Sowing the Seeds of Success

OK, so now Christmas is over and we’re all sobering back up and getting back to work, the daily routine of life kicks in once again. For us guitarists this means getting back to that practice schedule that we “forgot about” in the wake of the Christmas and New Years celebrations, but how do you know that you’re getting the best results from your efforts?

I know I’ve talked about how to structure your practice routine before, in my Three Point Practice Plan, but I didn’t really talk about the specifics of how to best practice the technical exercises that you’ll use in the warm-up section. In this post I’m going to tell you how it’s possible to achieve amazing results with technical exercises. There really is a difference between getting “OK” results and becoming a master- and only a part of that is how much you practice. You need to practice not only “in quantity”, but also “correctly”.

Start Each Exercise Slowly

I know, I know, you’ve likely heard this one thousands of times- and it’s true. Always start each exercise slowly and with a metronome. This’ll not only help you play it exactly in time, but will also allow you to perfect your technique. You should be relaxed and comfortable when attempting any exercise (as tension will only slow you down and may cause injury), but this doesn’t include the common complaint “it feels weird”.

If you’re attempting a technique that you haven’t tried before, you should expect it to feel different from what you’re used to. This shouldn’t be something that puts you off, but something that encourages you. If you can play a new technique with no excess tension and stay comfortable, the “weirdness” is just “newness” and is something you will get used to.

Speed up, Slowly

Again, something you’ve probably heard many times- but here is where it’s different. You should already be playing to a metronome and totally cleanly without stressing out too much (i.e. it feels easy). It’s very important that you start at a pace that you can do easily, one that doesn’t challenge you at all, because then you can focus on getting the technique perfect.

Once you can do it at a slow speed totally perfectly and it’s so easy you could almost do it in your sleep, speed it up. This is the real key to practicing these exercises, and it’ll be the thing that makes a real difference between ordinary and amazing results. Speed the metronome up by the smallest speed you can, and play at that speed for 5 minutes.

The temptation here is to speed up as soon as possible, but if you’ve just spent so long getting the exercise perfect, why would you then want to ruin it by rushing? They say it can take up to 13 (yes, thirteen!) perfect repetitions to undo one wrong one, and if you speed up too fast then you’re only increasing the chances of making a mistake. The maximum I recommend increasing the speed by is 10bpm at a time- but the smaller jump, the better. You want to increase it so slightly that it doesn’t even feel faster. You never want to feel like you’re rushing! Ever wondered why some guitarists can play at over 200bpm without breaking a sweat? It’s because they are still relaxed and don’t feel like they’re rushing to get to that speed.

I know you may not want to play at over 200bpm, but that’s just an extreme example of where this technique can take you. Of course, this will also benefit you’re finger independence for chords, or control for that tasteful solo.

Are You Tense Yet?

If you really want to be the best guitarist you can be, you’ll want to avoid excess muscle tension. Which is why, as soon as you feel yourself tensing up you need to stop the exercise. Your top speed is not the speed you can only do for two minutes because your wrists “can’t take the pressure”. No, your top speed is the speed that you can do with relaxed hands/arms/fingers, the speed you can just about do if you push yourself doesn’t count. That’s the rules: you can only count your relaxed speed as your fastest speed (i.e. the one that still feels kinda easy, without pushing yourself). There’s no point being able to play super-fast speeds if you can only do it while tense.

So, be honest with yourself, how fast can you really play? Honesty will pay off in the long run, maybe today it’s 60 notes per minute, but in the future it could be anything. Remember: the tallest and strongest oak tree wouldn’t even be there if someone (or something) hadn’t first sown the right seeds…

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January 2, 2010 at 3:55 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, Practicing and Practice Routine | 2 comments

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