Guitar lesson: What Is The Ultimate Way To Practice On Your
Guitar?
Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you
have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be
a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?
There are many principles involved in an effective practice
session and I think some of these are:
1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you
can produce on the guitar.
2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that
technical level you have reached.
3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize
them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you
don't play.
What shall we do until we find the most effective way to
practice on the guitar?
When I was studying music at an academic level I many times had
the question messing around in my mind about the ultimate method
for practicing on my guitar and other instruments I played.
A well renowned jazz tenor saxophonist who was my teacher in
jazz improvisation discussed this issue with me as I asked him
and he gave me the most intelligent answer I ever heard before
or after. He said with a smile, "until you find out the best way
to practice, practice anyway!"
How effective can a practice session be?
My humble opinion after much practicing and playing guitar and
piano and other instruments and also teaching piano and guitar
is that you have to take many things into consideration like the
time available, your motivation level, how concentrated you can
expect yourself to be and more.
As real growth often is a slow gradual process you will not very
often be able to measure the effectiveness of a practice session
by how much you have learnt so you have to find other ways to
find out if you are effective.
Can you practice too much or too effectively?
It depends on how we define effective practice sessions. If
effective guitar practice is to work through a long list of
things to improve in your playing and to practice ten hours a
day without interruption I guess you can practice too
effectively.
This will mean that you practice in such a way that you will get
fed up with guitar playing and maybe you will even hurt your
muscles and develop an aversion towards guitar playing for the
rest of your life.
What is real effectiveness when you practice on your guitar?
Real effectiveness is better measured by how well your
practicing methods and results are pointing towards you goals.
Without goals you cannot measure effectiveness. The roads to
Anywhere are many so to find out if you are on the right road
you have to decide your destination.
If your goal is to have fun with your guitar then you have a
very effective practicing session if you have fun with your
guitar. If that is what you want then it is a worthy goal. I
guess you could come upp with more specific goals with deadlines
so you can measure them better. But it is up to you to decide
your own goals, otherwise the goals will not be effective.
I hope these words on practicing guitar playing will give you
some comfort and also help you realizing that when human beings
like you and me are involved we cannot definitely say how we
ought to play to be effective.
Human beings are funny things that sometimes behave like as if
they were identical, but nevertheless they are unique. This also
applies to guitar players like you and me. We are different in
many ways but I guess we want our guitar playing to contribute
to our happiness and joy so have fun and ... "until you find out
the best way to practice, practice anyway!"!