General Music Chat

The more one does a thing, the better one gets at it; that's true with anything, in general, eh? Once it's easy to do a thing, we can then challenge ourselves with something which is harder to do, and thus we learn - and improve.
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Practicing the music you do, allows you to play it easier.
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People practice different amounts.
Those with 1 month experience, 1 year, 10 years, or 40 years experience - will tend to practice different things.
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Playing for fun is a different subject than practice.
Practice is anytime you don't do something to your own satisfaction, and so you're working on it.
Maybe you're trying something new, or just trying to keep something fresh in your memory.
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So . . .
How often do you practice?
What kind of things to you practice?

5 days a week. About 3 hours a day. This is outside of music classes at NEIU and I also teach guitar at a studio.

Here is a practice regimen I have developed that may be of some interest. My main goal is to achieve accuracy, dexterity, finger independence and speed. The whole practice session takes about 3 hours on a moderate tempo setting (Metronome = 95 to 110 bpm/16th notes).

Broken down into segments, the regimen consists of:

1) Scales and Modes = 70 positions (Alternate Picking)
2) Cycle of 5ths/4ths (Alternate Picking)
3) Arpeggios = Major, Minor, Aug, Dim, Dom (Alternate Picking)
4) Chromatics on all frets (Alternate/Reverse Picking)
5) Hexatonics (Alternate Picking)
6) 7th arpeggios (Alternate Picking)
7) Triad Arpeggios (Sweep Picking)
8 ) Chord Inversions (Strumming/Fingerstyle)
9) Pentatonic Tapping (Tapping)
10) Sightreading (Aural/Visual Training)
11) Improvisation over Sequences (Free Form)

Hope that helps

My regimen is not as sophisticated as Jerry's but fits what I'm trying to accomplish:

Warm up exercises to get the blood flowing in my fingers - can include scales, modes and such plus I try to play as fast as I possibly can.

Then I work on songs. I use six string guitar for songwriting so I get a good bit out of that. This can be harder than it sounds because of my peculiar song writing habits - I often create songs that are too hard to play! Once I delayed finishing a song for two years which was how long it took me to grow into it.

Practice anything that needs to be worked on for my garage band - I usually play bass with them so scales and finger exercises - I also tend to run through some of my originals when I'm getting close to recording them so I'll have a bass part (kinda) done.

Keyboard - working hard on this one. Hadn't played in years - starting to use it for song writing as well.

Theory - teaching myself to sight read, studying musical relationships - chords, scales, modes and so on.

I keep a drumstick in my car to tap out rhythms and work on my timing. It helps with learning to play and sing at the same time - also a hassle for me.

All this can vary due to women, work, health etc or if I'm learning some specific songs on guitar or bass.

I'm actually more methodical than it sounds

Talbot

Not nearly often enough.

I've been in a bit of a slump recently, I pick up a guitar and doodle a little maybe once a week right now, when I get back into it I'll probably play around 2 hours a day just about every day. It comes and goes, I'll have no interest in playing for a while then one day start to play again. No idea why...

I voted once a week. I feel pathetic. We finally got the band together yesterday.
Everyone was out of practice, out of shape, out of time. The drummer left to go to a
Cardinals preseason game. I was trying to play my songs, had to keep excusing myself
for not remembering my own stuff. Basically, I'm not practicing because of my kid. It sucks!

I average once a day.
Other than the subject of practice, my practices are non-structured. The practice heads where it's weakest.
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The one rule I go by is this: it MUST be something that is difficult for me.
My practice have to be HARD!
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I sound like CRAP during my practices, for I only try stuff that I CAN'T do . . . yet.
If it sounds pretty good, I set it aside and move on.
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My practice sessions are one of these (below), but usually only one topic per practice:
> review of old, complicated songs, for public performance
> review of a list of hundreds of chords which I never use . . . swapping between them.
> review of old songs I wrote (which I basically forgot, due to lack of practice).
> fast/difficult bass patterns, or complicated lead melodies
> a review of partial songs in progress (which sometimes yields a new song).
> a review of cover songs. (rarely)
> Melodies or bass-patterns with hammer-ons or hammer-offs.
> playing songs at double or triple speed, without breaking tempo.
. . . . This is a GREAT way to find the weak area in any song you perform; try it, see if you can do it with no mistakes.
. . . . Later, when you slow the song down to normal speed, it's easier, the tempo is much more solid, and sometimes a better rhythm appears).
> going over some specific parts of certain songs which would sound better if I played them a different way.
> Ending a song, noticing the ending chord / rhythm, and looking to see which songs would follow it, in a set.
. . . . Sometimes I want the same character, sometimes I want to change gears, but there should be a common denominator of sorts.
> Experimenting with new styles, new rhythms, new chords . . . stuff I've never ever done.
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Sometimes I sit outside and play for fun, for a few hours. I go crazy, play for myself, audience be damned.

But then I see what my weak areas are, and remember, for the next practice.
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In every practice session, you should always try something that you can't do . . . yet.
Just try to do it 10% better than last time . . . .

"practice" is such a multi-meaning word. Over the weekend I played some songs I haven't played in years (literally). During a normal week, I'll be working on adding new songs to my song list, and playing any songs I might be doing in the coming week or two, or going over particularly difficult passages in songs.

Oh oh. Bad news for the practice-makes-perfect theory.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/1 ... 58872.html

hmmm....very interesting. Surprised by those results, too.

I think we get to different "plains" of existence with our ability and then its more about how you make that interface with others. In other words, we often have the ability to do whatever we really want to do...but we're aren't sure about what "that" should be.

Should we practice our singing? Our guitar playing? Our negotiating skills? Our graphic arts? Learn how frequent flyer points and hotel points and rental car points programs all works in comparison to each other? Contact distributors and radio stations? Venues? Write more songs? Check out all local recording studios? All of the above and more?? OY VEH!!!!!

So my answer to this poll is that I'm always working on something musically. Most days that involves playing an instrument for several hours.

I think we do this because we love to, or we will get bored and soon fall away.

That poll has some truth to it. My father played drums as did two brothers - one of whom switched to lead guitar. I play several instruments.

However, I'm always leery of 'talent.' One of the most talented guitar players I've known never developed into doodly squat. Hard work makes a big diff.

Hate to agree with JimmyD so often but he is so right - junk the TV!

Now - time to kick self in ass and get to work.

Talbot

There was this guy in my hometown that I envied for his talent and his good looks when I was starting out as a professional musician. He could sing anything better than anyone I knew, play almost any instrument better than anyone else locally too. Every girl in town wanted to be his groupie.

A few years later, he invited me to join him in a duo. It was during the disco craze of the late 70s and though I HATED that music, I wanted to work with this guy.

Anyway....we were rehearsing one evening when a friend of his started explaining to me the "Seven Plains of Existence". I don't really remember much of it except this: When one is at the highest plain of existence (a 7) they don't really appreciate the talent they have been given. Things come so easily to them that they are quickly bored and move on to something else. According to the person who told me about this concept, being at a Level 5 was the best because that person was always working to improve, and every incremental upward move was celebrated as a reward for hard work.

Those below a 5 eventually gave up, and those above a 5 were eventually dissatisfied.



Don't know that I would hitch my horse to that wagon in every case, but over the years that concept does seem to have shown merit. That person whom I envied when I was young only does music as a hobby these days, and he never really focused on developing his writing skills, which is what separates the serious from the hobbyist (in my opinion)