1. hobbies and interests
2. guitar

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“The Power Of 10”
by
Jamie Andreas
author of
“The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar”
© 2011 GuitarPrinciples Inc.
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“The Power Of 10”
Contents
I. You’re Practicing...Are You Getting Better? 3
II. Discover Your Discomfort: The Secret Of Relaxed Guitar
Playing5
III. The Secret Of Speed On Guitar 7
IV. Do I Need Natural Talent To Play Guitar?9
V. Measuring Your Progress On Guitar 11
VI. The Importance Of Repertoire 13
VII.Review Is Required15
VIII. Guitar Practice Organization 17
IX. How To Memorize Music 20
X. Stage Fright
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You’re Practicing...Are You Getting Better?
As the years go by in the life of a player, there are two kinds of growth we can experience. Both are necessary for our development
as musicians and guitarists. I call them Vertical Growth, and Horizontal Growth.
Here is a common scenario. A person comes in for lessons after already playing for awhile. Maybe they have played for a year,
maybe a few years, maybe many years. I say, “play something for me, something you are comfortable with”. Now a few different
things may happen. They may play nicely, strumming and singing, maybe even throw in a few runs. So I see that for the level they
are at, they play well. I then try to find out what they are here for. “What do you want to do, that you find you can’t do.”
They may say “Well, I play lots of things, but I play them all the same way. I want to learn how to do chord melody solos, more
interesting chords and strums, and also improve my fingerpicking so I can try some classical”. In other words, they want to move to
a higher level as a player. They want to make VERTICAL GROWTH.
They don’t want to continue to learn new songs and play them the same way. That would be HORIZONTAL GROWTH. Everyone
can always make Horizontal Growth, even on their own. You just learn more material, but you don’t actually play any differently,
musically or technically. Vertical progress as a player is the tough one. It requires what is usually considered “work”, although I have
always found it enjoyable, although challenging.
Here is another even more common scenario. Someone comes in for lessons after playing for awhile, and when I ask them to play,
they make a couple of excuses, and then they play really badly! Then I ask them to play something else, and they play that really
badly! This is the person unable to create Vertical Growth. The reason they cannot raise their level as a player, is because they don’t
know how to practice to solve problems and achieve results. Also, because of this, there is no solid foundation of technique for Vertical Growth to be built upon. So there is only Horizontal Growth, more things played the same way, in this case, badly.
Do you know how many young players I’ve seen who play only the beginning of a hundred songs, and play them badly? A whole
lot!
Or, how many people playing classical who go from piece to piece, struggling with and mutilating pieces as they go? Lots. It is sad,
and unnecessary.
•
If you love the guitar, and are dedicated to your own development as a player, if you are dying to play the way the guitarists you
admire play, you must know how to create Vertical Growth. This is done through an understanding of HOW TO PRACTICE. I
am of course talking about REAL PRACTICE, not repetitive “run throughs” that only re-enforce the muscle tensions causing the
problems you already have.
From my experience as a player and as a teacher, it is extremely difficult to create Vertical Growth, once bad, or insufficient practice
has locked in tension and bad habits. The good news is, it is not impossible. In fact, the word difficult is not the best word. I use it
only because we have such a tendency to under-estimate the intensity of concentration it takes to undo past damage. A better word
is challenging. And if you want to keep getting better and better as a guitarist, you had better learn to love challenges! As Mark
Twain said “Life is one damn thing after another”, and that is what playing and practicing are. One damn problem to deal with after
another. But as we learn to actually deal with and solve those problems, what a sweet reward we earn.
In fact, it is not the problems we face in our playing that are really the obstacle to our growth. It is the growing feeling of frustration
and helplessness we experience as time continues to go by, and we see no fundamental improvement. We start to feel helpless. We
may not admit this feeling to ourselves, we only notice that, for some reason, we are beginning to lose our motivation to practice.
When we learn how to really practice, we start to feel powerful. Problems and challenges don’t frighten us, they excite us. Because
we know that we can look forward to those problems getting smaller and smaller, weaker and weaker, as we continue to apply The
Principles of Correct Practice.
•
It is important to realize that the quality of our Vertical Growth determines the quality of our Horizontal Growth.
Any ability we have gained as players has been because of our Vertical Growth. If our Vertical Growth has been shaky, with weaknesses built in, (which was true of myself, and I think, most players), that shakiness will be in everything we play, so our Horizontal
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“The Power Of 10”
Growth doesn’t do us much good, it just keeps us busy, feeling like we are making progress because we are learning a new song or
piece. This is why so many teachers turn the page and assign new material to a student, even though the student can’t play the material
from this week. The teacher doesn’t really know how to create Vertical Growth, and so is trying to keep a feeling of movement going.
Most students, if they are paying attention, will catch on to this.
If Vertical Growth is strong, then all new material learned will be strong, and will help you grow as a musician, as you absorb new
music, and are able to play it well. This is the kind of Horizontal Growth we want.
If you want to learn how to have this Vertical Growth as a regular experience for you, I invite you to look around this site further for
more information about “The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar”. It is the approach I have found to work for myself, for my
students, and anyone else who uses it.
I hope you enjoyed this essay! Here are
more ways I can help you get better on
guitar:
Download my (FREE) “10 Best Ways To Get Better On Guitar”
Get an assessment of your playing and find out what you need to do to improve in our GuitarPrinciples Workshop Forum (FREE)
Learn Rock & Blues Guitar with my one of a kind “Rock & Blues
Foundation Course”. All the essentials, step by step, are given in extreme detail.
Get help every step of the way in our Workshop Forum!
See students from this course, many who could never play before in spite of lessons and courses!
Change your guitar playing life forever by learning the most effective and complete guitar
learning system there is, “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar”.
It is the only method based on the scientific laws of how the body learns, and when you
are learning guitar, you are really attempting to teach your fingers to perform new and precise
movements they have never done before, using muscles that have never been used in such a
manner before.
Become a student of my “Classical Guitar Foundation Course”! This is the most powerful classical guitar course you will ever find, giving you the real secrets of how to master
this most demanding style. It contains methods I have developed to teach myself and my
students how to build a solid foundation and continue to make progress through the classical
repertoire. See students from this course....
Webcam Lessons: I do webcam lessons with people all around the world. They are
extremely effective, and will jumpstart your progress.
© 2011 GuitarPrinciples Inc.
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“The Power Of 10”
Discover Your Discomfort: The Secret Of Relaxed Guitar Playing
Tension in the muscles during playing is THE #1 cause of all playing problems. But, what causes the tension? Let’s find out!
Have you ever had trouble playing something on the guitar? Have you ever seen or heard someone play something, tried to do it yourself,
maybe practiced it for a long time, and ended up with only frustration and bad feelings about yourself as a player? Be honest now.
I’ve been playing for 40 years, and giving guitar lessons for 37 years, and I have never met a player, including myself, who could honestly
answer no to that question. There are a few things that are always true when we are unable to play something we want to play on the guitar.
One of the things that you will always find, if you look for it, is what noted guitar pedagogue Aaron Shearer called, in his first book, uncontrolled muscle tension. Many, many players have in fact commented on this fact, mainly because this fact becomes obvious to anyone
who plays for awhile, pays attention, and starts to discover the path to gaining increasing ability on the guitar. Many people mention it. The
problem is they never tell you what to do about it!
Oh sure, you’ll hear people say “play S-L-O-W-LY”, or “RELAX”! I asked, ordered, screamed, and pleaded with students to do that for
probably 20 years, before I realized that almost no one was listening to me, or maybe they didn’t believe me, or maybe they thought I was
kidding!
No, it seems most people would rather try to play that bar chord or that scale with their shoulders tensed up to their ears, their pinky
tensed up and pulled 2 inches from the neck as they dislocate their shoulder trying to get it to it’s note on time, practice and play that way
day in and day out, and then wonder why they find that scale hard to play, that it breaks down at a certain speed. Or maybe they wonder
why they have a pain here or there. Heck, they may be really persistent and keep at it till they qualify for the increasingly prevalent (and
highly avoidable) malady called “ Repetitive Strain Injury”.
•
I got a new student a while ago, we’ll call him Tom. Now Tom had been teaching himself for a few years, is very musical, very intelligent,
and managed to learn fingerstyle guitar well enough to attempt some rather challenging pieces, including some classical repertoire.
In fact, he would play for friends and often impress them. However, it was also true that he knew he never played anywhere near his best
in these circumstances, and the piece would often break down somewhere. It was also true that he had a growing pain in his left shoulder
when he practiced.
Tom has two very important qualities that a player must have in order to overcome problems, and make what I call Vertical Growth. Those
two things are Desire, and Honesty. Tom doesn’t have the pain in his shoulder anymore, and his playing is getting better and better. This is
because he has learned a few things. He has learned about the incredible attention that a player must have as they play. He has learned how
difficult it is to actually make sure you have that relaxation as you play. He has learned about Sympathetic Tension, which means that every
time you use one muscle, others become tense also, and how if you are not aware of it, and allow it to be there, it becomes locked in to the
muscles through the power of Muscle Memory.
Tom is also learning, over time, that by always making the effort to focus his attention on this muscle tension, he can always eliminate
some part of it, and by consistently doing this in practice, things begin to feel easier and easier, because he was really fighting his own
muscle tension, which made it feel so hard.
•
Tom inspired me to invent a phrase, something for him to always keep in mind when he practices. In fact, I told him to do what I do;
write it out on a sign and keep it somewhere in front of him as he practices. On the music stand or taped to the wall like I do. The phrase is
“DISCOVER YOUR DISCOMFORT”. Pay attention, notice what happens in the body as you play. How does it feel. Good players are not
experiencing that discomfort when they do the thing you struggle to do. If they had to struggle they wouldn’t be good players!
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Now as usually happens, I began to use the phrase myself, and began to discover new levels of my own discomfort. And I began to see
my playing improve, I mean fundamentally improve. You see, there is no end to this process. Why do so many of us allow such discomfort when we practice and play? There are many reasons, I’ll go in to them at another time. What I want to do now is give you some ways
of discovering your own discomfort, and begin to minimize it.
1. Hold the guitar as comfortably as you can.
2. Allow your left arm to hang limp at your side.
3. Place your right hand fingers on the strings, keeping them very loose and relaxed. If you use a pick, float the pick in between two
strings and keep it there.
4. Focus your attention on your shoulders, as you raise your left hand slowly. Raise it straight up without extending it, and place all your
fingers on the sixth string, around the tenth fret. Keep them on the string so lightly, you don’t even press the string down. (Not easy at
first)!
5. Do you feel anything in your right shoulder as you do this? Do you feel any tightness come in to the pick hand, perhaps you are gripping the pick tighter, or tensing your wrist? Be honest now.
6. Keeping your left hand fingers on the string lightly, begin to move your hand down toward the first fret. You must do this VERY
SLOWLY. Notice what happens throughout your body. As I have had students do this, I have seen everything from tense ankles or belly,
to practically falling off the chair!
7. Slowly curl your first finger to play the first fret if the first string. Pay attention to your entire body as you do this, even your breathing.
What is happening. Do you feel the rising tension? Now do a bar across the strings with the first finger - how does that feel?
Most players will be curling their toes by this time!
•
I hope I have provided a starting point for further investigations and insights for you. Take anything you find hard to do, stop yourself in
the middle of it, and check out what is happening in your body. You will be amazed.
If you want to become an expert in playing with real relaxation like the pros do, you must constantly discover your discomfort during
practice and playing, and then know what to do about it once you discover it. If you learn how to practice using “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar” that is what will happen for you!
© 2011 GuitarPrinciples Inc.
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“The Power Of 10”
The Secret Of Speed On Guitar
There is one thing that ALL good players who are able to play fast & smooth on guitar have in common. Learn what it is and how to
do it, and you will be able to play fast and smooth as well...
In my essay “How To Relax When Playing Guitar”, I urged you to become aware of the sensations of discomfort you experience while
practicing and playing. The reason is very simple. Until you do, you will not be able to be aware of the sensations (that is, your mental
awareness of the physical feelings in your body) a good player has, the sensations that you must have to play well. I call this sensation, or
feeling in the body, “The Incredible Lightness”. I call it this, because once you experience it, and allow it to grow by Correct Practicing,
well, it’s Incredible. This feeling of lightness is what makes fast, accurate playing possible. Unfortunately, because of ignorance of how to
practice correctly, far too many players create for themselves “The Incredible Tightness”.
I am going to quote from my book, “The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar”, to bring this point home:
“The relative state of tension or relaxation in the muscles is one of the hardest things to be aware of. I once saw a person play with so
much tension in her right shoulder that it was up to her earlobe! Always trying to be helpful, I pointed this out to her when she finished.
As she let her shoulder down a few inches to it’s normal position, she told me I was wrong, she wasn’t tense, but very relaxed!
The reason she felt this way is because we very quickly become used to whatever we experience, and consider it normal. We never question
whatever tensions we experience in learning new skills on the guitar, and in fact consider it part of the doing of it. And it often is, but it
doesn’t have to continue to be that strenuous. We can learn to do the movements with less effort.
•
However, when we first try something, it is often not possible to do it without a lot of excess tension. The mistake is, we assume that
the tension is inevitable, and never realize we can get to a point where we can get the result we want without all the huffing, puffing and
straining. Often, more stretch or muscle development is required, which will come with a correct approach.
Of course, as we continue to try the new skill, and assume the effort we feel must be that way, it becomes ingrained into our approach,
and gets worse. So we have a vicious circle, that leads to frustration and bad playing.
So extra tension in the muscles, which every advanced player knows is the number one cause of playing difficulty, becomes a blind spot
for us. Usually we are only aware of the result of the tension, which is that mistake we just made. Often it happens we are not even aware
of that, because we start to filter out those unpleasant reminders of our troubles.
As you will see shortly, the correct approach to dealing with “mistakes” caused by tension, is to repeat the movement extremely slowly,
with a great focus on keeping all muscles relaxed. With each repetition, the muscles learn the relaxed way of moving to produce the
result you want.”
So you see, it is lack of understanding of how the body/mind functions, and lack of honest attention while practicing, that gets us in to
trouble.
You must start to observe your own “Tightness”, and replace it with “Lightness”, then you will see your level as a player change upward,
what I call Vertical Growth. Since many players have no idea what this lightness feels like, here is a very simple way to connect with it.
You must then begin to cultivate this feeling in actual playing. Believe me, it feels good! In fact, when you see a good player “making it
look easy”, it’s because it is easy, when you have the “Incredible Lightness”.
•
Let’s Discover The “Light Finger”!
The first step in finding “The Incredible Lightness” is to discover The Light Finger. The Light Finger is the completely relaxed finger,
brought to the string, and touching the string, with only the weight of the finger. It does not press the string down until told to do so. To
discover the sensation of the Light Finger, do this:
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“The Power Of 10”
1. Raise your arms in front of you, without the guitar, and grab hold of the index finger of your left hand with the thumb and index finger
of your right hand. Completely relax the left index, and wiggle it around with your right hand. This is the Light Finger.
2. Touch the palm of your right hand with your left index. Raise the left index two inches from the palm. Now let it drop by its own
weight back to your palm, touching it very lightly, with no pressure. This is how the finger feels when it first touches the string.
3. Now hold the guitar, paying attention to the being comfortable and relaxed throughout the body, and slowly raise your relaxed left arm
up to the neck, bringing the hand up so that the index finger is lined up with the ninth fret.
4. Have your fingers in a relaxed curl over the 6th string. Allow your Light, relaxed middle finger to fall to the 6th string, behind the 10th
fret, so that it touches the string, but applies no pressure. Look at the string under your finger, and see the distance between the string
and the fingerboard. Make sure the string does not get move at all down toward the fret.
5. Raise your finger an inch, and then bring it back to touch the string again in the same way. Do this over and over, touching the string
with the Light Finger, bringing it away, and touching it again. This is called Finger Flapping. Do this a few times with each finger every
day. Make sure you keep the inactive fingers as relaxed as possible while touching the string with the active finger. This will get you used
to the feeling, and over time, very sensitive to the feeling of complete relaxation.
This light feeling is how your fingers will be when they first touch the string to play a note, and it is the feeling they will return to when
they release from a note. It enables them to be prepared for their next job. Many people never have this light feeling, and play with tense
fingers all the time, and their playing suffers greatly because of it.
This exercise is what I call a Foundation Exercise, (“The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar” has 26 of them) one that should be
done regularly, no matter how long you have been playing. It will continually act to increase your awareness of the correct and necessary
sensations you must have in order to play well. Learning how to bring this feeling in to all playing situations is often a tricky matter, and
there is much else to know, but we have to start somewhere!
•
Now I know I haven’t mentioned speed yet, and here is why. Speed, or the ability to execute movements rapidly and accurately, is simply
the result of continuous correct practice that promotes “The Incredible Lightness”. If you are creating “The Incredible Tightness” when you
practice, you will suffer because of it.
Think of walking and running. Does a little kid have to practice running? No, it just happens after balance is mastered, and the ability to
place one foot in front of the other, and have all the body parts work together to keep the movement going. After the two year old gets
that down, don’t worry, he’ll be running! In closing, let me say that all the preceding is founded upon the 1st & 3rd of The Principles of
Correct Practice. I will state them pretty formally, and they apply to all instruments.
Remember, as in all things in life, you get out of it what you put in to it (and believe me, it makes me feel pretty old to hear myself saying
that, but it’s the truth.) So read this over and over, and do the exercise, and apply these understandings to your practice. Good Luck!
© 2011 GuitarPrinciples Inc.
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“The Power Of 10”
I hope you enjoyed this essay! Here are
more ways I can help you get better on
guitar:
Download my (FREE) “10 Best Ways To Get Better On Guitar”
Get an assessment of your playing and find out what you need to do to improve in our GuitarPrinciples Workshop Forum (FREE)
Learn Rock & Blues Guitar with my one of a kind “Rock & Blues
Foundation Course”. All the essentials, step by step, are given in extreme detail.
Get help every step of the way in our Workshop Forum!
See students from this course, many who could never play before in spite of lessons and courses!
Change your guitar playing life forever by learning the most effective and complete guitar
learning system there is, “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar”.
It is the only method based on the scientific laws of how the body learns, and when you
are learning guitar, you are really attempting to teach your fingers to perform new and precise
movements they have never done before, using muscles that have never been used in such a
manner before.
Become a student of my “Classical Guitar Foundation Course”! This is the most powerful classical guitar course you will ever find, giving you the real secrets of how to master
this most demanding style. It contains methods I have developed to teach myself and my
students how to build a solid foundation and continue to make progress through the classical
repertoire. See students from this course....
Webcam Lessons: I do webcam lessons with people all around the world. They are
extremely effective, and will jumpstart your progress.
© 2011 GuitarPrinciples Inc.
9
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“The Power Of 10”
Do I Need Natural Talent To Play Guitar?
by Jamie Andreas
What is “natural talent”? Few people know, yet many people are sure they don’t have it when it comes to guitar! Here is what “natural
talent” really means.....
Guitar players, and those who would like to be, can easily fall prey to a few psychological conditions that make our progress as guitarists
and musicians much more difficult than it needs to be. One of these conditions is the nagging sense of doubt about our basic ability to
learn to play guitar. We ask ourselves “Do I have any Natural Talent for this? Can I learn to play guitar? Am I kidding myself here, thinking I can learn to play like these obviously talented players I hear, who make me feel so inadequate?”
Boy, I spent a lot of time feeling like that. I remember, at the beginning of my playing career, listening to a Segovia recording of the Bach
Bouree in Em, which I was working on at the time. He played it so fast, and I was so struggling to play it at even half that speed, that it
put me in a serious state of self doubt.
I can now play it faster than he played it (not that it is necessarily a good idea!).
I have learned a few things about this subject of “natural talent”, and I think they would be good and useful things to share with the aspiring players out there.
•
My first insight into this “question” was when I observed how I reacted to my first experience in taking lessons. I had taught myself guitar for three months before I began formal lessons. I was practicing for 3 hours a day by myself, working out of a book called something
like “Teach Yourself Guitar the Easy Way”. It was a pretty decent book, and I learned first position notes, some chords and some songs.
When I started lessons with a local teacher, I started with Mel Bay # 2, and had a lot of misconceptions cleared up, and started learning a
world of things I had no clue about, with the aid of a very good Jazz style teacher.
When I started lessons, I began to practice even more, about 5 or 6 hours a day. As a result of this, and because I did have some degree of
“natural talent” (which I will define later), I got pretty good pretty fast. My teacher was amazed, and used to show me off to everybody, as
I had become his “star pupil”. He would always say, “tell them how much you practice.”
Now the funny thing is, I would always lie about it, and tell them “oh, 2 hours a day”. I didn’t want them to know I practiced so much. I
thought “ I don’t want them to know how much I work at it, I’d rather let them think I’m some kind of genius”. I used to get really afraid
someone would realize how much I worked at it, then I’d just be like everybody else.
Now, I do forgive myself for this character flaw, because I understand why I felt this way. I grew up in a big family, and there was only so
much attention to go around (and being someone who would spend a lot of time on stage in later life, I needed a whole lot, by nature).
This was the first time in my life I ever stood out at anything, and had people pay so much attention to me, and make me feel special.
It was a good gig, and I didn’t want to blow it by having them find out I’m just a “ordinary” like everybody else. No, I’m special. I just
picked this thing up, and got divinely inspired!
Besides, my fondest desire as a child was to be a super hero like in the comic books, and this was the closest I had come to fulfilling that
career choice!
Learning What Being Special Really Means
As I began teaching, I got the opportunity to see large numbers of people attempting to learn to play, and I started to really investigate
this idea of natural talent. Was there such a thing, and what were the reasons some people got really good, and others did not. I saw
many people grapple with the challenges of learning to play, and I realized that yes, I do have some natural talent, because many of these
people were having such a harder time than I did.
But I also noticed another interesting thing. A very good percentage of the people I was teaching seemed to have at least as much talent
as I did. Some maybe more. But very few had the burning desire I had. Very few were practicing the number of hours I did, even from
the beginning. Very few seemed to have the almost desperate need in their life for this thing we call “playing the guitar”. So I saw that
there is literally a whole lot of natural talent around. But there isn’t a whole lot of love, dedication, and “hard work”.
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I started to see how immature, and downright incorrect my old way of thinking was, when I was trying to be a Superhero. I began to realize how beautiful a thing it was that someone would love and need something as beautiful as playing the guitar so much that they would give
themselves to it so completely. I certainly thought it was beautiful whenever I saw my students do it, and I still do. I was beginning to see that
love, dedication, and hard work were the really “special” things. (Of course, it has never felt like “work” to me. It is called “playing” the guitar,
isn’t it?)
You Expect Me To Practice Only 5 Hours a Week!!??
It took me a while to understand why all people who said they wanted to play the guitar didn’t spend most of their day doing it. I remember
being in high school, and filling out the form for getting extra credit for taking music lessons. Mine said you had to practice at least 5 hours
a week to qualify. I raised my hand and said, “excuse me, I think there’s a mistake on mine. It says you only have to practice 5 hours a week,
shouldn’t that be 5 hours a day.” I couldn’t understand the concept of only practicing 5 hours a week! Boy, did I learn different when I started
teaching full time!
Now as the years have gone by, I have become much more tolerant. I can accept the fact that there are people in this world who want to play
the guitar, and yet only want to practice maybe a half an hour a day, or whatever. I also realized that these are the people who are probably not
planning on becoming professionals, and that’s okay. There is a place in the world for people like this, although the world would probably be a
better place if more people spent most of their day playing the guitar. But of course, professionals do need some people who just like to listen,
and admire how special we “full-timers” are.
In all seriousness though, I am always moved when I see so many people, school teachers, landscapers, office workers, mothers and fathers,
make such a commitment to keep up their efforts to learn to play this instrument, in the midst of otherwise very full and demanding lives.
Maybe they only get to practice 20 minutes a day, but it is very important to them, and they make sacrifices to keep it in their lives and have it
grow. That’s one reason I have made a specialty of showing these people how to get the most out of the time they put in.
Okay, So What Is “Natural Talent”?
Natural Talent is a pre-disposition in the mind and the body, to do the right thing in a particular field of activity. When a person who has natural
talent for singing hears someone sing, their body and mind “know” what that person is doing to get that sound. And their body/mind knows
how to do it too, or how to begin moving in that direction. (They don’t have to know this consciously, that is “know what they know, and how
they know it, they just “know”). Some people come in for lessons, and they “tend” to do everything right, from sitting comfortably with the
instrument, to positioning and using the fingers. Some people do everything wrong, and must be shown, painstakingly and minutely, exactly
what to do. These people are the ones I have learned most from, about teaching and about playing.
Understand that everyone falls somewhere in between the two extremes of total cluelessness, and being a genius. Yes, I have some talent, as
do many people. If I didn’t work really hard, it would have got me nowhere. I needed a whole lot of education to go with that talent. So did
Beethoven, who studied with Haydn, and so did Bach, who spent his life copying out the music of composers he admired, in order to study
their work. So did Eric Clapton and Keith Richards, both of whom spent years copying every blues record they could find.
Summing Up
With the right approach, any one can learn anything. I have proven this as far as playing the guitar goes, for myself and for my students, many
of whom have had their “heads on backwards” when it comes to playing guitar. In fact, the more you really try, the more “Natural Talent” you
will discover in yourself. It is like having a little voice in your head guiding you in the right direction - if you will listen. I have found the more I
listen, the louder that voice gets, and I hear it more often.
Having “talent” is not the primary factor in whether or not you will become a good or great player. Your burning desire and desperate need to
play, coupled with the correct understanding and approach, are the most important things you must have.
There are lots of people with talent, but not a lot who allow their desire to grow, and become powerful. If you can allow yourself to feel this
need and desire, and use the power of that to overcome all the obstacles you might encounter along the way, you will find all the talent you
need to realize your full potential on guitar.
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Measuring Your Progress On Guitar
by Jamie Andreas
In order to make Vertical Growth as players (always getting better), there are some very important conditions to be met. One of these,
and one very often lacking in a player/practicers approach, is a systematic, scientific, method of measuring results. Of course, we all
have some vague sense of whether or not we are actually making any progress as players. We all have those pieces or songs or leads we
check in with from time to time to see if we are able to play them any better.
But to really kick your progress into high gear, you need something a little, scratch that, a LOT more focused. You need a system. You
need routines that you can apply to various situations, routines that give results, and provide the feedback on measurement of results
that you need to assess the effectiveness of the routines themselves. You need to know whether a particular routine you have devised
to solve a problem or improve something is actually working.
•
Imagine going in to a gym to work out, and expecting to get results by randomly picking up weights each time you went in. How
about, even worse, you never remembered what you did the last time! Sometimes you would work out with fifty pounds, sometimes a
hundred. You know what would happen? At best, not much. At worst, a lot of sore or damaged muscles, and wasted time and money
(but at least it would get you out of the house!).
Yet that is what many guitarists do when they practice. They will be working on, say, an arpeggio study or scale, and they will have no
idea of the top speed they are able to play it, the speed at which their present level of development allows them to play that particular
passage of music or exercise, before beginning to “fall apart.” And it is very important to know that! Otherwise, you will have no idea
(or not a clear enough idea) of when you have made progress, when you have gotten results from a particular practice approach.
Just as a bodybuilder must know what weight they are presently able to lift or press so that they can work out with the right amount
of weight at their particular point of development, musicians must know the same thing when it comes to their technique, which is
THEIR athletic ability to produce music on their instrument.
This means that if I am working on a scale:
1. I must know the top speed I can play it.
2. I must work up to that speed every day.
3. I must then apply certain practice routines designed to get me past that top speed, so that if today I can play it at 120 beats per
minute in sixteenth notes, I will be able to play it at 132 bpm next month.
And how do we do that? GET A METRONOME AND LEARN HOW TO USE IT! (Precise instructions and routines for metronome
use are given in “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar”. Information on choosing a metronome can be found here.)
I should start my own metronome company, given the number of metronomes I have been responsible for having people buy over the
years! It is required for all my students. I cannot produce results with students if they don’t have a metronome, and know how to use
it effectively in practice routines. And once they do know how to use it, they have a powerful method and tool for learning things on
their own. Then my role as teacher becomes more about showing them higher levels of playing, and introducing them to more complex situations that will be solved by using the same practice routines they have used on the ones previously mastered.
Here are some ways to apply these understandings to your immediate situation:
1. Get a metronome, and use it for all “technical” routines. Use it especially for all routines designed to increase speed, i.e., all scale
and arpeggio studies;
2. Before you play the music to the actual rhythm, put the metronome on 60 and play one note every 2 clicks. Yes, that is slow, but see
if you can do it without stumbling.....you may be surprised! Work up the speed from there.
3. Determine your top speed as soon as possible when learning a new technical exercise. This is the speed you will work up to each
practice session;
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4. Determine as soon as possible exactly where the exercise or musical passage breaks down as you go past your top speed;
5. Isolate those notes, analyze the movements of both hands required for producing those notes, and figure out what is wrong at that
speed.
6. Move the metronome to much lower speeds, and look for the BEGINNINGS of those wrong things happening, and work with
them there, at the beginning.
For instance, if my top speed on a Gmajor second position scale is 120 bpm, and I notice at that speed my pinky is getting so tense
it is beginning to pull away from the string, I will look for that happening at a much lower speed. Once I see that (which I never
noticed before), I can work with it there, fix it at the lower speed, and then I will see that passage start to get stronger, hold together
at the higher speeds.
The more you understand and DO these things, the more you will have the great confidence and pleasure that comes with knowing
you can always make yourself a better guitarist because you know how to practice correctly!
I hope you enjoyed this essay! Here are
more ways I can help you get better on
guitar:
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Get help every step of the way in our Workshop Forum!
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Change your guitar playing life forever by learning the most effective and complete guitar
learning system there is, “The Principles Of Correct Practice For Guitar”.
It is the only method based on the scientific laws of how the body learns, and when you
are learning guitar, you are really attempting to teach your fingers to perform new and precise
movements they have never done before, using muscles that have never been used in such a
manner before.
Become a student of my “Classical Guitar Foundation Course”! This is the most powerful classical guitar course you will ever find, giving you the real secrets of how to master
this most demanding style. It contains methods I have developed to teach myself and my
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repertoire. See students from this course....
Webcam Lessons: I do webcam lessons with people all around the world. They are
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The Importance Of Repertoire
By Jamie Andreas
If you have played guitar for more than six months and you do not have a few things you can play from beginning to end, something is seriously wrong!
Over the years, I have met many guitar students who could not actually play anything even though they had taken lessons, perhaps for years. If they were asked to play something, the best they could do would be to offer some isolated pieces of songs or solos
they had worked on.
Many guitar students are missing certain pieces of knowledge about the Art & Science of practicing and it creates a hurdle that
stops their progress. Many do not know how to actually finish a song they are learning and then bring it up to performance level.
Do you have a repertoire? To find out, answer these questions:
1. Do you have a group of songs or pieces that you feel comfortable with, feel confident with, and that you enjoy playing?
2. If someone asks you to play your guitar, do you have songs you can sit down (or stand up) and play?
3. Do you have a group of songs or pieces that you can play all the way through?
4. Have you tested and refined your repertoire by playing in front of people?
•
There are many reasons why having a repertoire is vital to developing properly as a guitarist, and I will go through them. But first,
let me tell you the reasons many players don't have a repertoire:
1. Nobody told them how important it is, and...
2. Nobody told them how to GET one, and...
3. It is EASIER to leave things half finished and in pieces than to put it all together. In fact, putting something together in tempo
and bringing it up to performance level is often the hardest part of the whole process of learning a piece.
Play For Yourself First
Some people always practice, and never play. Others always play, and never practice. Each is bad, but the first is worse. You do not
need to obsess about mistakes; just PLAY! Do not think about how well you "should" be playing this piece; just play, and enjoy it.
This is the beginning of developing a repertoire, by responding to the simple need of feeding yourself emotionally through playing
music that you love. This gets back to the original point of it all, the thing that made you pick up the guitar in the first place!
Then Play for Others
If you do not start performing for others, you will not get any better on guitar. You will start to feel your motivation for practicing
getting weaker; you will not having a REASON enough for practicing. Playing for yourself will only take you so far. If you do not
learn HOW to give a finished form to the many things you are practicing every day, (a finished form that would hold together in
front of others) you simply will not break through to the next level as a player.
Like it or not, you have to start performing and accept the fact that it will most likely be a shaky start. You may play with mistakes
and various imperfections, but if you do not subject yourself to this, you will not learn how to make it all better. Create performance situations for yourself. Grab family members, and make them sit down and listen to you play a song, or two (heck, grab the
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family dog or cat, sit them down, and start there!). Experience the pressure and nerves, and see where you fall apart, so that you can focus
on that spot in the next day's practice.
Then, start planning a piece to perform for your teacher at the beginning of every lesson. Just would go in and say "Before we start, just let
me play this song for you".
•
By setting these informal "performance goals" for yourself, you will begin to see that your practicing is taking on more structure and organization, and you will now have more of a reason to practice. The payoff, of course, is the satisfaction of having achieved the ability to play
something for someone else, and receiving their gratitude (applause).
For those of you suffering from "lack of motivation" to practice, let me tell you that there is nothing like this experience for instant "motivational medicine"! As Beethoven said after playing for a group of people who were too moved emotionally to applaud him, and were crying
instead, "What's the matter with you people, a performer wants APPLAUSE!"
How to Get a Repertoire: Write it Down!
I have often written of the need for developing your Power of Intention, the ability to feel a desire consciously, and then put your actions
behind it to bring it to a reality in your life. One of the important tools for doing this is to write your goals down and look at them often.
Putting your desires in writing helps to marshal the inner resolve to put forth the effort to accomplish them. As you begin to discover your
own power for doing what you say you will do, it gets easier, and in fact, becomes fun!
As a first step, write down 3 songs or pieces that you like, and that you feel are within your present level of playing ability. It doesn't matter
what they are; it is just important to start somewhere. It will develop from there as time goes on.
After practicing them each day, record them, (use a cheap little hand held cassette player). LISTEN BACK; do not wince at the mistakes, but
resolve to practice those parts the next day as correctly as you can.
When you are getting through things reasonably well, plan on who your first victim will be…the first person you will try playing your developing repertoire for. Try to pick someone who really likes you!
Record that, too. Later as you listen back, you can have the reassurance of knowing you are now hearing yourself at your worst! It won't get
any worse than that! You will have undoubtedly fallen under the power of Murphy's Law, which was invented specifically for performing
musicians: Everything that could possibly go wrong will have gone wrong!
Now that you have hit bottom, and faced your worst fears, there is nowhere to go but up. You will take that tape, and little by little, every
day, you will improve it. You will focus hard on the bad spots, giving them extra practice (and hopefully, you will be applying everything
you have learned about how to practice correctly and effectively!). In a month, you will have significantly raised your level as a guitar player.
In fact, you may begin for the first time to feel like a guitar player, instead of a guitar student!
The next time you "perform" your songs, they will be better and will continue to improve. That’s because your songs have been tested and
refined. As time goes by, you will have a SOLID repertoire
Ask yourself how you measure up when it comes to having a repertoire (I'll bet you already have). Try out the ideas presented here, and you
will have increased power to realize your goals as a guitar player.
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Review Is Required
By Jamie Andreas
One of the aspects of a properly balanced practice approach that is very often overlooked is review. The common tendency of most students is to focus on “new” things to play, even if last month’s or last year’s “new” thing was never properly learned. There are a few reasons
for this.
Reasons We Don’t Review:
1. New is always exciting. There is a certain rush of exhilaration as we begin a new song or piece, especially if we really like it. Some of us
are just addicted to that buzz!
2. Taking on something new gives us the feeling that we are “moving along”. Well, I guess we are, but where we are going is not going to
be any better than the place we just left!
3. Our teacher may want us to “move along” to the next page in the book, or a new song. This is because he/she is afraid we will think we
are not learning if we stay to long on one thing, or go back to something we had previously worked on.
4. Going back and reviewing something makes us feel bad about ourselves as guitar players, since we know what is going to happen if
we go back and try to get that solo, or that piece, to sound better than it did last time we played it. We won’t be able to! We will hit all the
same problem spots, and there will still be problems, and the music will sound the same as it did the last time we battled with it. We will
fight the same battles, and we will lose again. That is because we are fighting them the same way! Because we never learned how to practice , we don’t know how to improve things!
This is how I used to feel before I learned how to practice guitar correctly. As I began to learn how to practice, how to take a piece of music and make it better, reviewing took on a very enjoyable, even exciting aspect. Since I was getting better all the time, I couldn’t wait to
see how much improvement I could create on a piece I really loved, but had problems with.
•
You must examine yourself, and see where you stand with all of this. Ask yourself these questions:
1. Do I regularly review songs, pieces, solos, and exercises?
2. Do I see the results of regular review bearing fruit for me in the form of an ever growing repertoire (group of pieces we have mastered
and can play)?
3. Is this repertoire getting “better” all the time, or is it plagued with weak spots?
We are, of course, looking for YES answers here. If you come up with “No’s” , “Maybe’s”, or “Um, could you re-phrase the question”, then
you need to take serious heed of what I am saying.
Now of course, we must, on a regular basis, take on new material. But we must also, on a regular basis, review old material. Let’s look at
some of the reasons why this is so.
Reasons We Should Review: Long Range/Short Range Building of Skills
Often, as I give a student something new, I will tell them, “It is not possible for you at the present level of your development, to learn this
piece (or song) well enough to be able to play it the way it is supposed to be played.” Consider this piece like a tree you are planting. It
will take a while, maybe a year or two, to grow fully. Each time you come back to work on this again, each time you review it, it will grow
taller and stronger. Right now, we are just going to “plant the seed”.
We then work on the piece or song or even exercise, until a first goal is reached. A “first goal” is the level of proficiency that I feel the student is capable of achieving at their present level of development. Of course, this means the level they can bring the music to IF they do
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their absolute best in terms of practicing it. This may take two weeks, it may take two months, it may even take 4 to 6 months before I
feel the student has taken it as far as they can.
At this point, they can stop “working on” the music, and just “play it”. It can become part of their repertoire even if it hasn’t been
brought up to performance level. Playing it will keep it in their fingers, and in a general way, it may even improve just by playing it, but
usually whatever technical problems still remain WILL remain.
Whether the music is still played, or put aside, the point is that at some later time that music must be re-visited. Those technical problems that were beyond reach must be gone back to later on, maybe six months later, maybe a year. If the student has been developing
properly they will be able to take that further, beyond their first goal. It is this process, repeated over and over, that builds a solid repertoire, and a solid player.
•
A good example is a student of mine who was new to fingerpicking. We worked on Dust in the Wind for about 6 months, and I mean
the whole song as a guitar solo, chord melody arrangement, including transcribing the violin solo for guitar. He learned it pretty well,
but it broke down in a few places due to left hand problems and the fact that he wasn’t properly trained in classical right hand technique ( we had been doing mostly electric and jazz up till then).
We then spent about a year doing classical studies, and recently, I told him to review Dust in the Wind. What a difference! He now can
play it very fluently, and it is extremely satisfying for both of us to see the progress that was made. This is the way it should be for all of
us.
Review with a “New You”
Robert Louis Stevenson said, “A man who holds the same views at forty that he did at twenty, is a man who has been stupefied for
twenty years!” I say, a person who plays a piece of music at the same level now as he did a year ago, does not know how to practice and
does not know how to create vertical growth in their playing ability.
At any given point there should be a “new you” when it comes to life, or guitar. When this “new, improved you” reviews an “old piece
of music”, it should become a “new, improved, piece of music” once again.
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Guitar Practice Organization
by Jamie Andreas
If you are the type of person who is able to be organized about the things you really care about, then you posses an ability just as powerful as “Natural Talent”, when it comes to being successful with learning, and continually growing as a guitarist and musician.
Organization is Power. I realized this clearly one time while cleaning out a kitchen drawer, the kind that becomes a catch-all for all kinds
of stuff. I found so many things in there that were very useful, or could be, if I knew they were there. But because of lack of organization, I didn’t even know I had them, so they were useless to me. In other words, my lack of organization had decreased my power. Ergo,
Organization Is Power.
Organization is a Form of Attention and Awareness
A vital Principle of Correct Practice is this: “Your aware, thinking mind is your primary practice tool.” Awareness is developed by the
use of Attention. Lack of awareness is caused by lack of attention. Dis-organization is caused by a lack of Attention to the “over-allness”
of a situation, in our case as guitar players, to our playing and practicing and how they are related to our desires and goals.
I am going through all of this, because if you do not clearly see the necessity of expending the energy to be organized, you won’t make
the effort. And it is an effort. It is so much easier to just rush headlong in to whatever we feel like doing at the moment in our practicing, and not stop and think and analyze. And of course there is a time and place for “un-organized” practicing and playing, but there is
certainly a vital need for an overall awareness, and direction to our efforts to develop and grow as guitarists and musicians.
•
A good analogy is that of a bodybuilder in a gym. Anyone who just goes in to the weight room, picks up a few weights here and there
as the spirit moves them, doesn’t really keep track of what they are doing day to day, and what results they would like to achieve, simply
is not going to get any results. Like the bodybuilder in a gym, if we want to see the best results from our practice, we need an intelligent
approach, consistently applied, and based on an understanding of the mechanics of playing the guitar, and the musical skills and knowledge we must acquire to function as guitarists and musicians.
So I am going to lay out for you some very effective ways of organizing your practice, in terms of material, and in terms of “time management”. The goal is to maximize the effectiveness of our efforts.
Areas of Focus
There are 4 areas which deserve our attention in practice. They are broad, and the details within those areas are constantly fine tuned,
and made suitable to our level of development and needs of the moment. They are as follows:
Technique: Some time should always be devoted to pure technique. Just the physical, mechanical aspect of playing. It is by working in
this area that we development the Microscopic Awareness necessary for good playing. In my technical sessions, I consider myself a
scientist going in to the lab, to investigate that new project, problem, theory , or whatever. I put it under the microscope. I experiment. I
observe. I draw conclusions. I test.The next day, I use review and carry it further. For example, I may notice one day that my third finger
always tenses in reaction to my fourth finger pulling off to my second finger. I will make up exercises to work with this, applying The
Principles of Correct Practice to the situation.
How much focus needs to be put here depends on the player, the style, and the goals (see “The Learning Curve of Various Styles Of
Guitar”). The classical player needs a whole lot of focus here, the jazz player does as well. The player who wants to be a speed demon,
virtuoso rock guitarist needs a lot of attention and work in this area.
If you just want to strum and sing songs, and not get too complicated, for instance, a folk player, then you only need to put some attention here in the beginning, after you get the hang of some chords and maybe a few runs, you can spend the rest of your life just learning
more songs and using the same technique (what I have called Horizontal Growth). I do find however, that most people are not really
satisfied staying in one place technically and musically. Personally, I believe in continual development. I like to do 2 hours of pure technique a day. I encourage my students to always be doing something of a purely technical nature, usually at the beginning of practicing,
since it also serves the function of warming up.
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Music Skills: Into this category falls all the musical materials you need for your chosen style. Some of them, of course, are common to
all styles, things like basic chords, reading notes, understanding rhythm, etc. Some fall into more specialized categories. The jazz player
needs hundreds of chords, in all their inversions, hundreds of scales in all forms, arpeggios, etc.. This is simply because these are the
tools he needs in his toolbox, to play jazz. (Of course, it’s great to have these for any style, and I studied Jazz for many years to get a
handle on these “musical materials”, although I don’t really play jazz. I use them for arranging purposes).
Learning music theory also falls into this category. I teach all my students music theory, as time goes on. The areas for continuing education as a musician are endless, and so you should always find something to put in this category. In the beginning, it should be the basic
items I mentioned previously, that is, the basic chords, basic scales and licks for the rock player, usage of basic chords, like bass runs
and rhythms, etc. Everything that gets you “up and running” as a guitar player. As you develop, it should include the study of Harmony,
Musical Form, Song Form, and lyric writing for songwriters.
Repertoire: This simply means learning things that you can play. It sounds obvious, but I know lots of students who always practice,
but can never actually play anything! This subject needs a lot of elaboration, which I will do elsewhere, but let me make the main point
here. You must, as soon as possible, learn whole songs or pieces that you can sit down, (or stand up), and play. It is the quickest way to
unleash your true potential, as it enables you to make the mental transition of feeling yourself to be a “guitar player”, instead of a “guitar
student”. I have known people who play for many years and don’t feel like players. And that attitude shows in their playing.
Everyone gets to join the club right away. Your membership dues are learning something to play, and then playing it for someone. It
grows from there. Always devote part of your practice time to maintaining and developing repertoire. It is best to keep your repertoire,
that is, the list of things you can play, written down somewhere, preferably in the Practice Journal you should be keeping (another subject). Also keep a list of the things you would like to play in the future.
Review: Reviewing and increasing your understanding of past material is vital. I mean, it is absolutely essential. And understand this
- your teacher will probably not make sure you do this. They are usually busy giving you new material. You must have the initiative to
review things on an ongoing basis. There are many concepts you learn along the way that are impossible to grasp the first time you hear
them. You should regard the first time you learn a new concept as you do meeting someone for the first time. You are just getting introduced, so don’t think you know them completely!
An excellent example is understanding what the bottom number of the time signature means. It is usually mentioned in the beginning
of learning how to read music, and it is IMPOSSIBLE to understand and appreciate it’s importance or what it means, because it involves
abstract concepts which cannot be grasped without a good amount of experience (this is why I wrote my “Rhythm Course”, included in
“The Path Level One: Chords & Rhythm” book, which is like nothing you have seen, and will give you the real understanding of rhythm
notation you must have).
So the student nods their head as the teacher says “the bottom number tells which note gets one beat”, has no idea what that means, is
then told the quarter note gets one beat, which isn’t true, (note values do not have fixed absolute time values, they are relative to each
other) and the confusion goes on from there. It will show up later when the student feels really uncomfortable every time they see an
eight in the bottom of the time signature.
Every time you review, you strengthen your ability and understanding. Always have things you are reviewing- repertoire, exercises,
studies, concepts.
•
Organizing Practice Time
This one usually gets people. People “can’t find the time”. That’s the first obstacle. The answer is simple. At some point in your transition
from child to adulthood, you are supposed to learn that us grown up types don’t “find” time, we MAKE TIME! That is, we do if we want
to consciously create the reality we desire, in this case becoming guitar players.
So that is the first concept that needs to be understood. “Finding time” is the language of weakness and excuse making, and the easy
way out. “Making time” is the language of strength. It takes some effort. It accomplishes. When you begin to get organized, you begin to
“make the time”, and you will see the results. Whether you do so or not depends as always, on the strength of your desire.
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Here are some suggestions:
Write down your schedule. Use the chart below as it is, or as a guide. Write down when you will practice, and for how long. Revise it each week, based on what is happening in your life. Be realistic. Don’t feel guilty if you have to deviate from it some days, or
modify it. It is there as a general guide, a tool you are using to help strengthen your Intention, not as a test or judge.
It doesn’t matter how long you practice. It only matters how well you practice. Sometimes I practice for an hour without stopping.
I often take a break from writing or some other activity, and practice for five minutes, or just play something. I always keep my
guitars out and around me for this purpose.
Guitar Principles Practice Organization Chart Example
Download
The GuitarPrinciples Practice Organization Chart
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How To Memorize Music
by Jamie Andreas
Playing from memory is a skill that I believe is not only possible for every player, but is indeed essential for every player. I never feel that I
know a piece, or have internalized a piece, until I have been playing it for quite some time from memory. I have written about the importance of having a Repertoire, and being able to play from memory really makes your Repertoire (the group of pieces or songs you can
play well) your own; a solid, dependable part of yourself.
•
I always found it quite easy to memorize pieces, and thought everyone could do this, until experience in teaching taught me otherwise.
As I began to study the subject, I gradually uncovered the reasons why I found it easy, and others found it difficult. I could summarize
those reasons as follows:
1. I practiced more.
2. I paid more attention when I practiced.
3. I isolated sections and worked on them separately.
4. I often played “fragments” from memory during practice while watching my hands, one or the other.
After awhile of working on a piece this way, I would just discover that I could play it from memory, because in many ways I was already
doing that when I practiced it.
•
Why Do Students Have Trouble Memorizing Music?
I have noticed that many students have an absolutely fearful dependency upon the written notes! They seem to “grasp” at the notes with
their eyes, while their fingers are having a desperate time trying to get the notes out. This whole approach, and the inner attitude that
initiates it, is wrong.
The most glaring example of this fearful attitude is an experience I once had, watching an older man play. I met him after a concert, and
he told me he had played his whole life. He did not play well, and had incredible tension, but what really struck me was this curious
phenomenon. He was playing from memory, (with many gaps), but kept his eyes glued to the music stand, where he had a piece of paper
with only the names of the pieces he was playing! Not the music itself, but just the titles! It was like a security blanket for him to look at
it while he played, when of course, he should have been watching his hands so that he had a chance of seeing everything they were doing
wrong!
I have noticed this tendency in many students, and I am mentioning it first because it is the first thing you must deal with in order to
develop the skill of memorization. If you haven’t already, you must overcome the feeling that you NEED to look at the notes all the time.
Notice I said all the time. Of course you must look some of the time. But you must also not look at the notes some of the time. This is the
only way the ear, brain and fingers will begin to form the kind of connections they must form in order to play from memory.
After you determine if you are being held back by this fear of playing without notes in front of you, you must examine something else: the
quality of your Attention while practicing. I firmly believe that Attention is what it is all about when it comes to memorizing. People just
do not know when they are paying attention, and when they are not, because they are not paying enough attention to notice if they are
paying attention in the first place! I spend a good amount of teaching time simply pointing out to people that they are not really paying
attention to what they are doing, or to what they should be doing. Very often, the key to “getting something” is simply REALLY paying
ATTENTION.
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Examine yourself while you are practicing. If you pay great attention, you will notice that there are a few “channels” of attention playing in
your mind when you are practicing. Usually, one of the channels is the “Critic”, the one that points out and magnifies every difficulty you
are having! Then the Critic delivers the latest news to that other part of yourself, the “Punisher”, who turns up the volume on his channel,
so you will hear him as he reminds you that you probably just don’t have the talent to ever play what you are trying to play. And if those
two voices don’t get you, the “Worrier” probably will, especially when it comes time for your big solo, in front of an audience. Instead of
focusing on what you need to do, you will be focusing on how afraid you are that you won’t be able to do it. I think it’s called “self fulfilling
prophecy”. I know, I’ve done it many times!
If you are to develop to the higher levels of playing the guitar, these extra channels will have to go! You will have to allow yourself the luxury
of turning off those channels, and using the power they have taken up for better purposes, like paying attention to what you need to do
while practicing (Intention), and what you are actually doing (Attention).
Later, I will go in to some specifics about the 3 kinds of memory that musicians use to memorize a piece of music. Most musicians do it instinctively, but they can be learned by anyone, and even musicians who do it instinctively can improve by having a conscious understanding
of the processes involved.
The subject of Attention is primary to the whole matter, and that is why I wanted to go in to it in detail first. I will summarize the things you
can begin to do right now to improve or develop the ability to play music from memory:
1. Examine yourself when practicing to see if you are broadcasting and listening to those “extra” channels, the Worrier, Critic and Punisher
channels. If so, pull the plug!
2. Take that extra mental energy you now have at your disposal, and focus on what is happening at the moment. Physically, be aware of fingers, hands, arms and body. Mentally, be noticing everything, and THINKING. Ask yourself “Why is this happening? What can I do about
it? What can I do differently?” Emotionally, be aware of your feelings about the music. (If you don’t have any, ask yourself what you are
doing with a guitar in your lap!)
3. Now, try playing some of that music from memory. Two notes, three notes, whatever. So many people say “I can’t play from memory”.
They don’t know what they are talking about. Try it, just a few notes, then add some more. When you get stuck, THEN look at the music,
and pay great attention to what comes next. Say the notes out loud, do whatever you have to do to “burn it into your brain”, and then try it
again. Play it once while looking, then without looking. Keep repeating that process, you will get it.
The Three Kinds of Memory
Attention is the foundation of the process of memorizing music, and you must be aware of the quality and quantity (intensity) of your own
Attention. This is a very difficult matter, because becoming aware of the quality of our own Attention is like the eye seeing itself. You are
being asked to pay attention to your in-attentiveness. Just as there must be special circumstances and devices for the eye to see itself (reflecting surfaces, ponds, mirrors,etc.), you must create special “mental circumstances”, by using certain practice approaches, in order to become
aware of your lack of awareness.
There are three kinds of memory that musicians use: Finger Memory, Ear Memory, and Eye Memory. They are more precisely named Muscle
Memory, Inner Ear Memory, and Mind Memory. Think of them with whatever description serves you best at your present level of understanding.
Finger Memory is the strongest, most automatic, and most primitive form of memory. Like a computer, your fingers faithfully record whatever information is input to them, and just as faithfully, use that information to “compute”, which for us musicians, means play or perform.
If the fingers, through Correct Practice, are only fed the right information, the exact information that will lead to the result we want (the
right notes at the right time in the right way), they will give it to us. Of course, if they are given wrong information, or “mixed messages”,
sometimes right sometimes wrong, sometimes different degrees of both, then they will just as faithfully give that back to us. Through lack of
Attention, players often input this faulty information, and wonder why they don’t get the result they want.
The power of finger memory is awesome, but it is not enough. I discovered this for myself early on, when I began giving concerts. I must say
this only happened once to me, but it was quite a lesson. I have always played all my concerts from memory, sometimes up to an hour and a
half of solid music from memory, (and when you play classical guitar, that’s a lot of notes!) Well, once it happened that I got lost, could not
remember, and had to go back to the beginning. Of course, it was quite a lesson in how to handle major embarrassment, but it was more
than that. I came to realize that the reason I could not get out of the jam was because I did not have the other two kinds of memory going
for me: Ear Memory and Eye Memory.
The thing to realize is that Finger Memory is very powerful, but also very stupid! It is not intelligent. It can’t think. I usually think of Finger
Memory with an image. It is like a mole, burrowing underground. It keeps moving by instinct, and has an instinct for where it is going, but
it is blind, in the dark. It has no awareness of the whole picture (the music in it’s totality as movement, sound, emotion). That is why, when
finger memory is all you have going for you, and you get lost, you have to rewind back to the beginning, that is, start the music over, and
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hope for something better next time around, (which often doesn’t happen). Even though the fingers may know the moves to make,
they, shall we say, ain’t talkin’. The more intelligent forms of memory are Ear Memory and Eye Memory.
•
Ear Memory is very interesting. Some people use it from the beginning of their involvement with playing an instrument. In fact, it
is part of the natural approach of someone who has what we call “natural talent”. Using it produces strong results as we develop our
abilities through daily practice, and anyone can learn to use it, but it is amazing how many would-be guitarists don’t!
Ear memory is your inner awareness of the music as sound. Ear memory is the result of your awareness of each note as a sound,
heard externally AND internally. Again, it is developed simply through focusing attention on the music as sound sensation during the
practice process. Very quickly for some, and sooner or later for everyone else, it develops into the ability to distinguish the important
characteristics of sound, such as tone and pitch. It results in the ability (with practice) to reproduce the sound with our own “primary
instrument”, our body, by singing the notes.
And let me make this abundantly clear - you must learn to sing the notes if you want to be a musician! I always have my students
sing, whether I have to force them to, or they do so willingly! When you sing the notes, you enter into a different relationship with the
music, it becomes more real for you. One of the truest things ever said to me by a teacher was “if you can’t sing the notes, you are not
hearing them”. I have found this to be absolutely correct. By learning to do so, I discovered that many times I thought I was hearing
them, but I was not, not in the deep way a musician must be able to hear them.
When we play, the inner hearing of the note that is to come next, the phrase that is to come next, guides and prepares the fingers in
their actions. Many students, especially in the beginning, do not have the inner experience of hearing the notes. For them, playing
and practicing is just “moving the fingers around”. The teacher must test them to see if they are having the inner experience of truly
hearing the notes. This is done by asking them to sing.
Often, a student will not be able to reproduce the pitch, and that’s fine. Once you get them to at least make a sound, you have something to work with. You can refine it as you go along. It is my experience that all students are able to get with the program with a little
practice. And anyway, what good is a guitarist who can’t sing? The way I look at it, no self respecting guitarist would go through life
only strumming chords, and having to find somebody to provide a vocal melody line every time they wanted to “make music”. I believe all guitarists, even beginners, want to sing. They are just too “chicken” in the beginning. So, whether you sound like an angel, or
croak like a frog, START SINGING!
•
Eye Memory or Mind Memory is your awareness and memory of the written music. Just as a conductor, standing in front of the orchestra, must know every note that everyone is supposed to play, so you must know, in a conscious way, every note you need to play
(or every chord, if you are singing and strumming). This means you must know, and know that you know, as in being able to say each
note or chord, and being able to visualize, in your mind’s eye, the written music, be it tab, notes, or chord diagrams.
When defined as Mind Memory, this form of memory is your awareness of the music as a mental concept, as an idea. It involves your
awareness and understanding of ALL aspects of the music, harmonically, structurally, and so forth.
How to Start Using the Three Kinds of Memory
A useful analogy for grasping the essence of the three kinds of memory I have been explaining, is to think of an actor in a play:
1. Memorizing the lines he needs to speak in a mechanical way, solely by repetition (like catechism in Sunday school) is like Finger
Memory;
2. Hearing inwardly the line that is to be spoken next is like Ear Memory;
3. Understanding the meaning of the words, why they are being spoken by the character, and how they relate to all the other characters and the story as a whole, that is Mind Memory. It is the result of thought, and intuitive involvement with the music.
If Mind Memory is strong, you can never really lose it on stage. Even if you forget your lines (the notes), you can “fake it”, because,
being aware of the whole picture at any given time, you are able to “think on your feet”.
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This is done by testing yourself.
Finger Memory: just sit without the music and try to play it. Can you do it? If not, you need more attentive repetitions of the music.
Ear Memory: play the music in your head. Sing the melody out loud. Can you do it? If not, keep trying! Play the notes, hear the
notes, outside AND inside.
Eye Memory: close your eyes and SEE the music. Say the first note to be played out loud. Say the next note. Keep going. If you get
stuck, look at the music, and burn it into your brain. Say them out loud.
Does it take a lot of effort to have all these kinds of memory working for you when you practice and play? Yes. Is it worth it? Only if
you want to be the best you can be!
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Stage Fright
by Jamie Andreas
Most of us suffer from stage fright to some degree at one time or another. A little thinking on the subject tells us many things,
beginning with the fact that it is not stages we are afraid of! What then?
Introduction
I am going to deal with a very complex subject, one that we all will face sooner or later, whether we play professionally or not. I am
talking about what is known as Stage Fright. From time to time people will write for help with it, as someone did recently. I had
been planning to say some things about it, and now is the time.
Jamie,
How does one overcome Stage Fright? I can play very well (I don’t mean to brag, and I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m doing it), and alone
I can come up with some real good licks but in public I freeze...please help me if you can.
Larry
Now that is certainly the million-dollar question! If I could give you the prescription for that one in a few sentences, I think I
could sell it for a million dollars! You see Larry, your question is very deep, very fundamental. It strikes at the very core of not only
what being a performing musician is about, it also has everything to do with what being a PERSON is all about.
Fortunately for you and for anyone else who reads this, and is also suffering from the same thing (which I think includes everybody) I have vast experience with this one.
In my many years of performing, I have suffered every degree of what is called “stage fright”. I have gone from someone who used
to look out on the stage before a concert, and feel like there was a rope hanging out there, waiting for my neck, to someone who
could play before an audience feeling as comfortable as if I were in my own living room all by myself. I have also dealt with, experimented with, and thought about this subject from many different angles, and believe I have come to certain truths concerning it.
What Stage Fright Isn’t
First, let me tell you some thoughts concerning a lot of the ideas that are commonly tossed around when one hears advice on
this phenomenon from the many people who comment on it (and I have read many). One of the most prevalent bits of wisdom
concerning stage fright is to regard it as some kind of potentially helpful thing. I have heard people say things like “oh, it’s really a
good thing. You should connect with that energy and use it in your performance.”
Well, I always think whoever says that is definitely not feeling the same thing I’m feeling when I feel that FEAR, that “stage fright”.
Because for me, there is nothing useful, pleasant or fun about it. The first thing I ever noticed about it was that it did nothing but
prevent me from playing well, or even having any fun and enjoying myself. The second thing I noticed, was that it robbed these
same things from the audience as well, most of whom are there (I assume) to hear what I sound like when I AM having a good
time, doing this thing called “playing” music.
I once heard a concert performer giving advice to a young player on this subject, and his answer to the students professed problem
with stage fright was “that’s because you care”, I guess he was implying “don’t worry about it, it is a sign you care about what you
are doing.” I doubt it helped this guy very much. Probably left him feeling rather perplexed.
Now he not only had to feel his stage fright, he had to conclude that it was the inevitable result of caring about what he was doing.
I guess the message is “to care hurts”. Does that mean if you don’t feel stage fright you don’t care about your performance? To me,
that explanation is absurd.
•
True, I agree the “fright” has it’s origin in a certain kind of caring, but what I hope to make clear, is that it is caring about all the
WRONG THINGS!. In a nutshell, it is the result of caring about how you, the player are appearing in other’s eyes, (or your own
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eyes, as we shall see) than you do about the music you are making, or sharing it with anyone else.
No, stage fright is not your friend, at least it has never been my friend. We all get to choose our friends, and for me, a friend is
someone I can have fun with. This guy’s no fun.
What It Does
Before delving into the reasons for stage fright, and what to do about it, let’s bring into focus a few of the undeniable effects of
it. For the audience, it is nothing but robbing them of their reason for being there. If I go out on stage to share my music with an
audience (and I am really sharing not only the music, I am also sharing with them my whole relationship to music and the guitar),
the audience is not there to watch me display my fear of them!
They did not take a slice of their precious time to come and watch me get caught in the grip of my psychological problem about
being up there in front of them, they came to hear music! They came to hear someone play, not freak out! So if nothing else, it is
an extreme discourtesy to the audience members, and I believe it is the responsibility of every performer to get his or her head
straight on this subject, (or at least try) and make sure they can deliver the product they are supposed to be delivering.
For me, the performer, the effects of stage fright are equally devastating. How ridiculous, how cruel, that I have spent perhaps
hundreds of hours practicing, studying, working and sweating to learn these pieces and prepare this concert, and I go out on stage
and have a severe traumatic experience! If I want to torture myself that badly, there are lots of easier ways to do it that don’t entail
wasted practice time. I could race down the highway in the wrong lane at 100 miles an hour if I want to scare the be-jesus out of
myself the way I have at times in my life by doing the “stage fright” thing.
How disheartening to have worked for hours to discover and shape the nuances of a particular passage, and not even be able to get
the notes out when it comes time to share with another human being the fruits of my labor. It is truly nothing but it’s own special
form of “musical impotence”. And it is all a completely self-created and self-imposed experience. It is one of the many ways human
beings turn what could be beautiful into something ugly in their lives.
It’s Not Happening To You, You Are Doing It!
Having brought these points into focus, the next thing to realize is this. Stage fright is not something that happens to us, it is something we do. It is not something “coming over us”, it is something we are deliberately doing, from the inside, deep within ourselves.
We are just not aware that we are doing it, because we never look that deep. So it appears to be out of our control, it appears to be
something that is “happening” to us, not something we are doing.
I had a dramatic illustration of this truth one time when I was a young player, just beginning to face some of my fears about my
own playing. I was just beginning to experiment with recording myself. I was shocked as I turned on the tape recorder and began
to feel terribly afraid, and in fact experienced all the same symptoms of stage fright I had before that time had the displeasure of
experiencing on an actual stage. There I was, sitting alone in my bedroom, with my heart pounding as I began to play for A TAPE
RECORDER! What should we call that “Recorder Fright”?
This brings us to the crux of the matter. There is no such thing as Stage Fright. People are not afraid of stages.
There is only People Fright. People are afraid of people.
When I was sitting there, unable to play for my tape recorder, I was experiencing People Fright. The person I was afraid of was me!
Or more properly speaking, I was afraid of all the voices in my head that I knew would start yelling at me when I listened back and
heard that my playing wasn’t quite what all those voices demanded it be.
The reason you, me, and everybody else does this thing called stage fright, is because there is one thing that all people fear the
most, more even, then they fear death itself. And that thing is OTHER PEOPLE!
I have read of studies where people are asked “what is your greatest fear”. Well, the winner is not fear of death, or auto accident. It
is fear of public speaking. That says a lot. That is another way of saying “the thing I fear most is other people, especially if they are
looking at me, paying attention just to me and what I am doing.”
Now isn’t that an interesting paradox. Psychiatrist’s offices the world over are full of people talking about how they didn’t get
enough love or attention growing up. Nobody was interested in them or what they said, did, or thought. They are full of people
willing to pay a high hourly rate just so SOMEONE will listen to them for an hour (make that fifty minutes).
And yet, put somebody up on stage, where they can get every iota of everybody’s attention, (no competition like having that pesty
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brother or sister around) and they fall apart! Isn’t that strange? Life is full of little practical jokes like that. I guess it’s an example of what
they always say about too much of a good thing!
How Stage Fright Works
Okay so now that we have this stage fright thing more properly defined as what it really is, that is, People Fright, we are in a position to
get some where with it. But first, a caution. Many (perhaps most) people, including professional performers, never slay this dragon. They
may learn to live with being in it’s presence, and learn to perform even though they must do it while their knees are wobbling! But they
never actually get to the essence of the matter, so that the dragon is slain, (or perhaps, more accurately, transformed). The reason they
don’t do this, is because the matter goes too deep, too deep into the person themselves, and it is deeper than they are willing to go.
Andres Segovia, for instance, who is the most famous classical guitarist of the 20th century, and undeniably one of its greatest musical
performers, was, throughout his very long performing career of some 70 years, plagued with incredible stage fright, often shaking visibly
before going on stage, and having the beginnings of concerts seriously impaired because of it (according to eyewitness Aaron Shearer).
He is one example of many world famous performers who NEVER got to the root of it, and never overcame it.
Segovia did do something however, which to me is ridiculous and deluding. He did what I call “making a virtue out of a vice”, something
people commonly do when they don’t want to or can’t change a weakness. They start to “re-shape” their thinking about it and turn it into
something that makes them look good! Segovia told himself (and others) that suffering from stage fright was a sign of talent, and not
feeling stage fright was a sign of not having talent! While it may be true that artists tend to be highly sensitive individuals who are more
prone to certain “imbalances” in their make-up, it certainly doesn’t mean that that same sensitivity/talent MUST lead to the undeniably
unpleasant (to say the least) effects of stage fright.
Interestingly enough, Segovia would, during the course of the concert, overcome the feelings and start to enjoy playing for the audience,
as many players do. He would say, “before a concert, I want to cancel it. After I am done playing, I want to start again”. This was certainly
a good thing, but why have to repeat the endless cycle of agony each time a concert comes up?
I have told you this story about Segovia, because I want you to realize the enormity of this problem of stage fright. I consider coming to
understand ourselves in the context of how we feel about walking out on stage, or any kind of playing for other people, to be an ongoing,
life long process, that is in many ways as rewarding and interesting as being a musician itself. And also understand that I am not talking about a certain kind of “excitement” we may naturally feel at the prospect and the experience of performing on our instrument for
other people. Even by it’s very rarity, it carries a certain kind of excitement to it. I am talking about the absolutely debilitating effects, you
know, like hearing about how John Lennon would throw up before a concert! I am talking about the “scared to death” kind of feelings. I
am talking about things that makes us play worse, not better.
Before we talk about “why” we are so afraid of sharing our artistic selves with other people, and why we are so afraid of other people in
so many areas of life, let’s talk about “how” we are afraid of other people. Let’s start real simple, with common experiences everyone has,
but I don’t think everyone notices, or appreciates what is really going on when they are happening.
The How Of Stage Fright
Think of it this way. When you are sitting on a public seat somewhere in a public place, maybe a bus, or a park bench, and someone sits
next to you, why do you tense different parts of your body as they get closer to you? Why do you make an (ineffective) attempt to “withdraw” from that other person? Everyone does, you know.
Imagine you are walking down the street, all by yourself, and you are lost in thought, or the scenery perhaps. Why is it, if someone
begins to approach you, walking in the opposite direction, you not only tense different parts of your body as they approach, but you
will notice, if you pay attention, that even your awareness of your own self, your own body, changes. You will, for instance, become very
aware of your face, as the person approaches. You will also notice it is not a pleasant feeling. Observe yourself in this situation. You will
notice yourself doing these things.
If you were walking down the street by yourself, and then saw up ahead that you had to walk past a group of strangers, you would really
start to react, or rather “contract”. You would tense your body, and “harden” your “body armor” for the experience of walking past them.
I caught myself doing something very interesting a while ago. I noticed that whenever I walked into a public place, a store for instance,
I would (unconsciously) anticipate and prepare for encountering the people there by tensing and or biting on my lower lip, very slightly,
but still tensing. I had probably been doing this my whole life and never noticed. I experimented with not doing it (you have the power
to experiment once you observe it, not before). I found a very interesting thing. I found that I felt somehow “unprotected” to walk into a
group of people without tensing and biting my lower lip!
I could only conclude that the reason I was doing this WAS to protect myself. In my case, knowing my own neurosis so well, I believe it
comes from a childhood of being told to shut up, and being punished for speaking my mind. So I would do what is meant by the com-
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mon phrase people use when they want to say something but are afraid to for some reason, I would “bite my lip”. Most of us have some
similar hidden obstacles. This is an example of what I mean when I say you must go deep to make real headway with this situation. It is
through a long process of such experimentation and observation that I began to notice changes in ALL my dealings with people, including the experience of walking out on stage in front of hundreds of them.
The Why Of Stage Fright
Knowing HOW we do the People Fright thing is actually more important then knowing WHY we do it. You can endlessly contemplate
the WHY and still never change it. But by working with the how, you will discover the WHY anyway, and notice it changes by itself, over
time. But as far as the reason for all the protecting, all the fear of other people, the root of it is simply the inability, the refusal, to love and
accept ourselves as we are, with all our “faults” and imperfections.
We do it to ourselves, and then we go around being afraid everyone else is going to do it too. We condemn ourselves for the mistakes we
make as players, we compare ourselves to those “great and perfect players who everyone loves and accepts”, the ones we want to be like.
Then we reject ourselves for NOT being so great and perfect.
Also, it can be a vicious cycle, because often guitarists DO have many imperfections in their playing ability, and the guitar is an incredibly difficult instrument by it’s nature, anyway. So being a guitarist, especially a soloist, can be risky business. On top of that, the teaching
systems that have been developed over the years are always incomplete, and largely ineffective for many students. Don’t forget that compared to piano and violin, the guitar is a newcomer. Add to all that the guitar being a solo instrument, and guitarists being a bit “quirky”
by nature (my opinion), and you have all the ingredients for a lifetime of mal-adjustment!
But it is our duty to always be trying to find the paths of growth, and work to improve ourselves, no matter what stage of development we
are at. Without being engaged in that process, and yet still displaying ourselves before other people while being conscious of our stagnant
faults, is to invite the paralyzing effects of performance anxiety as a permanent companion on stage.
The greatest players are always working on improving themselves. They are always aware of the things that can be improved, new territory that can be explored. But we all must understand that performing is a matter of offering what you have at the moment, to other people.
So, on a practical level, one of the most potent ways to begin to loosen the grip of stage fright is to couple an acceptance of ourselves at
the moment, with the process of on-going development. These conditions themselves provide a sturdy foundation for the wobbly knees
of the anxiety stricken performer.
It’s a Concert, Not a Contest
So far we have talked about what Stage Fright is, and what it isn’t. We have looked at how it is done, and why it is done. We have seen
that it is not something that happens to you, it is something you actually do. We have seen that it is just another form of People Fright,
although a highly potent form.
Well, if Stage Fright is something we DO, I think we can all agree we would rather NOT do it. But how do we not do it? The answer may
surprise you.
There is no way to not do it. Or more correctly, there is no way for “you” to not do it. There is no way for the “you” who does it to not do
it.
There is, however, a way to go THROUGH it. There is a way to give birth to a new “you” who does something else instead.
The answer to our problem is to discover what it is we SHOULD be doing when we play music for other people, and then do THAT. And
what we will find when we DO that, is that the Stage Fright thing STOPS. In order to find out what it is we should be doing when we play
music for other people, instead of doing Stage Fright, we need to look at a couple of things first. We need to consider a couple of questions.
One, what is music? Two, why does anyone want music in their life? Three, what are we really doing (or trying to do) when we listen to
music, or play music for ourselves or for other people?
What is Music?
There are 3 kinds of people. First, the people that have no feeling for music at all, and whose lives would not be affected if there were no
such thing as music in the world. I believe these kinds of people are very rare, and that they are similar to the kind of people who don’t
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like dogs or little children, and the ones I have met always gave me the shivers. Personally, I don’t think I have met many at all, in fact, only
one or two, so I have to account for them here. I’m sure there must be more, I have just been lucky so far.
Second, there are the people to whom music makes a pleasant background to their daily activities. It’s nice to have around, like a basket of
plastic fruit on the kitchen table. I do know a number of people like this, but I try not to spend much time with them.
Thirdly, there are the people who recognize what music REALLY is. They recognize that music is the most potent form of MAGIC a human
being is capable of making. They recognize that music not only expresses emotion, music is a tangible form OF emotion. Music IS emotion,
it IS energy in motion, human energy, human FEELING emotional energy. That is why this third type of person not only likes music, not
only loves music, they NEED music. Thankfully, I know lots of these people. You will find this type of person as what we call a professional
musician, or as an amateur, it makes no difference.
•
There are many among this third group of people who recognize that music is DIVINE. If you are one of the people who like to use the word
GOD to express your feelings about the ULTIMATE REALITY (as I do), then you may think of it, like me, as the voice of God. When I was
a teenager, listening one time to Beethoven’s 9th symphony, I was at once converted and baptized. I didn’t need any scriptures to tell me
what God was like, whether there was a God, or any of that nonsense. The “Meaningfulness of Existence” had been revealed to me through
a higher Revelation, one that doesn’t need human words. It was revealed in a different language, the one we call music, the one that never
needs a translator or interpreter, because it speaks “in tongues”, directly to every human heart. And it had been spoken by one of Music’s
greatest Prophets, Ludwig van Beethoven.
There are many musicians throughout history who have recognized the divine nature of music, and because they recognize it, they have the
proper reverence for it. Beethoven, of course, felt this way. Antonio Vivaldi, the great Baroque composer of the seventeenth century, was,
in addition to being a great musician, also a priest. One time he ran off the altar in the middle of saying Mass, because he had just at that
moment received an inspiration for a new piece of music which he had to immediately write down, lest he forget. “I was called by a higher
authority”, he later explained.
In our own time, musicians like Carlos Santana exemplify this highest type of artist. Santana’s relationship to his music has always been intensely spiritual, and you can certainly hear it in the notes! There is an intense quality of ennobled human emotion in his playing, as there is
in the music of all such artists. “When I play, it’s no good unless I cry” he has said.
I have always noticed that the greatest musicians came to see that what they had dedicated their lives to was of a Divine, or Ultimate origin. In addition to being irresistibly compelled to be music makers and creators, they knew they were answering a supremely high calling.
It is not without meaning that Franz Liszt’s students were not called students, but disciples. The same with Francisco Tarrega, (who Segovia
called “the patron saint of the classical guitar”)
Why Do People Want/Need Music?
Human beings have argued endlessly over their confused ideas of “God”, and made hundreds of versions of “God” each in their own image,
and each with a different name which they know is the “true” one. But the beautiful thing about the language of music is that there is no
confusion. There is no doubt. It is a direct communication of the Divine to the human heart, and it speaks to each heart that recognizes it.
And it speaks in the native language of every heart it touches. When we are moved by the music we love, transported and taken to that place
which is above this world, we don’t need someone to explain it to us, or tell us whether it’s “true” or not. We know. It is tacit knowledge and
understanding.
And if you are a music lover, it doesn’t matter whether you have ever thought about it in this way or not, whether you have ever used the
words I am using. The Reality we are talking about is beyond words, by definition! That’s the whole point! That’s why we need music to touch
it! Music puts us in touch with our INTUITION, our “inward knowing” of the Spiritual Reality that stands behind this physical one we normally touch.
A thirteen year old listening to their favorite rock band or rap artist, the 30 year old listening to their favorite pop artist or folkie type singer/
songwriter, the person sitting down to meditate upon the mysteries of a Bach fugue or late Beethoven string quartet, all are feeding upon this
most necessary food of the human spirit, and are drawn to it as naturally as a baby to it’s mothers milk.
Now, here is the whole point.
What I am essentially saying is that music is a basic human need, it is not a luxury. If we do not feed upon this spiritual food, we will pay a
price, we will suffer. If you have put yourself in the position of being one who MAKES this magic called music, if you have decided to become one who speaks this potent, universal, wordless language, than you have just joined a special community.
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What Should We Be Doing When We Play Music?
If you have decided to be the provider of this spiritual food for others, then you have taken on a very special job, a very special function. And you must have the proper relationship to it, as those you are providing it for must also.
A priest, minister, or rabbi, is also one who serves the function of providing, or leading people to, spiritual food. He or she leads the
congregation to commune with a higher, spiritual reality. I assume that such a spiritual figure, when they are conducting services,
are wholly focused on what they are doing. I assume they are not up there thinking “gee, how am I doing? Hope the congregation is
liking this! Likewise, I assume the congregation is focused on the reason they are there, to participate in a mutual “spiritual” experience, which the leader is providing. I assume they are not sitting there waiting for the guy to trip up a couple of words! I assume that
if the leader misses or mumbles a few words here and there it is not going to make the participants lose their entire focus, and miss
the spirit of the experience.
Many performers create terrible strictures for themselves by being so afraid of missing a few notes here and there. They play as if
their primary focus was to not miss a note, instead of playing with feeling and expression. That would be like giving a speech, and
focusing more on your articulation than on the meaning of what you had to say. Of course, it is not like the technical aspects are
not important, but they are of SECONDARY importance. Music began because something needed to be expressed that couldn’t be
expressed in words. Technique is the servant of expression, and should never be the master. Anyway, technical matters will take care
of themselves when we know how to practice correctly.
Being “In Concert”: Your Responsibility
The dictionary defines “concert” as “agreement in action, feeling, or purpose”. It is a union, a meeting of mind, emotion and spirit.
And the meeting takes place in a world of higher vibrations. If I am giving a concert, I am supposed to have MADE that agreement,
to meet YOU there, the audience member, in the sound. That is my commitment, and I am supposed to be living up to it, not be
thinking about myself, and whether I am looking good or not, and whether you like me or not! It’s a concert, not a contest!
And you are supposed to be living up to the agreement also, you are supposed to be “in concert” with me, meeting me in the sound,
and not thinking about something else,
As I said in the beginning of this three-part essay, when a guitar player plays for another person, they are not only sharing the music,
they are sharing their relationship to the guitar as well. If your relationship to the guitar, your relationship to your role as a guitarist
and musician, is a mediocre one, a lukewarm one, you will not have much to share. First of all, it is your responsibility to make your
relationship to music and the guitar (as your chosen instrument) a passionate one, an emotional one, because that is what we are
dealing with here, that is why we bother to be musicians, because it is an inherently EMOTIONAL affair.
Don’t Fight Fear, Ignore Fear
Many people make a big mistake by trying to “fight” their stage fright, or to trick it by performing little mental maneuvers, like
imagining the audience naked or in their underwear. Well, I do believe in doing whatever gets you through the night, but don’t confuse it with getting to the heart of the matter. When Fear, when Stage Fright arises, it is because deep inside yourself, you are devoting a large part of your attention on YOURSELF, and not the music.
In fact, here is something very interesting to ponder. It can be just as detrimental to your performance to be sitting there performing
and be feeling really good about yourself as it is to be feeling bad about yourself. Most of us performers have experienced playing really well, and then sitting there patting ourselves on the back (in our heads), when we should be busy playing. Guess what happens?
Bam, there goes that passage! Either it gets messed up, or just suffers from a lack of feeling or involvement, because we were to busy
thinking about ourselves, this time in a “positive” sense.
There must be no “self ” when you play. There must be only the music.
When we do make that inner error of putting self before music, whether “positive” or “negative”, the thing to do is to become aware
of what you are doing. Take hold of your attention, and place it on the music, and feel your passion for it (which is what you are supposed to be doing, it’s what the people came for).
Fear (which is the result of your inner error) is like an unwelcome visitor who just popped in to see how miserable they can make
your life. He stands there and starts saying nasty things to you to see if he can get your goat. Like any bully, if he sees he starts to get
a reaction from you, he gets more power, he gets bolder. Pretty soon, he’ll have you on your knees. However, if he sees you are ignoring him and playing your guitar instead, he gets all deflated. It’s no fun, he hangs around a little bit, gets bored, and leaves.
The way THROUGH stage fright is to stay centered in that passion, to be with it, to lose the sense of DOING the music, and stay
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with the sense of BEING the music. This is the responsibility of the performer, just as it is the responsibility of the audience member. When this is done, there is no stage fright, because there is no one there to be afraid. When Attention is where it should be, on
the music, instead of on the self, you cannot be “self-conscious”, you can only be “music conscious”. Then, the magic can really take
place.
To Be With, or Not to Be With
As in all relationships in life, it comes down to this: to be with, or not to be with. Love, is to be with. Fear, the opposite of Love, is to
refuse to be with. When it comes to this matter of playing our instrument for others, Stage Fright is what happens when we refuse
to be with. Stage Fright is what happens when we refuse to be with the music, the audience, and ourselvesv
I hope you enjoyed these essential essays for guitar, and that they help you
reach your guitar playing dreams!
On the next page you will find a few more ways I
can help you reach your full potential on guitar!
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“The Power Of 10”
Here are the ways I can help you get
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