The "ART" of Practice ( part 2 )

In the Art of Practice (Part 1) I mentioned that there was no art to the 'getting to' or the 'doing' of practice. It's just the plain fact that the only sure-fire way of consistent practice for most people is scheduled practice: just like sports or theatre.

I think I can give some advice on the Art of Practice once a regular and consistent practice of the guitar is taking place.

Slow down

We can take our cue on this part of the art of practice from the legendary Canadian pianist Glen Gould. He would often practice new songs at half-speed so he would never make a mistake or error in his playing of a song. He thought (and I think he's right) that mistake our 'videotaped' in our minds only to resurface or replay later in time. So, slow down and practice perfectly and don't get in the habit of practising a mistake. It will only return and replay during performance.

Relax

Learn to work and practice with a healthy amount of patience a let the the success in what you do be just a by-product of doing the work with enough repetition to perfect it. Just like the famous quote, "eat the elephant one bite at a time".

Stradegize

Have a plan on what you want to accomplish during practice. An example of this would be: I want to get a certain number of bars of music down; I want memorize a certain lick or passage of music; I want to understand the harmony behind the chords; or I want to get to know the scales or patterns needed to improvise in this son. So you will practice until that element or part of the work is done.

Conquer (gaining confidence)

Personally, I build my confidence in my abilities by conquering the task at hand. The secret is really simple; "in competing the task I learn to do the task." We just get caught up in too many of the particulars that we're setting ourselves up for defeat.

Play

A big part of practising is having enough play time to keep the joy and remind ourselves of the reason we started playing guitar in the first place. Have unscheduled, spontaneous, and unstructured times of making noise or jamming on your guitar where you just let go and let the fingers fly. I sometimes turn all the lights off in my studio and just jam to mp3 without a care in the world.