When you’re all alone and practicing, do you feel like people can still hear you so you try to sound as good as you can? Or are you in your own universe where you can sound as horrible as you want as you practice a new technique or try to improvise to some backing tracks?
I’ve always had kind of a compositional approach to practicing. I’m pretty much always making little etudes on the spot to work on stuff. It feels like I am composing little symphonies for some omnipotent listener.
However! Since I started working on stuff on this website some of my practicing definitely DOES NOT sounds like music. I run little scale fragments with a metronome for literally hours at a time. I don’t feel like I’m making music when I’m doing this. I basically feel like I’m at the gym.
However, afterwards I always try and make music. Since I’m often very physically and mentally exhausted after “workin’ out in the guitar gym” I feel like I am:
Warmed up but tired so it’s like an actual live performance or studio session
Accessing weird ideas because for a few hours playing took on a whole different meaning (grueling exercise)
Haha sounds fun! I’ve been doing that too - taking an 8 second run, putting it on a loop and just keep practicing and inching the speed faster and faster. But I’ve also been noticing that I need to develop better picking dynamics so I’ll then go back and slow it to a crawl and try and build it back up using “better” pick strokes. But once I get to a certain point, it’s like the “wrong” pick technique I’ve used forever will find its way back in and I have to drop the speed down a little and do it some more the “better” way. I always feel (like you said) some omnipotent listener is hearing me and thinking “man you suck”. LOL
If the Nobodaddy doesn’t dig your stuff I personally think that should be a main focus of your practice for the time being! This is a thing Kenny Werner, Herbie Hancock, and a lot of other jazz musicians REALLY espouse. You need to get yourself in a headspace where whatever you play is the “freaking bomb dot com.”
There are two ways to attack this problem directly. First is to start playing totally randomly and just appreciate it. Play completely ridiculous off the wall stuff. Put your left hand over the guitar. Strum like a complete maniac. Play as quietly as you possibly can. Just do weird stuff and try and get high on how cool it is that you have this instrument and that it makes interesting sounds. If you get bored playing weird then play more normally. But just keep playing the guitar like you’re a little kid who just can’t believe how cool it is
To become a good improviser (or to reach a point where composing feels like being a little kid in a sandbox: total creative freedom) you really do have to reach a point where no matter what you play it is not a mistake; it is just an event that has to be responded to. There are no wrong notes, just notes that haven’t been given the proper context. If you learn to trust yourself and roll with whatever crazy playing comes out, you put yourself in a very flexible and open mindset which is the goal!
The other method for attacking this problem directly as something that I learned from Julian Lage. Give yourself 10 minutes everyday to compose a 1 minute piece. There are no rules for what constitutes a piece of music. It can be through-composed or just based on a vamp. It can be single notes or chordal. There are absolutely no rules. Then, make a quick recording of the composition. Just a no-frills phone recording will work perfectly. After you’ve done this for a couple of weeks, listen back to your mini compositions. I guarantee you will fall in love with your playing in a new way. If you’re more analytically minded, take some notes on things you like about your playing that you’ve never really noticed and try to develop them!
I’m not saying totally change course on your practice! I have no idea what your practice routine is. All I’m saying is I definitely think you should augment whatever you’re doing with some sort of practice in just loving your playing and being open to your playing!
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Yes, I notice I’m playing the same shit over n over and try to change it up. Even tho I practice unplugged and know my family can only hear if they have their head on my door.
It’s because we assume others know what we know, thats why the best (non arrogant) players in the world will think they are not that great. They have herd the same stuff over and over for years and think everyone is tired of it too.
Thanks for the feedback everyone. One thing nobody seems to be hitting on is the question “when you’re completely alone” In other words there’s zero chance anyone can really hear you. Do you feel like STILL someone can hear you, or do you feel alone in the universe to just do whatever you feel like? My answer is that like I feel like someone IS actually listening to me. So instead of just playing whatever I want - even just rubbish/noise - I always end up kind of not taking chances. So then when I DO play in front of a crowd - it’s even that much more assured that I won’t take any chances. Recently I have been feeling like “well even if someone can hear, I’m just gonna do whatever I want and if it sounds silly oh well.
(I don’t know if I’m weird or others have this feeling too?)
In my experience (as a bedroom player :-D), the best way to practice alone is to record yourself, listen back critically, and then try to do better in the next take.
It takes a lot of effort though, so I don’t do it nearly enough!
During my practice I don’t try and I just having fun. And, usually, in that case I play better than when I really try to sound good. #RedLightSyndrom
Nope. I don’t have imaginery listeners usually. Though I have real ones (my neighbours) ))
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I think there are different types of practice.
It’s important to spend some time practicing at your limits and pushing yourself to move past them. You need to explore new territory and continually expand your horizons. It can be musical or mechanical. When you’re in this state, you will make mistakes. You will fail more than you succeed. If you can stay positive, and learn to appreciate your failures for the lessons they can teach you, you eventually succeed.
It’s important to continually develop and refine the skills that you’ve previously developed, whether musical or mechanical. I’m not a big fan of the phrase “when it sounds good, it is good.” It can always be better. Study the minutia and continue to strengthen your foundations.
It’s also important to learn to bridge the gaps between the skills you’ve developed to a high level and the new skills you’re still trying to develop, so that the new skills integrate into your playing and you achieve a level of cohesion.
I probably sound pretty bad when I’m exploring new ideas. I probably sound pretty good when I’m polishing what I already do well.
This is a challenge for me too. I’ve never done much recording or playing in front of a camera, but there’s something about it throws me off completely. I know I have to make myself do more of it to develop that comfort. It’s probably the most important thing that I need to work on.
Funnily enough, playing guitar in front of people doesn’t unnerve me very much at all. I get nervous about singing though.
Same here. One pretty extreme way to go about this - if you have the means - is to film and record pretty much every practice session. But everything has to be set up nicely so that you don’t have to do loads of prep every time you want to play.
Ideally you press one button and boom, camera is on and your daw is tracking you. I reckon eventually one is bound to forget that the camera is there.
I still don’t have anything close to this ideal setup. So every time I decide to record it’s a bit of an effort, and if I am feeling a bit lazy or tired (likely!) it’s way too easy to give it up and just start noodling aimlessly 
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I’m sure that would work as a solution, it’s just the difficulty in getting such a setup together. I’m not even really sure how to get about making that a reality.
I definitely have some kind of hang-up about a “take.” I feel like it suddenly puts a spotlight on me.
I don’t really think I do “aimless” noodling. I spend plenty of time noodling, but I’m always trying to find something or go somewhere new. Maybe the aim is unspecific, but it’s not aimless.
For whatever reason, the analogy in my mind now is that noodling for me is like playing an open world video game and trying to explore new areas and new mechanics. Maybe I don’t quite know what I’m looking for, but I’m trying to be open to finding it when it comes.
I’d say that laying down a simple groove on a looper and jamming over it is probably the most cathartic part of playing guitar for me. I might find a new lick or rhythmic idea, but the enjoyment is the only aim.
The only thing I find myself doing which I feel is mostly a waste of time is fiddling with settings on effects pedals. I don’t mean in attempt to try to learn what the pedal does or trying to program useful sounds either. I mean fussing about whether I want something at 6.5 or 6.7, trying to make it just perfect, all the while knowing that I’ll never get there, and even if I did, it would sound different to me next time.
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I actually have the hypothesis that when I was younger I developed some speed only thanks to my “aimless noodling” in between the more boring super-slow metronomic exercises. Quite ironic!
Very possible.
I’ve spent plenty of time with a metronome. That said, I’ve never really played a lot of super-slow exercises to a metronome and gradually increasing the bpm with the aim of developing speed. My teacher never endorsed it as a method, and I had a hard time believing it was what my heroes had done.
I got my mechanics by analyzing what I was trying to do and trying to find movements which would enable me to do it. Then I’d try it, see where I’d fail and make adjustments.
The metronome was a tool to help me learn to feel different rates at different tempos. It was a diagnostic device to keep me honest, letting me know that I was drifting or that my mechanics weren’t working at the tempo I needed them to work at.
Looking back, knowing what we know now, I’m very glad I took the approach I did. I never habituated inefficient mechanics.
As kind of a funny aside, I don’t think I ever practiced tremolo picking on a single string as a teenager. I started making a point of trying to get faster on a single string in about 2015.