TEN TIPS FOR BEGINNERS (5-10). 5. Want to build calluses fast? Soak fingertips in salt water and practice alot! Bends, hammer-ons/hammer-offs, vibrato, and trills. 6. Tired, stressed, finding it hard to concentrate and retain info? Don’t try to learn new things when you’re tense. Also sleeping on a problem or difficult technique helps. Parts of your brain actually grow when learning an instrument, this takes time. Take 15 minutes before bed, to go over any material that you are learning. Don’t worry about playing it perfectly just go through it once. Even doing this in your head (without a guitar) helps. 7. Plan ahead. Get a beverage, ashtray (if you smoke), fan, asthma inhaler, pez dispenser, whatever creature comforts that could distract you from practicing. 8. Talk to other guitar players. Lots of people play guitar. Tell people you meet that your want to learn to play guitar better, you’ll be surprised how happy people are to share their knowledge. Jam with others every chance you get (try to pay as much attention to what the other jammers are playing, as to what you are). Don’t try to play hard songs at a jam to show off what you can do. 9. Don’t expect miracles, it takes years to develop the confidence to play with a group in front of an audience. Creating a unique style and “mastering” the instrument usually takes much longer(10,000 hr rule). When you begin taking lessons, you imagine a pyramid, with years of practicing and paying your dues at the bottom and being a pro or master at the top. The pyramid is actually upside down. the more you learn, the more you realize, how much more there is to learn, and the more you are capable of learning. There are many styles and disciplines of guitar playing, it’s almost impossible to compare yourself to another player. There will always be someone that has better technique, understanding of theory, pitch perception, knows more songs or different styles than you. It wouldn’t be any fun if we were the “best” at everything. Music is a subject that will always teach you new interesting things. Nobody is master of everything, there is no single “best guitarist in the world” The players that stand out are ones that transcend genres and create their own style. Hendrix, BB King, Link Wray, Bo Diddley, Chuck Berry, Chet Atkins and Santana all have recognizable styles. Your goal should be developing taste and style as well as technical proficiency and skill. Being a technical genius doesn’t mean a thing if your Grandma can’t recognize you on the radio. 10. Practice visualization. When not physically playing guitar, close your eyes and imagine playing scales, songs, chords, tuning, holding the guitar correctly, hearing the strings and the relationships of notes. When you listen to music, try counting beats and bars and listening to the chord changes. The Chord progression is more important to a musician, than the melody is. Try to break the song up into parts, the intro, the” head” or main riff, the verse, chorus, bridge ( not all songs have bridges or middle 8’s) and the outro. See if you can tell what key a song is in. Is the key major or minor?. Practice pitch training, try humming the notes of all six open guitar strings E,A,D,G,B,E. Warm-down too, especially if you can feel your hands straining from a long session. Musicians put a lot of stress on their hands and most people don’t think about doing stretching exercises until they feel discomfort. Drink lots of water also, thats where the natural lubricant in your joints comes from. Be careful not to overstretch, use slow gentle movement (think tai chi or yoga). Be aware of your posture and any hand or back discomfort and stop, if you notice anything is uncomfortable or painful to play. Try to use the lightest touch possible while still getting a clear tone (no buzzes, trail-offs) Make sure the guitar you’re using is properly set-up (intonation, string height), preferably with light gauge strings, or nylon(if it’s a classical). Trying to learn on an instrument with high action, heavy strings or that wont stay in tune, is not productive. A musician is a lot like an athlete, or an actor. A big part of what we do has to be automatic. We have to be able to tune-out distractions and perform pieces from memory or improvise. If you have trouble concentrating it’s going to effect your ability to perform (and create). The frontal lobe of a musician playing is very similar to a person meditating. There is almost no activity! Attitude and the ability to visualize techniques and passages is critical. The hippocampus, the part of the brain that controls spatial relationships and language, is considerably better developed in a musician’s brain. London’s cab drivers also experience this phenomenon (maps and spatial relationships are v. important to them). Also the Medula (the nerve bundle connecting both sides of the brain to the spinal cord, is up to 30% larger in musicians. Scientists say nothing activates as many areas of the brain as playing music. “Listening” to Music is different from hearing music. Non musicians generally recognize a song by it’s melody. As a musician, we have to take what we hear and visualize it somehow. Looking at the chord progression is the best way to understand what’s going on, in a song. Also a musician has to internalize rhythm. Playing along with a metronome and tapping your foot when you practice is a good habit. If you ask non musicians to clap in time to a piece of music, they will clap on the beat; ONE and TWO and THREE and FOUR and. Musician will clap on the “and”; 1 AND 2 AND 3 AND 4 AND.
Posted on: Fri, 05 Sep 2014 09:53:37 +0000
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