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Guitar Pick Hand Technique

Make This Happen!

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

Automaticness does not come automatically. Allow me to explain.

Have you ever had the experience of freezing in front of an audience, whether it be one or two friends or an auditorium? Maybe it was a piece that you had practiced diligently for hours and thought you had it sorted out, but when the critical moment came your hands just wouldn’t deliver. If you have been playing guitar for any length of time then you have certainly suffered such an embarrassing, frustrating moment. Why does this happen?

Your gut response might be something along the lines of “stage fright”. Is that really the final answer? Let’s consider this scenario … you are thrust on stage in front of ten thousand spectators and asked to simply walk to the other side of the stage. Could you do it? Of course! So what happened to stage fright? Well, if you are not accustomed to withstanding the observation of thousands of people then you may indeed experience a high level of discomfort and even some symptoms of mild illness, such as upset stomach and sweating. However, odds are high that you could get to the other side of the stage without anyone even suspecting that you were the least bit out of sorts.

So you see … when you know how to do a thing so well that you can do it automatically, you will be able to do it well even under duress. Automaticness.

This applies to making music in the same way it applies to walking, and the stages of development are similar. You start by crawling, then by holding onto the couch while you experiment with standing. Next you try a few steps, next thing you know your Mom is yelling at you for running through the house, followed by your Coach yelling at you for not running fast enough or long enough. By that stage the mere act of walking is long since a given.

So how do we develop automaticness in guitar technique? The same way we do with walking. We start with simple chords and pieces of scales and arpeggios and then we progressively work our way up to more complex tasks, with an occasional bloody knee so to speak. For the guitar player this means beginning with simple songs played very slowly and deliberately, and then chords, scales, and arpeggios, all with slow and deliberate repetition of efficient fingerings along with a metronome until they become automatic. That takes more than two weeks or two months. Speed will grow naturally out of good technique perfected at much slower speeds. There is a time and method to develop speed, but it is pointless to do so until achieving a foundational level of automaticness in each of these core skills.

When it comes to music many simply want to go straight to running track without first having held on to the couch to experiment with standing. The results are just as predictable … perpetual bloody knees. I cannot count the times that I have asked a student to SLOW DOWN with a scale exercise and focus on note articulation only to have them continue hacking away at speeds beyond their capability, and thereby  ensuring a reduced rate of progress.  If you are one of my students reading this then you are probably thinking I am talking about you. I may be, but not you specifically … I have hardly seen a guitar player that did not go through this stage, including myself.

This is somewhat analogous to the lifeguard who waits until the drowning swimmer has given up before rendering aid, since it is impossible to help while the panicked swimmer is still flailing about. There is not much I can do for determined scale hackers until they reach a certain point near resignation. Then comes that moment that I eagerly wait for with every student … that moment when I finally observe determined focus on accurate articulation and timing of each note within a scale. This is when I know I am about to observe a breakthrough to the great satisfaction of myself and my client.

So here is the point … slow down, focus on the details, and then bare down on the basics to the point of automaticness. This is going to involve some tedious focused repetition with a metronome, but it will pay handsome dividends over the long haul in the forms of instant chord changes and ripping through scales as easy as breathing. It is well worth the short term effort to gain these long term benefits.

Copyright © 2023 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Pick Hold

Get This Right or Suffer

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

Can I Help You? – Part II

In part I of this two-part series we considered some generalities of how an aspiring musician’s overall attitudes about work and people affect musical accomplishment. In this part we will consider how attitude more specifically affects the technical details of cultivating music skills.

Review from Part I … (hint – I am reviewing this section because it is very important!)

The Singular Importance of Attitude

Probably the single most important thing I have learned in my decades of musical endeavor is that music is not just about technical matters pertaining to managing the fingers or voice effectively. Rather, it is mostly a matter of cultivating the mind, and that means among other things that a person’s overall attitude about life, work, and people is going to have a great deal of impact on his or her accomplishment as a musician. As with any “rule” there will certainly be notable exceptions, but they will be notable because they are exceptions. Mastery of things technical is certainly very important, but the foundation of it all is mental attitude. Can I help you? Well … it depends very much on your attitude. That terminology is often used in a way to imply contempt, as in “He has an attitude!” That’s not the way I am using it here. I don’t say it with any kind of judgmental intent. It is just an objective fact. Let’s clarify by considering some examples of how attitude effects musical results.

Now, on to Part II proper …

Give Me the Giggles! – I haveobserved many instances ofmusic students or prospects who approach learning music purely as entertainment, similar to sports. Professional athletes must of course work hard for many years to achieve a world class level of performance. However, much of the fun of sports for hobbyists is simply running around excitedly on a field or court. A coach can train one in the rudiments of a sport within minutes and the kids can begin to enjoy the fundamental physical activity of the sport immediately, even if they are actually comically terrible at it in the beginning. 

This is not so with music. While making music can and should ultimately be a very satisfying experience, reaching this level of musicianship is a process more along the lines of learning math, science, or language. No one expects to start a science class and be a functioning research scientist before completing the first class. For whatever reason, many people who have an interest in music lessons, and this is the worst with guitar in particular, seem to have some idea that it is something along the lines of an alternative to sports or watching TV, something that is purely a form of entertainment. I suppose this has something to do with so much of the advertising for guitar training that appeals to the quick fix – click here, or come take my lessons, and you will be playing your favorite songs immediately!

Let me be clear here that I am not suggesting it isn’t possible to learn to play some great music without submitting to twelve years of education. That would be one extreme. I am addressing the other extreme, where the prospect or client feels that the whole process should be an experience similar to sports – giggles out of the gate, with the real work required only for the elite. Well, it isn’t. For a typical hobbyist level musician with a good work ethic and a good teacher, pursuing fluency in popular music styles, it is going to be a multi-year process to get to a point of functioning predictably and comfortably in a group playing setting such as a band or open jam session. Up until that point, it is going to be like school. Go to class. Do homework. Repeat. When you get through first grade, then you go to second grade. There is no way to jump from day one to diploma, or third grade to eighth grade. It is a process consisting of many small steps, and if anyone is telling you otherwise, be sure to keep an eye on your wallet until you get clear of them!

If you are looking for giggles out of the gate, I can’t help you. If, on the other hand, you are willing to approach learning music as an educational endeavor with great rewards on the far end of some work, then I can help you a great deal!

I Can’t! – Yes you can, if you are willing to persist in an informed approach to working at it. There is no “I can’t”. There is only, “I haven’t yet”. Students of guitar all experience the same struggles with finger control, comprehension, and confusing those two issues. For instance, chord changing exercises can be quite frustrating in the beginning, and many feel that they will never be able to accurately and rapidly place fingers in the correct location fast enough to keep up with the rhythm. This is simply an illusion, arising from unrealistic expectations. Fluent chord changing requires a well-developed muscle memory for each chord, and that means lots of repetition over time. It is a process, and the desired results are inevitable.

Similarly, when I introduce students to the concept of resolving solo phrases to target scale notes, it is universal for students to struggle with tracking the chord changes while also trying to remember finger placements. With the introduction of each new level of complexity as we move through alternate resolving notes and various positions along the fretboard, it is a recurring struggle to get one’s mind and hands around the ability to accurately place the right note at the right time. This does not mean anything is wrong or that you have no talent. It is just something that you have to work at until you have cultivated the totality of it into your thinking, and then it will work.

Let me share with you an example of a common experience I observe in teaching. I was once teaching a teenage a girl who was struggling with her chord changes. She came in for her lesson one week and went through the exercises. She kept fumbling the chords, but I knew she had been working with them long enough to get them right. So we kept going over them with me leading her through a series of steps to get her reservations out of the way and let her muscle memory take over. Toward the end of the class she started playing through the exercises smoothly, to her great amazement and delight. However, what I remember most is the look of surprised understanding on her face when I pointed out to her that she was already able to perform those exercises well when she walked in the door that day. The only thing that was preventing her from peak performance was that her mind was closed to the possibility that she could do them well, and so she had been unconsciously choosing to perform habitually sub-par chord changes in fulfillment of her expectations.   

See how important attitude is? You can literally prevent yourself from doing something that you are in fact presently capable of doing, by convincing yourself that are not able to do it! This is what performance coaches mean when they speak of believing in yourself.  It does not mean some kind of voodoo such that you can wishful think yourself into doing something that you can’t actually do. Rather, it means you choose to be confident in your potential to do a thing, and you cling to that belief tenaciously through the struggles of the building process until the work finally delivers the desired results. It is not magic. You still have to do the work. But you can do the work and still suffer less than desired results due to a self-defeating, “I Can’t!” attitude.

Besides talking yourself out of doing something that you can actually do, an “I can’t!” attitude will also give you an easy escape when faced with some work. It is an unfortunate fact that all of us human beings are inherently lazy, and we will jump on any excuse to avoid work. If you can convince yourself that you can’t, well then there is no point doing all that work, is there? I can’t, so I won’t try, and then I won’t be able, and that will prove that I couldn’t, and then I can watch TV and eat marshmallows instead. See how this works?

Are you inclined toward believing that lying internal voice that whispers, “I can’t!”? Well, if you do give in to that suggestion, then you will choose to make it so, and then I can’t help you. If you will instead choose to believe, “I can!” regardless of the struggles of the moment, then I can help you a great deal!

When Does it End! – I get all manner of people with all kinds of ideas about music coming to me for lessons. I conduct pre-enrollment consultations with all prospects for a number of reasons, one of which is to identify what they may be thinking in regards to how long it takes to learn music. The answer will vary a great deal depending on goals, but some folks have really unrealistic ideas such as a few weeks or a few months. I never let these folks enroll thinking it is going to be a few weeks or months. Some of them do not enroll, either because they think I don’t know what I am talking about, or else they are just not willing to commit a realistic amount of time to it.

Then I have prospects who enroll and get started. Some of them come in with a great attitude driven by a passion for music, and they stay enrolled for multiple years and become potent musicians. Others stay for a few weeks or months until they realize I wasn’t exaggerating about the commitment required, then they give up and quit. Unfortunately those folks are a lost cause before they even start, not because of their inherent potential but rather because of their attitude.

Then there is the mid-range group. They get off to a good start and make rapid progress, but then get bogged down somewhere between six months and a year. They may continue with lessons, but they get stuck at a certain level, often with learning improvisational soloing. This is where the weight of a self-defeating attitude begins to take its toll. They fall into a habitual routine of practicing the same mistakes over and over rather than truly applying intense focus to solving problems, and then they get stuck. It feels to them as if they have reached a limit they can’t pass, then they either resign themselves to current limits, or else give in to frustration and quit.

This is where attitude becomes the critical factor in success. When you reach that point where you feel you are stuck, you can do one of three things. Quit, keep doing what got you stuck, or do something different that delivers better results. I can tell you from much experience that the thing you need to do different is to focus more closely on the details of the specific problem you are having, rather than simply practicing the same mistake over and over and hoping it will resolve itself. I can also tell you from experience that many folks won’t do the extra work most of the time. They will instead either go on repeating the mistake or else give up.

When does it end? When you choose to focus intently on correcting the details, conquering the problem instead of letting it conquer you. If you choose to give up, or try to side-step the work necessary to succeed, then I can’t help you. If you love music enough to commit up front to working at it until you can do it well, then I can help you a great deal!

The Grass is Greener Over There! – Question: “When do I get to stop practicing all the time and just enjoy playing?” Answer: “The instant that you stop thinking in terms that ‘real music’ is limited to stuff that you can’t already do.” Music has been around since the dawn of time. You are not ever going to run out of “stuff that you can’t already do”. If you learned every song that has been played in the history of Western civilization, then you would have just got started with the possibilities. There is always going to be some new hill to climb. You will never get past needing to practice, if for no other reason than to maintain your technique. However, this does not mean that you are not in fact a capable musician. The first time a student plays through my first exercise, they are in fact making real music. Consider that if you know your open position major and minor chords, power chords, and command basic rhythm skills, then you can play literally thousands of popular songs. Maybe tens of thousands. But for some folks, they tend to set the bar of “real music” or “good music” so arbitrarily high that they can’t ever just relax and enjoy what they can already do, even if it is songs that are literally million-sellers.

Here’s the hidden source of this attitude problem: vanity. A lot of aspiring musicians, especially guitarists, are more interested in acclaim than self-expression. I have had prospects at pre-enrollment interviews outright tell me that what they most want from lessons is to impress others with their guitar playing. I don’t enroll these folks if they can’t also express some other more substantial goal, because I know that if this is their sole motivation then they are wasting their time.

There is certainly nothing wrong with wanting to move others with music. But there is wanting to reach people through music, and then there is wanting applause for musical accomplishment – two different things. The former is the core of what the phenomenon of music is, the latter is empty egomania. Folks in the former camp will be quite happy to see folks enjoying their simple 12 Bar progressions and Blues phrasing as much as they will enjoy ripping out some Dream Theatre symphonic rock. Those in the latter camp will always experience music as something along the lines of eating burned oatmeal, because they will always be consumed with the feeling that others are not impressed with their technical prowess.

Let’s not go to either extreme. As with all good art, you must achieve pleasing quality, proportion, and symmetry for beautiful results. Of course you need to be in time and on pitch if you wish to make music that is “good” by any reasonably objective criteria, and that means there is some work to be done. The farther you want to go, the more work you have to do. At the same time, if you can’t enjoy the plateaus on the way to the peak, you will probably not be able to keep up enough steam to make it to whatever the peak is for you.

Consider an artist like B.B. King. He did not play technically complicated music, but what he is really great at is expressing himself with his library of simple Blues licks. If you watch him play you can see it on his face quite plainly. People do not go to see B.B. King perform because they want to hear someone rip scales at supersonic speeds. They enjoy B.B. King because they connect with the feeling he is able to convey through his simple music. That is what music is all about, and he is a master at it. Artists like Yngwie Malmsteen need much more technically complex music to fully express themselves, and that is also perfectly valid. What is not valid is to suggest that one is “better” than the other. Those kinds of arguments are a waste of time.

Many widely acclaimed musicians moved millions of people with relatively simple music. Johnny Cash. Kurt Cobain. Bob Dylan. Eric Clapton. Tom Petty. I could go on and on listing names. The point is, as a student of guitar you are not doing yourself any favors by refusing to allow yourself enjoyment of the music that is currently accessible to you. Of course keep striving for that next level, but at the same time give yourself a break and allow yourself to enjoy what you can already do!

Let me clarify that I am not meaning to express contempt for those who are suffering inability to enjoy their music due to vanity. We all suffer from it a bit, myself included. It is a major barrier for many aspiring musicians, and one of my goals as a teacher is to talk people off it because it hinders their realization of musical goals. Indeed, there is a certain level of musicianship we need to achieve before we can do anything more than annoy others with our guitars. Once you reach the level that you can change chords quickly and hold a rhythm through twelve or sixteen bars, get busy making music and enjoying it while you continue climbing toward the next plateau!

Do you find that when you play music you are more involved with what others are thinking of your performance than you are the music itself? If so, and if I can’t persuade you off that approach, then I’m sorry to say that you will never enjoy music enough to persevere, and so I can’t help you. If you will instead recognize that music does not have to be “impressive” to be good, then I can help you a great deal with both simple and sophisticated music!

Show me the Low Road! – We speak of“taking the high road”as a colloquialism for doing the right thing or doing the better thing. The idea is based on the understanding that taking the high road will be harder, but there will be a reward for it at the end of the road, so it will be worth the trouble. This is certainly true in music training. Choosing the low road might be easier in the present moment, but in the long run it is going to lead to frustration, and drag the process out longer than it has to be.

So what does it mean to choose the high road in music training? I will give you an example that illustrates the concept. Every student of guitar reaches a point of wanting to play scales much faster. There is a process for this with predictable, guaranteed results. The process starts with slowing the scales down to very, very slow speeds and working with painstaking attention to detail on perfecting technique. It is very tedious and requires a great deal of sustained mental focus on multiple aspects of technique. Very few actually submit to this part of the process and see it through, but rather try to push through it as quickly as possible. This renders the exercise useless or far less effective than it could be.

I have seen this over and over. A student tells me they want to play faster. I lay out the exercise. I follow up later only to find that they haven’t done it. What would you think if you put a hundred dollar bill on the table and told someone they could have it if they would just pick it up, and they told you they really wanted it bad, but would not reach out and pick it up? This is what students of guitar do with developing speed. They tell me they want to play faster. I tell them in great detail exactly what to do. Then they don’t do it.

Does this mean they don’t really want to play faster? No. What it means is that during the exercises, they repeatedly allow themselves to fall apart over maintaining sustained mental focus. They take the low road.

This sort of thing comes up in numerous ways, anytime there is a decision to be made over doing the harder thing or the easier thing. Another good example … experimenting with new phrasing paths rather than just rehearsing paths you already know. Are you guilty of this? Playing phrases in straight time rather than making a pointed effort to mix up the timing across a phrase. Guilty? I bet you are. I am, although more so in times past than recently.  

There are a hundred ways in any practice session that you can take the low road. I won’t take time to present an exhaustive list here, but generally you probably know if you are doing this. It is very simple to see if you pay attention to it. Are you avoiding the harder thing and doing the easier one instead? If so then you are taking the low road. Though it might make your practice seem less burdensome, it is slowing down your overall progress rate by multiples.

I can help you learn to play guitar even if you insist on taking the low road, but what I can’t do for you is help you achieve the maximum results you are capable of in the shortest possible time. If you want that, then you will have to take the high road, and in that case I can help you a great deal!

Conclusion – I could go on and on with this matter of how attitude translates into results, but as you can see it is already quite a bit longer than my usual articles. Hopefully I have got the point across enough to help you identify ways in which you might be harboring some kind of attitude that is hindering your progress.

Please bear in mind it is not my intent with this article to beat anyone up. It is difficult to speak on the subject of attitude without stepping on some toes, but it is such a critical component of success with music that I feel an ethical obligation to address it, even it makes some folks mad or costs me some clients. If you are one of my active or former clients and feel like I wrote this thinking of you, I assure you I didn’t write any of this article, or part 1, with any one person in mind, except the one illustration with the teenage girl struggling with chord changes. This is all about generalities from my overall experience as a developing musician, and observations as a performer and teacher. If you do feel that any or all of this applies to you personally, well … then it probably does. Don’t give in to “an attitude” about it. Instead, take the high road and use it to identity and eliminate any such hindrances, so you can get on with that which works!

Copyright © 2023 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Lessons Greenville SC

Avoid This Most Costly of Mistakes

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by PMI Guitar Instructor Chad Crawford

Can I Help You?

Having played and taught guitar for many years now I have accumulated a great deal of insight into what works and what doesn’t, both in regards to teaching methods and the approaches students take to learning music. When I started out with teaching I had a number of concerns as to how effective I would be at communicating, what materials I would use, how to organize and present them, if my gruff personality was suitable for teaching, and so forth. I was mostly concerned with things about me. What I have found with experience is that the number one obstacle I face as a teacher is not about me at all. It is, rather, something that is unfortunately beyond my control. It is something in my prospects and clients, which I should have known from general life experience would be the case, as it always is with everything in human affairs: attitude.

The Singular Importance of Attitude

Probably the single most important thing I have learned in my decades of musical endeavor is that music is not just about technical matters pertaining to managing the fingers or voice effectively. Rather, it is mostly a matter of cultivating the mind, and that means among other things that a person’s overall attitude about life, work, and people is going to have a great deal of impact on his or her accomplishment as a musician. As with any “rule” there will certainly be notable exceptions, but they will be notable because they are exceptions. Mastery of things technical is certainly very important, but the foundation of it all is mental attitude. Can I help you? Well … it depends very much on your attitude. That terminology is often used in a way to imply contempt, as in “He has an attitude!” That’s not the way I am using it here. I don’t say it here with any kind of judgmental intent. It is just an objective fact. To illustrate, let’s look a bit at some examples of how attitude effects musical results.

Why Me? – In my initial consultations with prospects I always inquire as to their expectations regarding time frames, because I know there are many people who for whatever reason think that they should be able to play guitar like a professional after a few months of lessons. That was something that caught me off guard when I started teaching.  I started playing very young and have been around musicians all my life, and it being thought to be quick and easy was never a part of the picture for me or any other musician I knew.

Early on in teaching I observed that a lot of people had very little patience for the process. Some would even blame my teaching if they could not play like a pro in a matter of weeks, and then quit. Others would blame themselves for “lack of talent” and quit. In both cases they were suffering from the “Why Me” syndrome, an idea that the challenges they were facing were unique to them, and either insurmountable, or else some else’s fault – such as their teacher.  They were completely off base in both cases, because their expectations had no basis in reality. I couldn’t help them because they were evaluating their playing skills according to unrealistic criteria.

Learning guitar is challenging, and it takes time. The loftier the goal, the harder it is, and the longer it takes. That’s the way it is, despite common claims from some web marketers. There are shorter and longer paths, and a great teacher can cut years off the timeline, but it is still going to take substantial time, effort, and commitment. Beginners should be thinking in terms of years rather than weeks. There will be times of mind-numbing repetition accompanied by apparent stagnation, followed by a shift in fluency, or occasionally a major breakthrough when a number of hard-won gains come together at once. That’s normal. You can’t take the struggles personally, as if it is something unique to you. If you do give in to taking it personally, the bad news is that I can’t help you.

The good news is that if you’re willing to discipline yourself toward working your way through an ongoing process, and choose to stay focused on your goals rather than the barriers of the moment, then I can help you a great deal!

Why Not Me? – Despite my never ending studies of books, lesson videos, and previous private lessons with a number of teachers, I am ultimately responsible for my progress and competence as a musician. Some of my sources were fantastic, but I still had to do the work. Some of my sources were not so fantastic, but it was still my responsibility to improve my skills, even if that meant eventually moving on to another resource or teacher.

As do all good music teachers, I teach music principles and not just song transcriptions. I can’t show students every note to play for the rest of their lives. I teach them how to develop finger control and how to figure music out for themselves. I provide a number of resources outside of my private lessons, such as articles like this one, backing tracks, and a private bulletin board with additional third-party articles covering everything from theory to playing tips to gear. I provide group classes to allow my clients an opportunity for applying what they learn in private lessons to making real music in real time.

What I observe is that very few actually take full advantage of these things. Some do the minimum they can to fulfill the practice schedule I provide (or even less). Some do a little more than that. A few go after every learning outlet I point them to, and it is evident in the results. Those who utilize all the tools I provide, plus doing their own research and study in addition to my lessons, which I fully encourage, those are the students who achieve the fastest and most significant results.

I’m willing to help clients who fit any of the above descriptions, because people have jobs, school, and family obligations competing with their time for music. I well understand all that because I share in the same struggles. If you are truly doing all you can do, then that’s all you can do and I do not intend to beat you over the head about it. If that’s you then I encourage you to stick with it and be patient.

I know that many students of music, not only mine but in general, could do more and they simply choose not to. Some former students have blamed their frustration with slow progress or stagnation on me or my lessons. Sometimes they have let me know this in one way or another, either through direct challenges to my lesson materials or methods, or else in more subtle ways. I do what I can to steer them out of this kind of self-defeating thinking, but I can’t force anyone to learn guitar.  I am responsible for providing an effective course of instruction, encouragement, and accountability, but I cannot be responsible for results. Responsibility for results lies with the student.

I can’t help those who blame others or circumstances for their results rather than buckling down and doing the work. Whether you take lessons with me or attend Berklee for eight years, your progress and competence as a musician is ultimately up to you. If you allow yourself to side-step that responsibility, I can’t help you.  

If you will commit to learning guitar up front and then persevere through the process, following the instructions and taking every avenue and opportunity presented to you toward improvement, and taking full responsibility for your results, then I can help you a great deal!

It’s My Hands! – No it isn’t, unless you have health problems that constrain them. Your hands are incredibly capable, stunningly engineered grappling machines. Beyond your instinctive programming for certain basic movements, your fingers do exactly what you tell them to do. Technique then is the result of a process of training your mind. You may object that you know what you are trying to do but you can’t get your hands to do it. I assure you that though it may feel that way, it is not the case. When you play guitar your hands are doing exactly what the messages from your brain are telling them to do. They are not capable of doing anything else. If your messages are flawed your results will be flawed. You have to repair and refine the messages, and the way you do it is through programming correct messages into your brain’s muscle memory. This means repetition of the right movements. In contrast to a computer, programming the brain takes a lot of repetitions. A lot.

However, it also means this: the subtleties of good technique are in timing and dynamics. This comes more from general musical sensibilities rather than muscle memory. Musical sensibility is a product of a well-developed ear for pitch and time combined with an overall sensitivity to flows of tension and release. Musical fluency comes from knowing what will sound good before involving your fingers. This comes from studying the music that others have made, and from experience with applying a high level of sustained mental focus to practice and playing situations. That’s why it is important to analyze great music rather than just practicing rhythm and phrasing. Physical control is essential, but the target is what you have programmed into your musical sensibilities from analyzing the masters. If you have no clear target then you will not shoot straight. So you must understand that the battleground for progress as a musician is in your mind, not your hands!  If you are committed to thinking your musical limitations are in your fingers, I’m sorry to say I can’t help you.

If you will embrace music as a whole body-mind phenomenon rather than just finger gymnastics, then I can help you a great deal!

It’s My Genes! – I started my musical journey playing bluegrass rhythm guitar with a family ensemble. I enjoyed bluegrass music and still do, but the first time I heard Eddie Van Halen’s monster guitar solo ‘Eruption’, I was bound for new pastures. I also quickly realized I had no idea how to extract any sounds like that from the guitar. At the time there was no Internet, so I didn’t have convenient access to virtually unlimited resources to explain how he was doing this stuff. I didn’t even know what “tapping” was. I quickly concluded that he was some kind of musical freak show and that his sort of playing was not accessible to me.

How I wish I would have had someone to explain things to me then! First of all it would have been helpful to know that Eddie Van Halen came from a family of musicians where he was vigorously encouraged, and even compelled against his will, to learn music from an early age. He was forced into piano lessons very young, then experimented with drums a bit before picking up guitar. It would also have been helpful to me to know that his signature tapping technique was stolen. Yes. Stolen! Like all guitarists, he did not just make up a new style of guitar playing that no one had ever heard of. He picked up the tapping technique from observing many guitarists who went before him, then developed it and put his own twist on it. It would also have been helpful to me to know that he developed his chops in a small-scale cover band before anybody knew he was a big deal, and also that he learned much from transcribing Eric Clapton songs by ear. The fact that he could do that in his teens had a lot to do with the early piano and drum experience.

If I had known all that then I would have also known that it had little to do with “natural talent”, but rather had a lot to do with POW – “plain ol’ work”. Then I would not have been inclined to give up so readily when I ran into difficulties learning my favorite songs, letting myself off the hook with the excuse, “I just don’t have that level of talent”. If I had just known that Eddie Van Halen also had to work at it for a long time, just that one little bit of information would have totally changed my approach to learning guitar and I would have become a much better musician much earlier in life.

Do you think that musical skill is reserved for the gifted few? If you do, and if I can’t talk you off of that motivation-killer, then you will not persist through the challenging times when your hands and memory seem to be defying your best efforts, and so, as much as I want to … I can’t help you.

If you will accept the fact that music skills are the result of persistent effort, and you will commit up front to doing the work until you get the results you seek, then I can help you a great deal!

Show me the Magic! – I see a lot of Internet advertising for guitar training featuring the appeal to the quick fix. There are two basic types: (1) “Click for the secret of instant guitar Ninja!”, and (2) “Play great guitar with just a few notes!” The first type is snake oil rubbish. The second type is technically true. There is a catch. You can indeed mine a lot of good phrases out of just a handful of notes, and will do well to learn how, especially for hobbyists with limited time for scale practice. If you do not also command finesse in pick attack, dynamics, bending, vibrato, tone, and rhythmic sensibility then the few-note phrases will sound like a hack slaughtering half of a scale.

The reason people publish these kinds of advertisements is because they work. It is standard marketing practice because it is more effective than laying out the cold facts about work and perseverance, hooking the attention of well-intended but uninformed, frustrated guitarists. Nor do I wish to come across as trashing all Internet marketers. Sometimes a perfectly legitimate service provider will utilize these kind of marketing gimmicks, not intending to defraud but rather hoping to grab the attention with the neon light of the quick fix offer. Then they divert toward a more substantial product. Between the snake oil and the legitimate providers forced to compete with snake oil for attention, I have prospects coming to me with expectations, sown by these prolific ads, that I will show them the “tricks” for rapid fluency.

I meet with all prospective clients for an initial consultation. One thing I am looking to communicate is that I do not deal in the music marketing crack cocaine of the quick fix offer. If they do decide to enroll they know that they are in for a long term process. I continue in the lessons to reinforce the idea that learning music is a long term endeavor. Despite all this pointed effort to clearly set myself apart from snake oil vendors, I still occasionally run up against the call for the quick fix even among my enrolled clients.

A passionate teacher with an organized program of effective learning materials and methods, combined with routine adherence to an effective practice schedule, is the shortest path to musical fluency. There is no magic. There are no tricks. There is no one isolated piece of knowledge or technique insight that is going to suddenly make a radical change to one’s musical ability. It is a process of cultivating mastery of bits and pieces over time. I don’t want clients who are looking for snake oil. It is not because I am mean, it is just that I already know it is going to be a bad experience for both of us. I can’t help those who are looking for magic.

If you’re willing to discipline yourself to working through a proven process which will deliver real results much faster than going it on your own, then I can help you a great deal!

My Way or the Highway!  – Having been around the music scene for many years now, I have observed much in terms of how human relations affects the process of learning and performing music. I have seen guitar players play way too loud, way too long, or just plain badly because they have not done their homework. I have seen drummers play so loud that it caused literal pain in other band members. I have seen bass players go off on a disruptive, meandering excursion into jazz fusion when all that was called for was a simple walking pentatonic. I have seen people who thought they were above rehearsal. I’ve seen folks rationalize mediocrity by citing the legitimate dangers of “perfectionism”, but by which they actually meant “me having to do anything that resembles work”. I have seen people who would make a commitment to be somewhere at a certain time, having no intention of fulfilling that commitment, and didn’t care about the impact this had on other band members. I have seen bands revel in silly pride over playing way too loud for the venue. I have seen sound techs who would not trouble themselves to really learn sound management, and so make an otherwise solid band sound like hacks due to a poor mix.

I have seen music teachers who had no real interest in teaching, nor interest in their clients beyond a check, nor anything close to an organized teaching system. I have seen music students who were chronically inattentive, and some who felt no obligation to treat their teacher as a person rather than just an information source. I have seen some who were combative about tuition, and some who didn’t have enough class to notify that they were going to miss a lesson. (As a matter of policy I do not allow these things to go unchecked in my school. If they persist then I decline further lessons.)

All of these troublesome things are symptoms of one underlying problem that is often the root of social tension: failure to practice respect for others.

It is important to recognize that both music training and performing are team endeavors. If you are playing with a band then the team is everyone in the band plus the management. You may not have thought about the team as it applies to other common aspects of musical endeavors. If you are playing with a band in a commercial music venue then the team is not just your band but also the sound tech and staff of the venue. If you are playing solo acoustic/vocal in a coffee shop then the team is you and the coffee shop’s staff. If you are working with a teacher then the team is you and the teacher, or the group and the teacher if you are learning in a group setting. As with all successful team endeavors it requires that everyone submit to a bit of restraint for the team’s success. This is called a win-win deal. It is very important to your success with and enjoyment of music that you strive to cultivate win-win deals with others who are likewise inclined.

There is a simple rule of thumb that will help anyone to cultivate win-win deals: don’t be a jerk, and don’t stick yourself in the mud trying to coax a win-win deal from a jerk.

Here are some of the ways I avoid being a jerk and instead demonstrate respect for my prospects:

I don’t try to entice folks into my programs when I know they want to play in styles that I am not fluent in, and interested in sufficiently, to stay passionate about their ongoing training. I do not proffer marketing claims that I cannot back up with substance, nor otherwise mislead as to what folks can expect from me. I do not allow clients to enroll in my programs without making an effort to communicate to them clearly up front what they are getting into in terms of the commitment required, and how long it will take to reach their goals.

Here are some of the ways I avoid being a jerk and instead demonstrate respect for my clients:

I do not wing it. I utilize an organized course based on personal experience, music teacher training, and countless hours of ongoing study as to what is relevant and effective. I set meaningful goals for the students and carefully track progress. I don’t waste time with gimmicks, filler, or otherwise try to drag the training out needlessly toward retaining revenue for which I am not providing real value. I do not stick clients into a creepy closet with me where they can barely move, nor drag little kids off to a concealed room where their parents can’t see what is going on. I don’t show up to lessons looking like a “rocker” stereotype who just crawled out of the dumpster behind the studio after a week of binge drinking. I avoid phone interaction as much as possible during lessons, and on the rare occasions when it is unavoidable I make it very brief. I don’t take up instruction time indulging my own playing beyond what is necessary for illustration purposes. I don’t allow clients to steer the lessons in directions that I know lead to a dead end, but rather try to balance their immediate interests with my larger view of what they need to reach their goals. I continually research and accordingly update my materials and methods, never letting up on improving my effectiveness.

I could continue, but for brevity’s sake I will stop there and hope I have illustrated that I take my obligations to my customers seriously. I want to enjoy the lessons and I need to make a living, but I put my clients’ results and enjoyment equal to my own interests. I also insist on respect from my clients in return, not only for fairness’ sake but because students get better results from a teacher they respect.

What does all this have to do with the practical realities of making music? It has everything to do with it. If you want to do something with music besides practice in your bedroom all the time then it is good policy to treat others with respect, and accept nothing less in return. If you are working with a teacher or plan to work with a teacher, consider first that the teacher demonstrates respect for clients in ways such as I have mentioned above. Demonstrating respect for your teacher will go a long way in your getting the best effort from your teacher, and consequently the best results for yourself.

I think it was Zig Ziglar who said, “Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude!” I’ve seen it often, and I’ve heard it from other teachers and coaches. In most cases a student with average or even below average talent, working with an average teacher, but with a good overall attitude, will in the long run surpass a more inherently capable student who is working with an outstanding teacher, but harboring some variation of self-defeating attitude. Can I help you? Maybe … depends on your attitude. Attitude is the foundation of success, and it is a choice.

In part two of this series next month we will take a closer look at how attitude affects the more technical aspects of developing musical skills.

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved

Guitar Lessons Greenville

Are You Doing This?

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by Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

Learning to play an instrument well is a long term endeavor. There is no short cut to overnight success, but there are longer and shorter paths. For intermediate level guitarists one of the most common areas of weakness is the tendency to want to throw everything, and at super-sonic speeds, at every solo. While there may be some level of personal gratification in noodling around with flying fingers, and this is indeed a useful tool in the process of developing an overall skill set, bear in mind that speed apart from other elements of musical fluency typically does not lead to smooth, flowing phrases but rather sounds like what it really is … scale practice.

When you get to that point in your playing when you have moderate speed but your phrasing feels unsatisfying, that is a good clue that you need to look more closely at the details of your phrasing. There is more to good phrasing than simply placing your finger on a note in a scale and getting it plucked at the right moment. Consider these elements of good phrasing …

1. Appropriate speed – many aspiring guitarists tend to play phrasing at speeds that are beyond their capabilities. Remember, you are going to play what you practice. Sloppy practice = sloppy playing. Sometimes it is needful to focus specifically on speed during practice, and at those times it is useful to attempt speeds beyond your current skills. At all other times, practice within a tempo that allows for accuracy and clarity. Practice slowly and with good note articulation, two-hand coordination, and mental focus. Speed up only as increased mastery permits you to play accurately and intelligently at higher speeds.

2. Note development – when you first learn scales the challenge is just to get through them, playing the right notes in the right order. Once you can do this predictably then the next logical step is to work on increasing your speed. However, this is where things can begin to fall apart. Before moving on to increasing speed, consider examine these elements:

a. Legato – not to be confused with the term as used in the limited sense of describing the physical technique guitarists use to create a legato feel – hammers and pull-offs. Here we are talking instead about the musical ideal of smooth flow between notes. Be sure to connect each scale note smoothly, holding each note until it is time to pluck the next note, then carefully timing the placement of the fret hand finger with the pick attack on the new note, such that there is no unintended dead time between the notes.

b. Dynamics – this refers to changes in volume in the most basic sense, but with guitar we alter volume from note to note with changes in the strength of the pick attack, and this in turn makes subtle changes to the overall quality of sound coming from the guitar/amp. Generally, for cleaner tones we need a more aggressive pick attack, and for distortion tones the distortion does a lot of the work so that we do not need to be as aggressive with the pick. Given those generalities, play to the song. We will not need to be as aggressive with Jazz as we would with Rock. Also, create a flow of dynamics within a phrase, such as picking easier at the beginning of the phrase with increasing aggressiveness toward the peak tension just before the resolution. Experiment with dynamics and see for yourself how it assists the sense of tension and release within a phrase.

c. Duration – when first learning scales we practice them with a metronome until it becomes habitual to play in straight time – every note gets the same allotment of time. This habit then spills over into playing, so that your phrases are all rhythmically identical. Make it a point when practicing phrasing to vary the timing within phrases between half, quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and triplet timings, using bends and vibrato to embellish the longer notes.

3. Space – resist the temptation to fill every perception of space with extra notes. There will be points in the song where it makes sense to linger on a resolving note, such as at prominent chord changes. Good phrasing follows the pattern of speaking – a burst of words followed by the emphasis created with space. Then another burst, then another space. Experiment with imagining vocal phrases that would fit well over a track, then try to match the vocal phrase with your guitar. It does not have to be a perfect match. The idea is to develop a capacity to create a flow of vocal-like phrases that match the flow of tension and release in the song you are playing over.

4. Vibrato – holding a note at the end of a phrase will indeed make your phrase sound like it has died unless you apply a robust vibrato. Vibrato is a powerful tool for maximizing the impact of resolving notes at the end of your phrases. Work on developing and refining your vibrato. Then you will enjoy the sound and feel of your resolving notes and this will alleviate the pressure to rush off prematurely to the next phrase.

5. Motive (or motif) variation – this is a very effective way to cultivate a habit of getting the most musical value from few notes. Select an appropriate resolving note, such as the root note of the key. Then make up a phrase of four or five notes from the appropriate scale revolving around this resolving note. This reference phrase is your motive (theme). Then experiment with variations on note choice, note sequence, timing, and embellishments. These types of experiments will enable you to see the many possibilities for squeezing the most musical value out of few notes, rather than always running in a panic all over the fret board and hoping a good phrase will come out.

Some of the most widely acclaimed guitar solos are also technically simple. Listen to B.B. King, Freddie King, Albert King, and similar Blues masters for abundant examples of phrasing that is technically simple, yet loaded with powerful emotional expression. While developing solo phrasing do not strive for maximum speed at first. Instead, strive for maximum impact of every note. Practice technically simple phrases with good timing relative to the song rhythm, deliberate note development, appropriate planned spaces, and a carefully controlled vibrato. Experiment with motive variation in order to cultivate a habit of achieving maximum impact from few notes. When you can do these things without being distracted by them then you will be ready to move on to more complex and faster phrasings. Until then … keep it simple!

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Greenville Guitar Lessons

Deciphering Your Favorite Songs

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

As guitar players we usually have two general goals: (1) self-expression and (2) learning our favorite songs. While there is some overlap between the skill sets for these two goals, learning others’ songs is often the easier of the two, and it can help us keep our motivation strong while we are working on the loftier goal of self-expression. In this article we will break down the process of learning songs.

First, do not go straight to a free TAB site. Instead, try the procedure below FIRST. We will come back to transcriptions in a moment.

Step 1. Listen to the song! This statement may seem frivolous since you have probably already listened to your favorite songs many times. However, listening to learn is different than listening for enjoyment. When you are listening to learn, you must focus your attention fully on the song and all the parts of the song. For instance, listen for the chord changes and for how long each chord lasts. Listen for differences in chord arrangement between verse, chorus, and bridge. Listen to the vocal structure. Vocal structure is often more obvious and easier to remember than chord changes, and so the vocal cues will help you remember when the chord changes are coming. Listen carefully for prominent guitar fills, and of course pay attention to where the solo (if any) falls within the song structure, i.e. verse, chorus, verse, chorus, solo.

This is not the kind of listening you typically do where the music is in the background while your mind is wandering elsewhere. You must focus your full attention on the song and keep it there throughout the song, making mental note of important events such as chord changes and fills. I recommend to use headphones and close your eyes while listening to the song at least a few times, but the more times the better.

Step 2. Try to figure out the key of the song. You can do this by continually picking the sixth string as you move your fretting finger up the fretboard until you hear that your note matches the fundamental reference pitch of the song, which is usually the first chord of the song. Listen not only to the guitar(s) but also the bass in helping you determine the key.

Step 3. Determine whether the mood of the song is major or minor. This does not have to involve any kind of complicated music theory analysis. Just listen for the overall feel of the song. Does it sound bright, happy, and upbeat? Then it is probably major. Does it sound more melancholy, serious, and dark? Then it is probably minor. Much country music is in a major key, while much rock music is in a minor key. While there are other possibilities than strictly major or minor (such as the Dominant progressions of Blues which fall between major and minor), a large percentage of popular music falls into one of these two moods. Listening for the mood of the song will help you narrow down the possibilities for chords and scales.

Step 4. Sort out the chord changes. For most popular music, once you know whether the song is major or minor then there are only a handful of likely basic chords. Once you figure out the basic chord possibilities, then it is not very much more work to determine what alterations if any the artist has made to the basic chords. It is helpful to consider that most popular songs will contain the 1st, 4th, and 5th interval chords from the key, and the 6th is also a popular chord. Keep these chord progressions in mind since you will probably find that your favorite song is going to contain something along the lines of these common progressions: I-IV-V-I, I-IV-I-V, I-V-vi-IV. If it is a rock song with heavy distortion the chords will often be 5th chords (power chords), whereas if it is a cleaner guitar tone then the chords will often be more along the lines of the typical major or minor open or bar chords that you know.

Listen carefully to the song. It is going to start on some chord which will match the key and mood of the song. Then it will do one of two things, go up or go down in pitch to the next chord. So experiment until you figure out that chord. For instance, if the opening chord is a G major, the next chord will likely go up in pitch, and is likely to be a similar type of chord. In other words, if the opening chord is a G Major, the next chord is not going to be a Bb7b5 or some other monstrous mysterious chord. Rather it is probably going to be a simple C or D Major. So plug in the chords you know and see what fits. Repeat until you have figured out the chords.

Step 5. If there is a solo in the song, listen to it repeatedly as before. Now consider the mood of the song: major or minor? If it is major, the solos will likely contain some variation of the Major Pentatonic scale. If minor, then the Minor Pentatonic is a likely option. From there, listen again and see if you do not hear bits of the scale you think is probably the right one. Pick out the parts of the solo that you can quickly figure out.

Now it gets a little tricky, because solos are often fast moving, usually do not follow strict scale patterns, and often include licks from scales other than the basic pentatonic scales. So this is where you need to bring in the “heavy guns”.

(a) Use a transcription software such as Transcribe to slow down the solo so that you can hear clearly how the notes are moving from one to the next, then pick them apart one by one until you have a particular lick worked out. Then move to the next lick and repeat and until you have the solo figured out. Many of these software programs will allow you to “loop” a small segment of a song. In other words, you can select beginning and end points within the song and the software will play that little segment over and over in a loop for you while you listen and figure out the notes.

(b) Get help from your teacher

(c) After trying all this, THEN go get a real professionally scored TAB if possible (some popular songs do not have pro TABs available). This should be the LAST step you take after having tried the ones above. At first, you will not get far with deciphering the songs, but the more you do it, the better you get. So try to do it yourself first, then when you reach the end of your transcribing skills, go get a TAB. I recommend to avoid free TAB web sites since the TAB is user generated (any beginner can submit a self-written TAB) and I have found that these TABS are often completely wrong. You can find good professionally scored TABS at Musicnotes.com and FreehandMusic.com. Even with pro TAB, you will need to listen to the song carefully to make sure what you are playing matches the song. Some aspects of guitar technique are nearly impossible to convey on paper, and even the pros make an occasional mistake.

Bear in mind, this will be challenging at first. Don’t give up! These procedures work well with common popular songs, but they will be much more challenging for certain genres such as fusion, jazz, or progressive rock. For transcribing in these more complex styles, you will need a more expansive mastery of music theory and a well developed ear. Start with simple songs that have clear chord changes and relatively simple solos at slow moderate speeds, such as Blues standards or iconic classics like Pink Floyd’s Comfortably Numb.

Be tenacious. Happy Transcribing!

Copyright © 2023 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Greenville Guitar Lessons

Are You Running In Circles?

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By Chad Crawford PMI Guitar Instructor

Retention of knowledge and technique is high on the list of challenges to aspiring guitarists. As with any long term complex undertaking, we can take shorter or longer paths to the same end. While common sense dictates that we take the shorter path, there are a number of ways to step off the shortest path without realizing it. For maximum results in the shortest possible time we need to be aware of these potential pitfalls and make every effort to avoid them.

Repetition is the obvious bedrock of retention, but failure to incorporate other available retention strategies will result in a predictable consequence: review. While review is an essential and unavoidable component of learning, excessive review is counterproductive, frustrating for students and teachers, and inherently robs aspiring musicians of invaluable time that could rather be invested in growth. So our goal should be to maximize every available retention opportunity in each lesson and practice session.

Beyond the obvious need for repetition, retention is a function of a combination of predictable and controllable factors, such that the aspiring guitarist can choose (or not!) to greatly enhance progress rates by consistently implementing a few simple but powerful strategies. Though these may seem like common sense, I routinely observe generally intelligent, talented, and ambitious students slipping in these elements of retention, so do not assume that you can’t benefit from a self-check in these details. The very core of the problem is that these things operate below our conscious view if we do not intentionally choose to give them attention.

1. Paying attention to instructions – it is very easy to allow the mind to wander off in the middle of an explanation, then practice something wrong all week. In some cases I have seen students so excited about learning something new that in the middle of my demonstration they take off trying to figure out what I am playing by ear rather than concentrating on the demo, which of course defeats the purpose of the demo. While I commend the passion about learning new things, this is an obvious example of not paying attention to the instructions, and the results are predictable – we have to go over it again. Whether your instruction method be a book, video, or personal one-on-one lessons, be assured that you will get better results by controlling the impulse to take off playing as soon as you have the first hint of where to put your fingers, and instead getting your mind around the complete explanation before attempting to apply it.

2. Following the instructions – assuming you have paid attention to the instructions and thus have a sufficient understanding of what to do, the next step is to apply the instructions. Certain details of optimum physical technique are often at conflict with our natural inclination toward doing what feels easiest for us at the moment. While few would argue whether or not following the instructions is important, some aspects of our motor skills operate at a subconscious level. While attempting scale exercises for instance, we must manage a number of things simultaneously such as note location, timing, coordination of the picking and fretting hands, and management of excess muscular tension. It is very easy in this kind of multi-tasking situation to allow the fingers to revert to auto-pilot while we monitor other details, and then we slip into repeating poor physical technique and allow it to become a self-defeating habit. It is very hard to break ingrained poor physical technique habits. Do not allow this to happen. Follow the instructions!

3. Maintaining focus – Repetition is a potentially powerful aid to retention, but repetition without deliberate focus on details can actually cultivate less than optimal mental and physical habits and thus hinder progress. It is important to understand that deliberate focus is not the default mode of the human mind. Our tendency is to allow the attention to wander off, and thus sustained focus on one thing or group of things requires some conscious effort. Additionally, there may be no feeling of increased progress while making the extra effort to stay focused, and so there may be no immediate sense of reward in exchange for the extra effort. However, both science and common experience reveal that all types of memory, including muscle memory, achieve their peak power in response to sustained focused attention. So for maximum retention choose to stay focused during your practice!

4. Context development – Memory responds well to organization. It is therefore important to recognize at the outset of our musical endeavors, or as soon thereafter as possible, that all of music is one total phenomenon rather than a host of tiny parts to remember separately. For example, our big four pitch relationship tools are intervals, scales, chords, and arpeggios. While we study these individually for clarity, they are in fact all a defined subset of the chromatic scale. If we recognize a major chord or arpeggio as a subset of intervals from the major scale then it is easier to see the overlap between the chord tones and potential resolving notes from the major scale, major pentatonic scale, or a major arpeggio. If additionally we can look at the fretboard and simultaneously visualize a major scale, a corresponding major chord and inversions, and the major arpeggio, all superimposed over one another, then it is relatively easy to move between playing a chord and applying a fill or solo from the major scale or arpeggio. Likewise, if we can perceive a given rhythm as a subset of divisions of the main beat then it is relatively easy to feel out the main beat and then fill in the divisions. So it is very helpful to retention to always be plugging bits of new information into the scheme of the overall context.

5. Choose the high road – with life in general we often refer to taking the high road as a colloquialism for doing the right thing. I am appropriating this idea for application to the study of music, and I mean it in this way: when you are practicing guitar and you run into a choice between doing the less comfortable but more beneficial thing or the more comfortable thing, do the less comfortable thing. For example, when practicing phrasing with a backing track it is very easy to just settle into playing positions or licks you are already comfortable with rather than experimenting with unknown territory. Likewise, some things on your practice schedule will be more interesting or enjoyable than other things, and it is very tempting in the privacy of your practice space to take the easy low road by minimizing or altogether avoiding the more challenging parts of your practice routine. This is how people stop progressing and get into ruts. Don’t let it happen! When you have something new to work on and it is harder to do relative to just doing further repetitions of things you already know, take the high road by investing yourself in the new material. Half effort will not yield half results. It will yield no results, and you will have to keep going back and reviewing this material until you finally get sick of review and invest the effort in obtaining the results you could have had earlier.  

You don’t have time to waste on this cycle of stagnation. Save yourself the trouble and frustration, and invest the necessary effort up front. You will proceed must faster through practicing and will get on sooner with actually playing!

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Lessons Greenville SC

Tortured Tortoise?

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by Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

In earlier times wayward kids were subject to a form of corrective discipline referred to as “woodshedding”. The parent would take the straying kid out to the woodshed for private application of a paddle to the straying kid’s hind quarters. The practice was universal such that over time the term “woodshedding” came to be used as a colloquialism to refer to all manner of discipline, including the self-discipline involved in mastering a skill through practice. Musicians picked up the term to refer to extended sessions of private practice – sometimes literally in a woodshed for privacy.  

The woodshed ultimately fell to the wayside of history with the rise of electricity, but the term woodshedding has stuck with musicians as a way to refer to intense efforts toward improvement through marathon practice sessions. For us guitarists the idea is to get in a place where we can be free from the pressure of others hearing our flaws and mistakes, the distractions of people, phones, televisions, etc., and focus intently on improving our mastery of technique, improvisation, or details of specific songs.

If you read about or watch documentaries on iconic musicians you can’t miss the importance they place on practice. In many cases you will hear stories of spending nights and weekends daily for years to develop their impressive skills.  If you are a hobbyist with limited time to practice you may come to the discouraging conclusion that routine woodshedding is essential to developing satisfying musical skills that you can be proud of sharing with others.

Make no mistake: the more time you spend engaging in effective practice, the better you will get. However, it is quite realistic to expect to achieve a satisfying level of functional musicianship without practicing five hours a day every day of the week. For a hobbyist musician, a half hour to an hour of effective, goal-oriented practice per day for five days a week will deliver meaningful results. While there are a number of elements to effective practice, the object of our focus for this article is the importance of consistency.

I often observe students of guitar setting aside my recommendations to cover a broad range of materials in every practice session and instead focusing on one element that they have become temporarily absorbed with. They will then woodshed this one item, and then everything else they have been building falls to the wayside. Then we have to go down the deadly road that sucks the ambition out of the most enthusiastic students of music: review.

When you are learning the fundamentals of music, woodshedding is NOT a productive substitute for consistency. Not only does it rob you of costly skills in the areas that you are neglecting to practice, it also doesn’t work well for the one area that you have focused on. It may deliver fleeting satisfaction in that a few days of woodshedding one thing may yield a visible improvement in that one thing, but here is the dirty secret about woodshedding: the gains disappear as soon as you stop woodshedding that one thing.

You can easily perceive this for yourself by considering the equivalent of woodshedding in the academic world: cramming. We have all been through the experience of neglecting consistent homework and then trying to intensely study in preparation for a test. Does it work? Yes, many times you can pass a test with last-minute intense study. However, did you ever go back and take a test on the same material a week later? How do you think you would have done?

If you are studying music it is most likely not something that is being forced on you, so you should not be reluctant to do your “homework”, nor should you be eager to put behind the most recent material you studied. If you are … maybe music is not the right thing for you, or maybe you are pursuing skills in a style that is not the best fit your inner muse. Assuming you are passionate about learning music, you should logically wish to pursue a course that will allow you to retain hard won gains, rather than constantly cramming for a test (such as your next lesson) and then forgetting. It is a simple fact of human memory, both cognitive and physical (i.e. muscle memory), that repetition is the key to long term retention. So you should pursue a practice routine that includes consistent repetition of the knowledge and skills you need to achieve your short to medium term musical goals. While you may not see the more immediately satisfying visible gains of woodshedding one area, you will continually improve your musicianship by increments each day, and medium to long term you will be a much more potent musician for it.

It is important to understand that consistency does not mean that you will be ever stuck practicing everything you have ever learned. There will come a time for instance when you can perform your basic chords with ease, such that you do not have to practice them specifically and routinely any more. It is the same with scales and phrasing, and general knowledge. Once you have reached a particular goal, you replace it with something you can’t do yet and get to work consistently practicing that new thing until it also becomes habitual.

And finally, let us consider the real and practical value of strategic woodshedding. If you are performing publicly then what you need for a given performance (such as my application group classes) is a high level of fluency in those things you will be performing for that one occasion. Then it makes sense to woodshed the specific things required for that presentation. Then after the presentation you go back to a more generalized practice routine until a few days before your next public performance. Likewise, if you join a band and suddenly need to learn a list of new songs, you may need to get up to speed on those songs very quickly. So you would woodshed the set list as much as possible before your first group practice, then make practicing through the set list a part of your regular practice routine.

If you are situated such that you have time to woodshed everything on your highly effective practice schedule, then by all means go for it and we will look forward to seeing you on the Billboard charts soon. However, if this is not you then don’t despair. The proverbial tortoise wins the race most of the time. Consistency is the key!

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Notes

Besting the Beast of Boredom

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Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

The process of learning to play guitar involves some basic training exercises that are designed to increase knowledge and physical skills in numerous areas. Most of us are impatient to play at the level we envisioned when we started this process. The repetition of basic concepts and physical exercises can be tedious at times, especially when we do not feel we are seeing any measurable results.

This is quite normal. All musicians go through this, and the truth is that it never ends. Once we master some new skill or technique, there is always another one waiting in line to challenge us again. It is critical to learn to maintain your motivation to work through boredom and get on to playing like you want to play.

So let’s consider how boredom develops, and then how you can combat it. Your teacher gives you a new exercise. You begin to practice it. It is exciting at first because it is new and you know it is a direct step toward your goal of fluent playing. But then after a number of repetitions you have it memorized. Eventually you are just going through the motions mindlessly. It becomes less and less interesting and eventually turns into something that feels more like work than entertainment. You may even get to the point that you hate to even think of doing the exercise again and you feel reluctant to even pick up the guitar at all.

This is the critical point where you have to make a decision. You can give in to the beast of boredom and quit, or you can work to vanquish the beast and eventually reach a point where your playing is quite gratifying. It is important to realize this – becoming bored is a natural consequence of the human condition, but staying bored is a choice, and you have the power to choose otherwise.

What to do?

Substitution: The first thing you should do is to inform your teacher that you are struggling. It may be that the teacher can substitute some other song or exercise, or work with you on some other area that is more satisfying to you for the time being. However, you should consider input from the teacher before making the final decision on this. It may be that it is best for your long term goals to finish mastering the material you are currently struggling with. Your teacher should be able to offer some kind of explanation as to the value of the material you are working with and this may help you in maintaining your interest in working through it.

Alteration: If you have become bored with an exercise or some other aspect of your practice routine, trying altering it in some way. This is particularly important in improvisational soloing. It is very easy and very common to fall into the trap of playing the same note sequences with the same embellishments and the same timing. Straight eight notes is the bane of many aspiring soloists, and it is the easiest trap to fall into since timing choices (or lack thereof) are not as readily apparent as note choices. Try changing the timing of your collection of stock phrases, then work on changing timing mid-phrase, hold one note noticeably longer than the rest, etc. This is much more challenging than playing straight time (same time value for every note) and may seem impossibly difficult at first, but it will certainly shake up the feeling of boredom and will also make you a much better improvisational soloist.

Inspiration: Every aspiring guitarist has a reason (or combination of reasons) that inspires the effort to learn guitar. Often it is a parent or other significant figure who plays an instrument. In many cases it is admiration for some notable professional guitarist, or a particular song or type of music that the student wants to play. It is important to keep that motivational reason in the front of your mind while going through the learning process. Boredom is a feeling – a feeling of restless dissatisfaction. When you are confronted with boredom reflect on the satisfaction you will feel when you reach your goal. Combat the unproductive feeling of boredom by choosing to meet it with one that inspires you to keep working toward your goal.

Challenge: Another way to combat boredom is to find a new challenge in whatever you are doing. So you are working on some exercise and you have repeated it enough times that you know every note, every motion, etc., so that it begins to feel uninteresting. So what can you do to change it so that it is challenging again? Look for ways to improve the details of your performance. For instance, you have played through a chord change exercise for what feels like a thousand times and you feel like you are done with it. Is it possible you can improve the speed at which you execute the change from one chord to another? Probably. Are you inadvertently muting any strings while strumming the chords? Probably. Is it possible that a metronome will reveal that you are not keeping good time throughout the progression? Probably. Break out these details and set small goals within the overall exercise, and then challenge yourself to improve in these details. As you focus on these parts within the overall goal you will find satisfaction in challenge and accomplishment. You can not be bored when you are intently focused on solving a problem. In fact, you might just find that your main problem is that you do not have as much time for practice as you would prefer!

Substitution … alteration … inspiration … challenge … these four powerful weapons will help you cut the beast of boredom down to a manageable size. Keep these things in mind, and review this article if necessary when you find yourself feeling dreadful of your practice routine. Remember that perseverance is the key to success. It is your choice whether to excel or expire, but with the right tools in your toolbox the road to excellence will be a lot smoother. Choose well! 

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Guitar Fretboard

Getting A Feel For Technique …

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

If you have been learning guitar for any length of time then you know that unbridled self-expression is a long-term project rather than a once-done event. Along the way you may at times find yourself wrestling with a vague sensibility that your playing seems to be technically correct as best you can tell, but yet does not seem to have the lively gut-wrenching feel of your favorite guitarist playing the same thing. You may then surmise that your technique development endeavors are not getting the job done. If you go exploring online you may stumble across lengthy arguments regarding whether or not technique is more important than feel, whether or not music theory stifles creativity, and so forth. If you are in that stage where you have pretty good technique but do not feel that you are expressing yourself well, you will probably be tempted to align with the “feel/creativity” side of this age-old debate, versus the “technique/theory” side.

Let us consider some pertinent issues before addressing the core of the matter: (1) humans (myself included) are averse to work and will accordingly latch on to any rationalization we can find to get out of doing some work (such as technique development), and (2) people who do not have a fully developed understanding of a thing often insist on convenient, simple answers where such answers do not exist. So it goes with ideas about learning guitar. Aligning with either extreme in the “technique or feel” debate betrays a lack of experience that leads to further lack of understanding and consequent erroneous judgments over the more subtle aspects of musicianship. Asking whether technique is more important than feel is like asking if a tire is more important than the wheel it mounts to. In both cases, neither can do its job without the other such that they are both critical to achieving the desired results.

So here is the core of the matter: Playing with feel is not the opposite of playing with excellent technique, but is rather the outgrowth of having developed technique to the point that it is no longer a barrier to self-expression.

By way of example, I recall in my youth being greatly moved by certain beloved songs. I had more than enough feel. I was bursting over with it. What I did not have was any idea how to make such sounds come out of my guitar. My lack of knowledge and technique utterly crippled my efforts to pull what I wanted to express out of my guitar. I needed knowledge of what my favorite artists were doing, and the precise finger control and hand coordination to make it happen. Without sufficient mastery of technique, all the feel in the universe is useless in making music.

So I set out on my technique development journey with a scale book, metronome, and various private lessons. Some years later I reached a point where I could rip through scales at speeds I would have never thought possible for myself, but I still could not make my licks sound like Stevie Ray Vaughan’s level of raw passion roaring from every phrase (or at least not to the level I wanted to … some folks thought my playing was quite good at that point).

The next level for me was working on refinement of my bending and vibrato, particularly the accuracy of the start and stop points of the bending, plus the rate and proportions of the sweep of the bend. Then to nail these down beyond pure technique accuracy, I looked toward my favorite Blues players and mimicked their technique. Bear in mind, if I had not had the experience and results of laying the foundation of accurate and timely bends then I would not have had the ear for what my favorite artists were doing, much less the finger control to reproduce it.

Then I needed work on my pick attack. Much of the “feel” in guitar music comes from the pick attack, which varies a bit from one guitar player to another, and from one style to another. Pick attack is a very personal part of musicality, but there are certain universal aspects of pick technique that enable good playing … proper pick hold, strong articulation, accurate timing, playing to the song, etc. Again, without the pick technique foundations you will not have control to apply the subtleties that make for true self-expression.

It is also important to understand that no matter how well you have developed your technique, if you are not pleased with the quality of the sound coming from the guitar then you are not going to be able to play with maximum feel. Self-expression is ultimately a sort of dance between you and your guitar, transcending technique. Technique must be something that is done and out of the way, but you also must enjoy and be moved by your guitar’s tone to get the most out of your playing. If you are not sure what your tonal preference is, just listen to your favorite guitarist and start tweaking your tone towards that. Much like overall musicality, tone development is not a once-done event, but rather a process. The sooner you get started the sooner you will find the tone that compels you rather than hinders you, and then you continually tweak from there as your ear and tastes develop.

Now let us consider a more subtle aspect of music that you must be aware of to avoid undue frustrations with your playing. If you want to play with feel, you must play music that you truly feel! For example, I am never going to play highly expressive solos in certain styles such as progressive metal, jazz, or bluegrass flatpicking, because I do not connect with these styles. This is not because I have any disdain for them or those who play them, but they do not move me as do Blues and Classic Rock. This does not mean that I can not play anything at all in these styles, but my best playing will always happen when I am playing along with Blues, or Classic Rock, or their close cousins. So if for instance you are attending my group classes, you may not really resonate with all of the variety of songs I use for these since I need to appeal to the tastes and abilities of a broad audience. So, if you find that your solos are coming out somewhat lifeless in these situations, realize that this does not mean you are failing at guitar. Always strive to improve your overall skills of course, and recognize that sometimes being a musician means playing what suits others rather than just yourself. At the same time, recognize that you are never going to be able to get into the “zone” while playing music that does not really stir you up inside. That is perfectly normal, even for pros. (If you take a moment to think about it you will notice that most highly regarded guitarists are known for excellence in only one very narrow range of style.)

Likewise, when playing open jams, playing with a friend, or being put on the spot by someone asking you play for them, realize that you are not going to do your best playing in these situations, so don’t judge your skills by how you perform under these conditions. Open jams are notorious for including musicians who are not well developed enough to keep good time. You can not feel the music when one or more instruments of the rhythm section is out of time, and you can not resolve phrases properly when a chord change you are expecting is early, late, or just wrong. When you get put on the spot with no warm up you are not going to be able to play as well as after you have had thirty minutes or an hour of playing behind you. The best thing to do with these types of situations is to avoid them. If you wish to play open jams then just play rhythm as best you can and see if the general level of musicianship is going to allow for good soloing with feel, before attempting to cut loose with your best chops. If someone pulls out a guitar from a closet and asks you to show them what you’ve got, tell them you are going to show them some trick skills from The Who first, and then smash the guitar over their head. If you are attempting to play in a band and the group is not in good time with one another (i.e., “tight), then do not expect your best playing to happen with this group unless and until they get it together.

Finally, we need to strike a balance between technique development and making music. In answer to a question like “how much technique development do I need to invest my limited time in”, I respond, “rough rule of thumb for a hobbyist, about 20% more than you need to play the music you want to play”. For instance, if you wish to play Blues and Classic Rock, then you do not need to invest a lot of time in cultivating sweep arpeggios to 1000 notes per minute, but you should work on speeding up pentatonic scales and licks to 20% past the speed that you will use them in live playing. This gives you a buffer to offset stage fright, distracting anomalies in the rhythm section, etc, such that you have more than enough control to listen well and play with feel at the speeds you really need, even under these imperfect conditions.

So … if you have been thinking that “feel is more important than technique”, try doing some spirited sport driving with the tires removed from your wheels. After you get out of the hospital then get back to metronome practice, and lots of it.  😉

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Notes

Bring In The Clowns

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

If you are in my age range or better then you may remember IT. IT was a millennia-old creepy space alien featured in the 1986 Stephen King novel of the same name, and a TV miniseries in 1990. IT manifested itself to the neighborhood children in the form of a circus clown. IT would appear in a benevolent clown form and woo the neighborhood children with laughter and promises of balloons and parties, and then when he had their confidence would morph into a scary clown and steal them away to a creepy underground bunker.

In the novel and film the surviving neighborhood kids grew up and came home to band together and defeat IT once and for all … or so they thought. The fact is, in teaching guitar to beginners and up for some years now, I have found that IT is hanging around my studio. He pops up all over the place. For example, when providing feedback on technique refinements I often hear responses such as, “I’m trying, but IT (“my hand”) wants to do it this way,” or “IT wants to tense up when I try to move that fast,”, or “IT (the pick) shifts around when I try to hold IT this way.” “IT (my thumb) wants to hook ITself over the top of the neck.” “IT (my pinkie) wants to curl up into a popcorn shrimp when I make a fifth chord.”

Indeed. Creepy IT seems to be the number one barrier to progress for many students of guitar. This need not be so, because the fact is … there is no IT. There is only YOU. YOU are the Scary Guitar Clown. It is YOU who is permitting excess tension, allowing the fingers to fly and flop around chaotically, plowing the pick through the strings like a bulldozer, allowing mental focus to drift, and generally making the hands and fingers wrestle against the strings rather then dance with them.

If you like your IT you can keep IT! However, if you want maximum results in the shortest possible time then you will have to deal IT a crushing death blow sooner rather than later. The first step in conquering IT is to acknowledge that IT is YOU. If your fingers are doing anything at all other than totally relaxing, then YOU are doing it. Apart from direct physical manipulation by someone or something other than you, your fingers can not do anything except exactly what your brain tells them to do. Pinkies do not curl up into a tight ball on their own. Likewise, if you are locking up your wrist and clamping too firmly on the pick during rhythm strokes, it is YOU tightening up the forearm muscles that control the wrist. YOU are doing that, not IT! So take responsibility and avoid passing the blame to IT!

Now let us discuss for a minute why IT gets the blame for so much technique chaos. We come from the factory equipped with several levels of control over the muscular systems. Level 1 is the autopilot mode. The heart, for example, will continue to beat at the set tempo regardless of our consciousness of it or efforts to manipulate it through focused attention. Level 2 is the autopilot with manual override. The eyelids are a good example of this one. When we are awake they close and open without any conscious attention, and when we sleep they remain closed. However, we may at any time take full control of them, either blinking, holding open, or holding closed as we prefer, until we release them back into the control of the autopilot mode. Then we have the skeletal muscles on Level 3. They run mostly in manual mode with autopilot override for special circumstances, such as the knee jerk reaction when the leg responds to a strike to the knee joint.

Then we have the fingers. How do we label the control mode of the fingers? I think most entry level guitarists would say something like, “Manual mode until I try to play guitar, then Scary Guitar Clown mode,” by which they mean that it seems impossible to fully control the fingers when trying to manipulate them individually, when IT appears to take over. Is this really true? It is partially true and partially not true. The fingers run on a mix of all the above modes, but mostly on manual control. If you don’t think they have an autopilot override, try putting them on a hot stove burner and you will see how quick they go into autopilot override.

So how does this examination help us to defeat the Scary Clown Mode? We must understand four important things about the control of the fingers:

(1) The default control mode of the fingers is a hybrid of manual control of the fingers as a group, with autopilot control of the other fingers when trying to use one independently.  To illustrate, put the tips of all four fingers downward facing on the edge of a table and then use the other hand to curl the pinky until the tip touches the palm. It is quite easy, with no strain on the knuckles, muscles, or skin. Now try to do that same test with your fingers free from outside constraints, using only the control offered by your mind. You will observe that the ring finger follows along with the pinky, no matter how hard you try to separate the two. Why does this happen? Mechanically the two are completely independent. It is the default programming of the brain making the ring finger follow the pinky. The default program is to use the fingers as a group. This is great for grasping things firmly, but it is totally contrary to what we need to do as guitarists. This is the deadly IT of which we speak, and the one we must overcome in order to develop a great command over guitar technique.

(2) In addition to the limited degree of manual independent control we have over the fingers by default, we can cultivate greater individual finger control through focused repetition of specific movements. This is why scale practice should always be near the top of your guitar practice priorities. Scale practice is not simply a tool to remember note placement. Among other things, if done correctly it is the most powerful technique improvement tool available. With enough practice we can not only cultivate finger independence, but we can actually reprogram the autopilot portion of our finger control so that it does new things in autopilot mode, such as play through scales accurately and efficiently. This is the secret of mastering guitar technique. It is important to note here that we are reprogramming the autopilot every time we practice, regardless of whether we are practicing great technique, good technique, or slop. This is why it is important to pay attention to the details while practicing scales!

(3) Regarding the pick hand, it is very important to understand that you have already spent many years cultivating an alternate autopilot program that takes over when you attempt to exercise fine control over the pick hand – writing. Writing is similar to picking, but not the same, so when you allow the writing autopilot to take over when you go to pick, you will have poor control over the pick.

(4) Ultimately, we DO in fact have a great degree of control over individual fingers, but we must consciously choose to exert this control in defiance of the default programs. For example, I often see a tightly curled pinky when making fifth chords (power chords), and I always advise that this creates unnecessary tension, which further causes unnecessary levels of finger pressure and undue difficulties in changing from one fretboard location to another. I then advise to manual override the pinky popcorn shrimp of death while making the fifth chords. It is always a struggle at first, but I have yet to observe a student who can not eventually cultivate a new habit of keeping all the fingers straight and relaxed while executing fifth chords. Likewise, the pick hand technique always starts out with a sort of stabbing motion coming from pushing the index finger and thumb out from the side of the hand which is planted on the bridge, and then curling it back in to make the pick stroke – just like writing. With enough focused effort the student can defeat the writing program and develop a new autopilot mode of efficiently picking from the wrist, with the fingers immobile and the base of the hand planted on the guitar or strings. (See my pick technique video for in depth analysis)

Don’t let IT ruin your technique. IT is a formidable enemy at first, but by consciously choosing to control your fingers until they do what you want, you can send IT packing and make beautiful music instead. Get to work, and don’t stop until you get the desired results! 

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.