Practicing And Playing Guitar While Looking For Perfection

Practicing and playing guitar are not the same things. Both are important. To play a song is fun and probably your ultimate goal, but practicing chords and timing will help you play better.

Some people fail to practice timing. They don't understand the value of a metronome. They think it is something only a piano player would use, but good timing is an important part of playing music of all kinds. It is particularly important if you eventually plan to play with a band or a singer.

Some people fail to practice the chords. While you can learn to play a few songs by ear in a very short time, you will never be a true guitarist if you cannot play a song by reading music. In order to do that, you must practice the chords. It takes time, but if you have talent, it will eventually come naturally to you.

Another thing that many people fail to do is to listen to all different kinds of music. They stick with one genre and that's all they can play. Again, those folks are not real guitarists.

Listening to and learning to play different kinds of music will help you become a better player and give you ideas for writing your own music. If you are just starting out with some easy guitar lessons, you might have no intention of writing. But if you play a lot, you could soon become bored with playing other peoples' songs.

The best guitarists develop their own style by learning to play what they like and then changing the piece in some way to make it their own. They might change the tempo or play the tune backwards. There are any number of ways to make a piece uniquely your own.

If your goal is to play fast, you have to start out slowly. Some easy guitar lessons emphasize the importance of playing well over playing fast. Others start out emphasizing speed. You will be better off if you learn to play well very slowly and then gradually increase the speed.

You can expect your fingers to become rough and callused. Soft hands and guitarists do not go together. You can use an emery board to smooth out rough spots that can interfere with your performance. But you will eventually learn to take pride in your calluses.

Playing guitar is a lot of fun, but learning can be frustrating. When you become frustrated, it's time to take a break, but don't give up and smash your instrument. With practice and regular playing, perfection is within your grasp.

Warm-Up Techniques To Bring Your (Tuba) Playing To The Next Level

"Simply put, a tuba player is only as good as his warm up."

"Why warm-up?", you might ask.

For many high school students the typical warm up consists of buzzing the mouth piece for a minute or two, followed by a few scales. Although this is better than nothing, its benefits are minimal. Oh, we all know warming up is a necessity for any brass player, needed to level out intonation and allow the player to perform at their best. However; more can be gained by following these simple, but often overlooked techniques.

1. Stretching

Stretching is one technique that is too important to overlook. As tuba players, we know better than anyone that air=sound. What's the best way to get more (or better) sound? The answer is more air. And the only way to do this is through proper breathing.

Whole books could be written on breathing techniques, but I won't go into that here. I will say that stretching the upper body, paying special attention to the shoulders, is a good way to gain some extra lung capacity without too much work.

2. Long Tones

You've heard it before and you'll hear it again. Before you do any playing, do long tones first. They are the most important step in this process. They keep you from playing before the tones are ingrained in your head and help both tone and endurance. Most importantly, do not play anything in the extremes of your register. This will ruin the whole process.

Keep things in the middle of your range and you will sound better later.

3. Long Tone Lip Slurs

This is a common technique, preached to students throughout the world by their band directors. Unfortunately students will often ignore their advice. "Why practice whole notes anyway?? I can already do that just fine!"

They don't realize that they are preparing their lips gradually. The long tones condition the lips and the ears to perform at their best. The lip slurs are also important. They train the ear to hear the pitches before they are played. This will actually increase enable one's sight reading ability, as hitting pitches will become more natural!

Long Tone Lip Slurs

Play Through this once or twice at the beginning of practice.

4. More Lip Slurs!

After warming the lips up a little with the long tones, you are now ready for some flexibility exercises. Becoming proficient with these is essential to building a firm foundation. Once they are mastered, your embouchure will be ready for anything.

Start out low, as always.

These should be the finishing touch on your warm-up. After this, you're are ready as you are going to get.

When you can play this without difficulty, you are now warm and can move on to your "real" practice.

If you add these 3 simple techniques to your daily routine, I promise you will become a better player and there is no better feeling than knowing you've reached a little higher than before.

Until next time,

-- Mike Quain

21 Steps to Rapidly Improve Your Guitar Playing

1. Regular daily practice may sound boring, but set yourself a reminder, commit to 20 to 30 minutes five times a week and you'll be impressed with the progress you make!
2. Know the difference between "practice" and "play". Practice time is when you focus on things you can't already do. Yes, that new tune you should have learnt by now! Playing is just letting it flow, not working on or thinking about what you're doing, but just having fun.
3. Get a Metronome. Yes, the little item which bleeps! Working with one regularly strengthens the internal metronome you never knew was in there!
4. Listen and learn styles you wouldn't normally choose. If you're into pop/rock, go learn some country: it'll give you a new way of thinking, plus some new ideas.
5. Keep a practice diary. Write down what you learn. That way, you can look back and see if you can still play the songs you were working on a while ago. Great way to measure progress.
6. Regularly review what you learnt to see how far you have come.
7. Set goals. Find a song you can't play, set a date that you'll be able to play it by, and work hard to achieve your goal.
8. Play with more advanced players. You will learn the most by falling on your face live and getting your butt handed to you!
9. Have a practice buddy. Find a friend you can practise with, monitor each other's progress and point out mistakes you can see. It's far easier to see the mistakes of others than your own.
10. Find a local Jam. You might be nervous, but you'll meet some great musicians and get over your fear of just getting up there and playing something.
11. Record yourself playing your favourite song (without the song in the background) and then listen back. What works? What sucks? Be very critical.
12. Transcribe - learn how to work out songs, solos and licks.
13. Learn to just "hear it" - knowing where the music's going is a must if you play in a band, forget the music or are at a jam. If you can just "hear it", people will be lining up to play with you!
14. Keep a "to work on" list. If you hear something you would like to play, write it down, add it to the list.
15. Evaluate every gig. Assess what worked and what didn't. Work on the things that didn't.
16. Learn all your scales: each and every one of them, know them backwards, forwards, sideways and back to front!
17. Learn every chord and voicing. Work out every chord possible (there's a lot of them!), then learn all possible versions of that chord (voicings and inversions).
18. Work on your sound. Experiment with your tone, explore new sounds, borrow pedals to try out. Work on copying famous people's tone.
19. Start a folder. Jot down on musical/chord box/TAB paper everything you work out. Flick over this later and quickly get up to speed with what you learnt.
20. Tuning. We've all been to too many gigs where people have played out of tune. Make sure you always play and bend in tune. If you're at a gig, tune in between each song (or at least check).
21. Finally....enjoy: have fun!

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Article Submitted On: March 22, 2011