An amateur practices until they get it right, a pro practices until they cannot get it wrong." Well excuse me but BOLLOCKS!  I know it's supposed to be inspiring but really it's making life harder by a)setting an impossibly high standard which few can ever hope to achieve and b) it's missing the point.

Firstly, you cannot eliminate all mistakes by practicing. Sometimes the mistake arises because of something that doesn't happen when you are practicing - the light blinds you, somebody whistles, the PA feeds back. Believe or not sometimes its not about your skills. You cannot control the environment. 

In fact, the more practiced and accomplished you are as a musician the more you are likely to make 'mistakes' because the more detailed your awareness becomes. What??! 

Adam Rafferty is an astonishingly gifted and hard-working fingerstyle guitarist, and he stayed with me a while back when he was gigging in the UK. He is the embodiment of dedication to his craft and takes practice to a whole new level. Now for him, a 'mistake' might be a tiny variation in the volume of the voicing of a single phrase, or the amount of flesh he puts on a note. He is the only person who has an ideal for how it is supposed to sound and to everyone else it sounds great. For him it is a mistake. Whereas for me a mistake is more fundamental - the wrong chord, a bum note. So let's get serious.

We've all been there.... you practice practice practice to polish a new piece, a solo or even a lick until you can play it faultlessly over and over. So you decide to unleash it on the world but the first time you play it in front of an audience it's a disaster. So you go home to your practice room and the drill sergeant in you decides to whip the crappiest guitarist in town into shape. Pretty quickly you start playing 'it' perfectly and you've mastered it again.  But next gig it happens again. .. W. T. F. ?!

Now before the drill sergeant gets started again, stop and think. You've proved you can technically play whatever it is, so doing more of the same is not going to work. Expecting more practice to fix what's going on is an exercise in futility, an Einstein definition of insanity. Why? Because you can play the damn thing. It's not your playing that's the issue. It's your performance and you cannot practice that in the same way.

Justin Gatling is the fastest sprinter in the world this year. But, despite a back injury and a lack of racing, Usain Bolt won the gold medal at the World Championships in a time slower than Gatlin's best this year. Gatlin is faster, but Bolt performed. 

So assuming everything else is working , that mistake you made is probably about performance not technical ability. Ask yourself:

1. Is it really a mistake or a minor flaw that only you notice? If it is the latter, it still  matters but perspective is important.  Practice it but don't get hung up on it. You'll get tight and then you'll teach yourself to tense.

2. If it is about performance then was it to do with concentration or nerves? Listen to your inner voice and learn how to manage how you are feeling in the moment. Don't take it out on your fingers, they don't make you nervous or stop you from concentrating.

Now, dealing with nerves and concentration is a whole set of articles in its own right but for now don't fall for the alpha-male practice messages. That way injury and madness lie.

The next time you gig, notice your nerves and how your concentration ebbs and flows. Practice managing that.

12-bar study - dominant 7th arpeggios

Learning patterns is as dull as ditch water.  It turns off students who just want to play music. 

Here's a 12-bar study that takes you through the dominant 7th E-shape, A-shape and D-shape arpeggios.  It uses the most easily-recognisable musical progression in popular guitar which means its easy to hear when you need to change pattern.  It also reinforces the fact that when you are using arpeggios for melody or solo lines, you need to change with the chords.

Here's how to use it.

1. Spend 15 minutes learning patterns for E-shape, A-shape and D-shape dominant 7th arpeggios. (justinguitar.com has a great page for this).  5 minutes on each.

2. Play a basic 12-bar progression in A.  Listen for where the changes happen.  (If you can record this into a looper or get a backing track, even better).

3. Spend 15 minutes learning the 12-bar study.

4. Play. (With backing track or loop).

5. Play it slow to learn it fast.

Get the PDF.   Get the Guitar Pro 6 file.