The Art of practicing?

Playing Technique
#22

One thing I’ll mention is that we get really good at what we do a lot of. That’s why it’s really important to pull back if you start making repeated mistakes. Musicians in general tend to be hard working and a little stubborn. It’s so easy to mess up a phrase and think “Oh I’ll just try it again and get it next time”. Well, if that happens over and over, you are actually repeating the act of screwing up, again and again. We don’t want that!

We’re all different in our thresholds, so just because Steve Vai could practice x hours per day (and stay focused enough to make all x of those hours GOOD practice) does not mean that we all can do that. If your threshold of focus is shorter, make the most of it! If you get to a point where you simply can’t play without being sloppy at some point in your practice, you’re better off putting the guitar down and coming back fresh when you’re more accurate. 15 minutes of good practice, time after time will translate to much better playing over the months and years. Just make sure the practice is good! :slight_smile: Obviously you’ll progress faster if you can log more sessions of this type of playing in a compressed timeline…but you’ll still progress!

Lastly, maybe there is something you are doing wrong, technique-wise that you are able to ‘muscle through’ for a short period of time that is simply not possible to sustain once fatigue sets in. That’s why I LOVE CtC!!! It made me aware of the pitfalls that come with trying to play complex, fast passages. My problem over the years was not knowing this, and being too macho and ‘hardworking’ to accept the slop and think I needed to just keep going. That equated to literally hundreds of hours of trying to muscle through what was actually very slight string hopping. If I could get those years back…man! I’ve only had my membership for ~1 month and I’m already playing things with total control at speeds where it used to just all fall apart. Just being able to pinpoint the optimal escape direction for the string changes (or a swipe!!!) and adjust accordingly, is all my playing needed to get to the next level.

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#23

My issues with practicing are all with the left hand. I can DWPS fast but my left hand cant keep up with fretting leading to dropped notes. I dont know what to do since neither fast or slow practice is working. You guys have any advice?

#24

Have you noticed specific finger combos of your left had that are more sluggish than others? For example, I am worst of all with left hand movements between my ring and pinky fingers. If I were to play, on the high e string the 12th, then 14th, then 15th fret in a fast succession I could do it much faster if I fretted with index, middle and ring. If I went index, ring, pinky…crash and burn. I think this is inherently part of my anatomy. Years of trying to correct it with trills or other don’t seem to help, so I just target phrases where I can get away with this :slight_smile:

Maybe something like this is going on? If you can isolate it, you can either strengthen the weak spot, or be aware of it and find a work around with a different finger combination.

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#25

yes, usually its movements where my pinky plays after my pointer, esp if I have to make to play the string on top of them. It seems like a really essential movement, and I can’t get it going no matter what. Honestly at the point where I’m considering quitting guitar and dont know how to practice to get out of this rut.

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#26

Interesting. So if you were to just hammer-on, pull-off between these 2 fingers at a comfortable spacing (say, c# to e on the high e string, frets 9 to 12), what metronome speed can you play 16ths where it feels a little challenging, but still controlled enough to keep it going? Comparatively, if you did same thing between the index and ring fingers, what are the results? Just trying to help you gauge how serious the issue is. Giving up the guitar should only be a last resort!!! This may not be easier if you try trumpet instead :slight_smile: We can get you through this buddy!

Also, there are some good tips in this thread: The building speed question - #14 by PickingApprentice

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#27

“One thing I’ll mention is that we get really good at what we do a lot of. That’s why it’s really important to pull back if you start making repeated mistakes. Musicians in general tend to be hard working and a little stubborn. It’s so easy to mess up a phrase and think “Oh I’ll just try it again and get it next time”. Well, if that happens over and over, you are actually repeating the act of screwing up, again and again. We don’t want that!”

Man it’s like you’ve been a fly on the wall with exactly what I’ve been doing for years! :flushed: I’m finding out so many things as a guitarist on CTC, good AND bad. The bad is that I’ve spent 30 plus years NOT practicing smart. Just noodling around with no structure and thinking I could just work thru my bad technique without evaluating what I’m doing wrong with a microscope. The good is knowing so many of us all seem to have the same issues, and we’re all trying to help one another thru the struggles to get to where we want to go. I honestly though that my problems where very unique and that I was just never going to get it! I’ve often called myself the “worlds largest head case on the guitar” because of all the things discussed in this topic. :ok_hand::facepunch:

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#28

Pinky to pointer I can comfortably do 16ths at 130 and kind of do 16ths at 140 but it becomes less comfortable. Index to pointer I can do 16ths at 160 easy and up to 170-180 with pulloffs. with hammers ons it feels like I could go faster pointer to pinky but I quickly loose coordination at the 150 bpm mark. I loose coordiantion with my pointer to index as well but its a bit more consistent and can sort of go 16th around 160bpm. Actually doing DWPS with coordination is much easier, here’s a video of me playing for reference. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1dblnzHjnu/

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#29

Fantastic thread, I can totally relate to almost everything said so far. No elite guitarist here either.

One of the things that worked for me in the early days was when I was faced with syncing issues, I’d swing the phrase, I’d imagine Baloo the bear from Jungle Book (original) humming the phrase and emphasise on certain notes to create a swing feel. This would have both hands getting synced up pretty quick. Both hands need to feel the phrase but as always YMMV.

This is very important, totally agree with you and most neglected area. Sleep is when all that practice gets digested and converted to some sort of muscle programming. Never expect to see benefits within the same practice session, it’s only after you get adequate sleep that you will notice the benefits. Listen to It don’t mean a thing if it ain’t got that swing, Duke Ellington band.

Not sure which thread it was but the advice in there changed my approach to practice for the better.
I’ve been of the opinion that one only has about 2 to three sets of 18-minute sets of practice a day, 18 minutes for a set means working on one thing and that one thing only. After that take a break of 10 mins at least, and when you start playing again after the break play things other than what you just worked on. Try to spread your 18 min sets a few hours away. I guarantee you’ll find improvements the next day. It’s never failed me.

Four Stages to playing a phrase:

  1. Crawl ( learn the phrase )
  2. Walk ( Familiariaztion stage, swing )
  3. Jog ( Efficiency, Feel and finesse )
  4. Sprint ( Burst )

As to how you practice within those 18 mins is up to you. Based on familiarity with the concept/phrase your working on, one may go through stages sequentially or jump around. I find my self sometimes have into revisit a walk phase if I realize there’s a fundamental flaw I need to correct. As for approaching a phrase with the sprint stage would be something reserved for minor deviations for mechanics/phrases your well familiar with already.

As for tensing up, I’ve recently found that fighting the guitar/gear is futile. I think of my picking hand like a ballerina sometimes, it requires elegance and a good platform to achieve fluidity. You don’t want to be dancing in a swamp. I’m alluding to but not going there, the platform you chose matters a lot.

Hope some of this makes sense and I didn’t repeat too much of what is already said.

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#30

I play jazz so I’m already playing all my lines with a swing feel.

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#31

When I start to feel discouraged - I will flip to a few days (or week) of just playing along with my ‘dream lick list’, usually slowed down to the point that it just out of reach (I use fenders’ riffstation)…It always Cheers me up and gets me back into the groove so to speak. Note: I otherwise typically improvise with random sequences (DSX, USX, cross picking, etc)

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#32

This is great! I would add change 2 to “Crawl Some More” but that’s me :rofl:

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#33

I’ll have to check out Fender Riff station. Sounds fun. :ok_hand:

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#34

@ParkerLicks

Blockquote
I play jazz so I’m already playing all my lines with a swing feel.

Hmmm I wonder if this is part of the issues you are reporting? Swing feel at fast tempos is definitely tough to sync between the hands. Maybe one hand is doing the swing feel and the other is more straight time? I could see this if you’ve done a lot of playing at slow/moderate tempos, then when you try to floor it, it falls apart.

Also, thanks for answering my question about the index/ring and index/pinky legato speeds. That info combined with the video you posted confirm that you should NOT quit guitar, my friend :slight_smile: Now, if there are other things you’d rather do and the rewards your practicing and playing aren’t paying the dividends that other activities could…maybe that’s a different story. But you are a good player!

We all fall into ruts. I think maybe what you need is something to identify what exactly is causing the out of sync phenomenon to occur. Maybe try posting video of some stuff you’re having specific issues with in the critique section? Since it so far isn’t anything that you can pinpoint, others on here would love to help you out.

I know for me, my biggest issue was not knowing what I was doing wrong with pick slanting/escaping. I was fighting myself and brute forcing string hopping. Once I stumbled on some of Troy’s videos on YouTube, that was the eureka moment I needed and I’ve been making good progress ever since. I’d bet if we can help you identify the issue in your playing and you target that, you’ll be off to the races!

#35

Thank you. at fast tempos I articulate with a swing feel (articulating notes on offbeats) but generally I don’t play with a swing triplet feel but with jazz articulation. My time feel is modelled on George Benson. should I make a thread for my left hand issue?

#36

Yeah, that does sound tough to sync up. Maybe making a thread where you post a specific video of an example where it all falls apart would help. Also, I just saw this thread, which touches on pinky problems Help needed: Terrible pinky problems

#37

It’s not so much tension in my pinky more that I can’t move it as fast as I want. I’ll make a video demonstration f the issue and you can see what I could change.