A Few Words

About Practice
 A few
In last months column, I wrote about the
perils of repetitive practice, and how it
words
could lead to cementing mistakes, rather
than removing them. I showed how one of
about
the best ways to conquer technical prob-
lems was to isolate and analyze difficulties;
practice
rather than to practice through the difficulty
by playing the irrelevant bars before and af-
ter the problem passage. Now, it may seem
By Simon Wynberg rather obvious to suggest that you concen-
trate on awkward sections rather than easy
ones, but you will need to remind yourself
of this constantly, as it is so tempting (and
satisfying) to play things that are familiar
and comfortable under the fingers.
A Few Words About Practice...
This approach will not only use the
available time more efficiently, but ulti-
mately save hours, if not weeks, of unnec-
essary work in unravelling learned mis-
takeswhich leads directly to this months
column: Practicing. Here are some very
broad tips.
Do not be intimidated by the follow-
ing individuals: the shy, apologetic man
who plays like John Williams and claims
he last held a guitar in May 2003 (the man
is probably a liarcheck left hand fingers
for callouses); the nine-year-old girl in pig-
tails who describes her punishing eight-
hour practice scheduleFirst I get up at
5:30 a.m., when its lovely and quiet, and
mommy and daddy are fast asleep, and do
three hours of arpeggios; and the re-
tired bank manager who started at age 63
and now does a reasonable impersonation
of Andrs Segovia.
Comparing your own playing standard
to that of others should be a positive pro-
cess. Do not be dispirited if your prog-
ress appears to be relatively slow. Build
on your strengths. I know of a number of
young players whose sound is less brittle
and more satisfying than many of their
older professional colleagues. There is no
universal with which you can calculate
the amount of time needed for practicing.
Some people manage with a minimum,
others have to practice like demons for
even meager returns. You will know how
involved you are with the instrument and
how much time you can afford to spend on
it. But the way you spend this time is vital.
If you have an hour, bank on spending
50 minutes sitting with the instrument.
Find a position that will not introduce
distractions. For example, sitting in front
of interesting pictures or windows may
stimulate you and encourage you to wan-
der. Have all the necessary bits and pieces
at handpencils, eraser, tuning fork/tuner,
music, etc., and do not dive straight into
a technical problem. Tune the instrument
and spend a few minutes warming up or
noodling. Decide how you are going to
spend the available time before you start:
say, ten minutes on technical exercises, 20
minutes on old repertoire, and 20 minutes
on a new piece. Put the guitar down after
each section and stretch and walk around.
But do not become a slave to your time-
table. If you are immersed in a technical or
musical problem and are doing good work,
do not feel obliged to stop. Be disciplined
but flexible.
Some teachers recommend that their
students keep a practice diary/journal in
order to keep a personal record of goals,
repertoire, exercise schedules, and general
progress. For the keen guitarist, this can be
an invaluable aid.
Practice carefully and slowly, espe-
cially when you are learning a new piece.
Your fingers have to be trained to move ac-
curately. If they repeat the correct move-
ments from the outset, your finger (i.e.
muscular) memory should not fail you
in the future. However, if you do not pro-
gram your muscular memory correctly,
your fingers will be predisposed to make
inaccurate movements, even though the
A Few Words About Practice...
conscious, decision-making part of your
brain would rather they did not. This does Once a piece has been
not relate solely to complicated or prob- properly memorized,
lematic passages. When movements have
not been thoroughly preprogrammed, it re-learning it months
is easy to slip up in apparently easy sec- or even years later
tions. Beginner guitarists will often make
totally unpredictable errors that have no should be a relatively
relation to the simplicity or difficulty of easy process.
the piece. Therefore, in the earlier stages
of guitar playing, it is vital that the fingers
be rigorously schooled. And the best way
to do this is to practice slowly, making sure
you have decided on a fingering for both
left and right hands. This is not only helpful
in the short or medium term. Once a piece
has been properly memorized, re-learning
it months or even years later should be a
relatively easy process.
Based on the above, one could con-
clude that learning to play an instrument
involves a combination of computer pro-
gramming skills and slow drudgery. Of
course, the most important aim is to play
music, and the word play is important. It
has a number of linked associations. There
is recreational play, childrens play, com-
petitive play, and theatrical play. Playing
the guitar can combine elements of all of
these different kinds of play, and it is im-
portant to keep old pieces in your fingers,
so to speak, so that practice sessions are
both entertaining and productive, retain-
ing the play factor.
Drawing on the imagination helps con-
siderably in both the learning and playing
stages. Linking musical sounds to visual
images, or to a simple narrative, can focus
the musical mind and draw attention away
from the mechanical aspects of guitar play-
ing. It can dramatically help in establishing
a mood, dynamic, or tempo, and in giving
a work a sense of form and balance. Learn-
ing an instrument does not begin when it
is removed from the case. Thinking about
technical and musical problems away from
the guitar and attempting to imagine the
sound of musical pieces or passages will
yield great benefits.
One final tip: Try to avoid listening re-
peatedly to recordings of pieces you are
working on. It is extremely tempting and,
yes, it may help you to become familiar
with the music. But ultimately it stifles
your own learning process and imagina- This article
tion. Once you can play the piece and originally appeared
have worked on it and thought about it, in the August 1990 issue
feel free to investigate recordings. Then of Classical Guitar, as part
you will be listening as an insidermore of Simon Wynbergs column
musically, critically, and knowledgeably. The Guitarists Absolute Beginners Class.