Tag Archives: Greenville Guitar Lessons

Keys to Creativity

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By Chad Crawford, Guitar Instructor Palmetto Music Institute 

Among the challenges we face as developing guitar players, cultivating a sense of artistic creativity may seem among the most formidable. Many assume that creativity is a mysterious insight arising from the recesses of the fortunately gifted minds of a select few. In fact, creativity is not a mystery. As with all things musical it responds to focused effort to cultivate it.

So how do you get from having “no creativity” to the point of being able to write songs and play improvisational solos?

First let us address the occasional Mozart who shows up with tremendous innate musical ability. There is indeed a phenomenon of abundant natural talent, but for most musicians, other artists, engineers, inventors, writers, etc., natural talent is not in fact the key to creativity. So the Mozart’s are irrelevant in terms of understanding how a person of typical native ability can develop creative prowess. Forget about natural talent, and most importantly don’t fall for the common misconception that creativity is something that you either have or do not have as a result of inheritance.

Now let us consider what creativity actually is. Is it really assembling something out of nothing in a mysterious seizure of inspiration from quarters unknown? No! Even Mozart had to sit with paper and pen and work his inspirations into orderly, flowing pitch and time relationships. Consider this quote from prolific inventor Thomas Edison, whose record on creativity speaks for itself: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration”.

Creativity is neither an unknowable mystery, an accident, nor a fleeting peek into the ethereal mists. It is rather a predictable result of a process involving mastery of the fundamental elements of an endeavor, and then applying those fundamentals in such a way as to generate beauty of function and form. Notice that I did not say anything about creating something from nothing, or even something totally new. Creativity does not mean creating something from nothing. It means assembling the known into that which effectively solves problems or manifests beauty. It is well within the reach of anyone willing to apply themselves to the process.

Now let us consider how this applies to music, and specifically to guitar. Music is fundamentally two objective phenomenon: pitch relationships and time relationships. Musicians assemble these relationships in such a way as to create the more subjective phenomenon of an emotionally satisfying flow of tension and release. This does not require the creation of anything new, but rather a well developed awareness of how pitch and time relationships work together to create a satisfying flow of tension and release.

So let’s break it down now even more specifically to the things we need to have mastery over in order to make music that satisfies us and our intended audience.

1. Know your notes on the fretboard – everything we do as musicians involves assembling notes in melody (one after another) or harmony (in unison, such as a chord or double stop) with reference to a tonal center (key). If you do not know the notes then you are limited to playing by patterns or by ear. While playing by patterns and by ear are useful tools, if you wish to cultivate maximum creativity then you need to allow yourself as many options as possible. If you can visualize the letter names of the notes you are playing then it is much easier to choose resolving notes for phrases, or make useful alterations to chords to achieve just the right shade of mood.

2. Know the names of the notes in the Major Keys – the Major Scale is the starting point for all we do. Everything else is an alteration of some sort to a Major Scale. If you know the names of the notes in the key you are playing, and can also see them as you play them on the fretboard, these together will give you a great deal of power to achieve a desired musical effect without having to always guess your way through things with experimentation.

3. Understand Intervals – intervals are the building blocks of the pitch aspect of music. A thorough understanding of intervals will allow you to know what effect a note is going to have before you play it. If you know your intervals then you will be able to create musical effects at will, alter scales and chords to create precise shades of emotion, and transfer musical ideas from one key to another with ease.

4. Understand the effects of the basic divisions of the beat – along with pitch relationships, relative timing between pitch events is one of the fundamental components of music. A good set of timing relationships by itself is very powerful (think of a powerful drum intro that sets the mood for a song). If you understand the basic divisions of the beat and how to modify them to tastes then you can create strong shades of mood at will.

5. Understand scale harmonization – knowing how to translate a particular scale into chord sequences will enable you to assemble pleasing chord progressions in a matter of moments. Knowing the chords in the key and the notes in the chords will also give you a lot of useful options for resolving solo phrases.

6. Listen to a lot of music – musical inspiration is often a residual effect of exposure to other music. Saturate your creative muse with immersion into a wide variety of music, and pay attention to the individual details such as the vocals, drums, and bass. In doing so you will cultivate a deeper intuitive understanding of music, much as a child learns to speak by regular exposure to speech.

7. Start from the known – creativity is often a matter of slight alterations to common ideas. Learn the signature licks, chord types and sequences, and rhythmic ideas of the masters of your preferred style. Then experiment with alterations until you uncover ideas that express what you wish.

8. Constantly refine your technique – if you have ever wondered how an accomplished guitarist can play something very simple and yet have it sound very beautiful and powerful, the trick is often in the technique. What many experience as a “lack of creativity” is in fact a lack of technique refinement that will make an otherwise great idea sound lifeless or even just plain bad. Technique development is not just a matter of mere repetition. It is essential to pay attention to the quality of sound (a.k.a. “tone”) during technique development practice. Don’t rush through technique exercises with the goal of merely getting them over with as quickly as possible. Listen carefully to the small details. Strive to improve the quality of sound resulting from each pick stroke.

If you are breathing then you have creative potential. If you cultivate the appropriate knowledge, technique, and persistence then you can be sure that your creative muse will show itself. Get to work!

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

 

Realistic Measures of Progress

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By Chad Crawford, Guitar Instructor, Palmetto Music Institute

 

Learning to play an instrument well is a process involving study, memorization, repetition, and refinement, all of which happen across time. It is not a matter of giant leaps but rather steady increments of progress. While a good program of instruction combined with a good practice routine yields inevitable results, at times the progress may seem very slow or non-existent. It is easy during these spells to become discouraged and possibly even give up altogether, so it is important to be able to make realistic evaluations of progress. The four steps below will help you to measure your progress realistically.

 

  1. Avoid comparisons – it is not profitable in any way to compare your progress or your current skills to those of others, especially iconic professionals. Regardless of what you may have heard or read, no one achieves a high level of musicianship without sustained effort across a period of years. Aspiring guitarists have widely varying circumstances which lead to widely varying progress rates and skill levels. Additionally, every musician has strengths and weaknesses in various areas such that comparing your current weaknesses to another’s current strengths will leave you with a warped view of how you are doing. The only legitimate and relevant measure of progress is how you are doing today versus how you were doing last month, six months ago, and last year.

 

  1. Excessive concern with mistakes – ideally we all want to play perfectly, and continual effort towards perfecting our music is advisable. However, while learning guitar be cautious about striking a realistic balance between continual progress and reasonable allowance for mistakes and imperfections. These are a perfectly normal part of the process. They key to dealing with them is to not let them completely derail your playing, such as stopping every time you make a mistake. Avoid the temptation to think that mistakes in your playing mean that your music is no good and that you are not making any progress. Even pros make mistakes.

 

  1. Avoid measuring progress by “feel” – few would attempt to measure a distance of one foot by solely considering how they feel about how long one foot is. Rather, most would simply apply a tape measure to the job. Contrarily, many attempt to measure their progress as musicians by how they feel about their playing at the moment. This is of course completely unrealistic, but it is also a common human response to a long term process. Preoccupation with results can be wearisome if we are working towards a wildly fluctuating target such as our feelings. If your feelings about your progress are at odds with objective measures of progress then recognize the feelings as irrelevant and put them aside.

 

  1. Utilize objective measures of progress – It is an inevitable aspect of human nature that we tend toward looking at the negative side of things. This tendency is magnified when working our way through a long term endeavor such as learning music. Counter this by using an objective standard such as a practice schedule cataloging effort toward various knowledge and skills relevant to your playing goals. Then you will be able to see plainly without the cloud of fickle feelings and negativity when you are in fact making real progress.

 

Remember, the only real and relevant measure of progress is measuring your past knowledge and technique against your present knowledge and technique.

 

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

 

 

9 Not-So-Easy Steps to Guitar Mastery

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By Chad Crawford, Guitar Instructor, Palmetto Music Institute

1. Identify your goals – It is important at the outset of your musical endeavors, or if you are an intermediate player who has hit “the wall” then right now is the time for you, to determine exactly what it is you wish to accomplish. If you look around at the community of guitar players you will observe that most of the iconic players are known for one particular narrow range of musical style. By focusing on one narrow specialty they were able to focus on developing the technique and knowledge pertinent to that specialty to a very high level. It is not necessary and not wise to attempt to master all styles of music, especially so for a hobbyist who is necessarily under time constraints. Determine what kind of music you most want to play and identify the technique and knowledge you need for that style. Then don’t squander precious time on things that do not apply to your goal. You can branch out later, but trying to tackle the whole field of musical endeavor from the outset is a sure plan for catastrophic frustration.

2. Listen to the music you enjoy – For some rare, unusually gifted musicians most of their musical inspiration seems to come from some secret well-spring within themselves. If you are one of these you would have known it before you were able to read, so if you are reading this then odds are you should not waste time trying to bypass the route most of us have to take to musical creativity: learning from those who have gone before. Identify those guitarists who you most enjoy listening to and wish to sound similar to, and spend plenty of time just listening to their songs. This will inspire you to practice, awaken your own creativity, and sharpen your discernment of pitch and time relationships.

3. Work with a good teacher – people who do not know much about making music commonly believe that music is simply an outgrowth of the personality, and so polluting the muse with organization and technical ideas is a sort of poison. That sort of thinking is why these people are not musicians, or not very good ones. For maximum results in the shortest possible time work with an expert coach who knows how to help you refine your goals, steer you toward the appropriate tools, and eliminate common useless side roads and pitfalls.

4. Master the basics – we all covet advanced playing skills and the accompanying freedom of expression. However, we don’t climb mountains by jumping from the valley straight to the peak. Rather we climb up one step at a time until we reach the peak. Trying to start out with guitar by tackling advanced songs from master guitarists is a sure path to overwhelming frustration and poor overall skills. Start with the basics, and practice them to the point that they come automatically. Then start working on the advanced stuff.

5. Practice well – We have all heard that the key to musical mastery is, “Practice, practice, practice.” While that apt cliche is indeed as true with music as it is with any realm of human endeavor, it fails to answer some very important questions: what to practice and how to practice. If you wish to become a great or even just a good musician, you should approach practice as a labor of love, with emphasis on labor. Practice should be an organized effort to achieve clearly defined goals, rather than another session of doodling with the same bits and pieces of songs from yesterday’s practice session. Random doodling is playing, not productive practice.

Here are some keys to effective practice:

–Assemble a practice schedule that addresses knowledge and technique relevant to your goa

–Follow the instructions – “playing by feel” is the shortest path to going in circles of self-sabotage with your practice routine. It may carry you for a while, but eventually it will lead to a dead end. Whatever manner of instructional materials you are using, practice according to the instructions. When you have mastered the piece of knowledge or technique at hand you will then be able to incorporate it into that body of things which you can effectively apply by feel.

–Cultivate good habits – habit is powerful either on your behalf or to your detriment. Habit will respond to whatever you put into it, either great things or mediocre ones. Utilize good technique, proven methods, and pay attention to details during practice. Make it a habit to push your mind and hands for an increment of improvement during every practice session, rather than habitually accepting yesterday’s routine as today’s standard.

–Memorization – memory, both physical and mental, responds best to focus, repetition, relation to the already known, and consistency. This is why it is very important to have an organized practice routine and to practice as often as possible. Shorter daily practices will yield better results than weekend marathon sessions.

6. Creativity – self-expression is impossible when one is utterly distracted by managing the basic facets of musicianship. Beyond that, creativity in music is rarely a matter of coming up with something that no one has ever thought of. That is not possible at this time in history. Creativity is more a matter of taking what is already known and putting a new spin on it, or assembling it in some novel way. Every human being is creative. What most folks consider a lack of creativity is really more a lack of technical skills distracting the attention away from what the internal creative muse is trying to deliver. If you want to experience the fullest of what your internal muse has to offer then get past stumbling over the basics as soon as possible.

7. Managing Frustration – mastering music is a complex long term endeavor, and some frustration with the process is inevitable. Don’t let it become a bigger thing in your mind that it is in reality. Feeling frustrated can not stop your progress in any way, unless you choose let it stop you from practicing. Avoid comparisons to other players. That has no bearing at all on your progress and so it is an utterly useless waste of time. Don’t allow perfectionism to creep into your thinking. Even pros make mistakes, and the music is still quite good despite the occasional mistake. Be sure you are following the instructions. Much undue frustration arises from trying to play by feel rather following the instructions. Allow yourself due credit for what you have accomplished, and measure your progress by objective standards rather than how you feel about your progress. Such feelings are typically unrealistically harsh and often adopt the feeling of frustration itself as a measure of progress, or lack thereof. Feeling frustrated has no bearing whatsoever on the objective reality of your progress, so don’t let your mind sabotage you with such tricks.

8. Managing Stage Fright – psychologists identify a phenomenon that occurs when we are trying to perform any kind of challenging task under direct observation. They call it “performance anxiety”. We musicians usually refer to it as “stage fright”. It is one of the most challenging aspects of music, but like all things musical it will respond to strategic efforts to bring it under control. Stage fright is a lower-level instinctive response to stress such that our bodies gear up to respond with vigorous action. Since we need to be relaxed and focused to perform music well, it is detrimental and even crippling to our musical abilities. However, as powerful as this instinct is we can learn to suppress it with practice. And that brings us to step 9 …

9. Play with others – music is ultimately a means of communication, and as such it is rather pointless to do it at all if we are not going to share it with others, kind of like learning a second language with no intent other than continually practicing it alone in front of a mirror. Playing with others is not only fulfilling but also helps identify weaknesses in our knowledge and technique for further study, allows us an opportunity to learn from others, and gives us experience in managing stage fright. It is also important in a general sense to include a social aspect to our experience of learning music, both in regards to celebrating our successes and sharing the burdens of the process. As soon as you can play basic chord rhythms you should seek opportunities to play with other musicians. If you have no musically inclined friends, look online into the local fellowship communities such as Meetup where you can find amateur jam sessions that allow for folks with moderate skills to participate in a group setting.

Mastering music is not easy, but it is possible even for the hobbyist with time constraints. Practice wisely and well, be patient, and never give up!

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Managing Musical Frustration

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By Chad Crawford, PMI Guitar Instructor

The most significant barrier to eventual success with the guitar is not talent, time constraints, or the quality of a given program of instruction. It is rather this: giving up! There are many reasons why folks give up on a particular course of study, but we see that over time there is a short list that covers most aspiring guitarists who drop out. Of all the motivation killers that assail aspiring guitarists, frustration is the most deadly. Many is the unfortunate guitar gathering dust in the corner due to the catastrophic frustration of a promising student. Let’s take a look at how folks reach such a high level of frustration that they give up, and see if we can find solutions to ease the pain down to manageable levels.

It is very important for every aspiring guitarist to recognize that we all grapple with frustration as we strive to improve our skills. This is a normal part of the process.

Defining the Problem

Let us start by considering what frustration is. It is a feeling of discomfort that arises when we feel what we want is being thwarted. With guitar in particular, we can get very frustrated over three things.

  1.  We are trying to improve on a certain skill or set of skills, and we do not feel we are making any progress despite persistent commitment of time and effort.
  2.  We feel that others are making faster progress and begin to question our “talent” for guitar.
  3. We compare ourselves to those who are more advanced than us and doubt that we could ever play at that level. Let’s discuss these individually and apply a dose of reality to counter the feeling of frustration.

 

Examining the Details

“I am not making any progress.” As a teacher, I can tell you that this is only true for people who are not studying and practicing. Anyone who is making an effort to improve is improving to some degree. I have students with a wide range of commitment levels, and even the ones who practice very little or none outside of my studio still make some progress over time. For those who genuinely follow my practice recommendations, they improve significantly faster than those who do not. As with anything, you will get out of it what you put into it.

Progress comes in increments, and we often do not see the progress because we wrongly measure our progress by how we feel about our playing. If last week it felt like we were not playing like we wanted to play, and this week it feels the same way, then we conclude we must not be making any progress. However, our feelings during the process of mastering skills are not a good measuring line by which to judge our progress. There are several more realistic ways to measure progress: metronome drills, comparison to what we were able to do six months ago, and frank feedback from a teacher or other ongoing observer. If you are measuring your progress by how frustrated or not frustrated you feel about your playing, you are setting yourself up in a Catch 22 spiral into quitting. So … stop doing that.

It is important to make note here about the phenomenon of “plateaus”. For most of us, including myself, a chart of progress would not show a straight upward sloping line. Rather it would show a squiggly line of ups and downs with a general trend upwards. On that line there will be flat spots … plateaus where it seems we have come to an end of our ability to advance any further. Sometimes these spots can be tenacious, lasting for months. These plateaus can definitely be a motivation killer, especially for intermediate level players who know that they know what to practice and how to practice it. Then we back off our practice routine, which causes our skills to fall off, reinforcing the notion that we have reached the end of our “talent”. Our thinking becomes a proverbial self-fulfilling prophecy, and next thing we know the guitar is in the corner serving as an expensive hangar for clothes that did not make it all the way to the closet. The important thing here is to be aware that these plateaus are coming so that when it hits you know it is just a passing stage. If you persist through this, the progress will show on the other side of the plateau.

“It seems to me that my abilities or progress rates are significantly below that of others.” There are a number of reasons why one may feel this way. It may be true, in which case you may need to make some informed changes to your approach, or increase the amount of time you are investing in practice. It may be that it is untrue in that you are making comparisons that are inaccurate or incomplete. For example, let’s say two students start at the same time, and after some period of time student 1 is more proficient in applying scales to creating soulful solos. Student 2 may look at this and think he is not doing well. However, it may simply be that Student 2 is more interested in playing chord rhythms with even flow and good timing, and so has spent more time on that skill, and is in fact better at it than student 1.

Assuming you are engaged in an effective practice routine, what someone else is doing is completely irrelevant to your goals. I don’t mind telling you that I am not the most naturally talented guitarist in my circle of musician friends, and I have observed many others over many years who make faster progress than I do. I have also observed many of those more “talented” guitarists quit, whereas I did not quit despite periods of frustration. Their seemingly superior natural abilities (which actually probably had more to do with greater practice time) lost way to my persistence. Now I can play rings around many of those folks. Not that I am interested in competing with anyone. The point is, their abilities did not intimidate me into catastrophic frustration, but merely served to demonstrate to me what could be done with the guitar if I was willing to do the work.

“I am not able to play like (insert name of your guitar hero here).” I will share a personal story here that illustrates the point I wish to make. Back in my “bedroom warrior” days, I had a couple of friends who I used to jam with routinely. Back then I knew only a half dozen open chords and some popular power chord riffs. It so happened that one of my friends and I were hanging out on one occasion and he started giving me a hard time about his superior guitar skills. He was just cutting up, but in my youthful pride I did not like it. It was mid summer, and I rashly challenged him to a guitar duel around Christmas. In desperation, I went to a local guitar shop and picked out a book on music theory (just by blind luck, it happened to be a really good one). After digging a bit, I figured out that the Minor Pentatonic scale was the one I needed to play rock solos. So I bared down on that scale for six months. Come Christmas time, my friend was quite surprised when I unleashed a barrage of Minor Pentatonic riffage on him in front of our “judge” (another mutual friend). I won the contest. The moral of the story is, I could have achieved that level of skill years earlier if I had just made the effort. That was an important lesson for me. It changed my whole perspective on guitar, as I had believed I had little “natural talent” and would never play as well as my friends. I realized I had been in possession of the potential all along. I just needed to do the work to make the potential a reality. Now I am able to play advanced instrumental pieces from the guitar heroes of my youth. The frustration that accompanies wrestling with new skills never goes away completely, but it does not have to be an insurmountable barrier to success. Continuing on despite feelings of frustration is simply a part of the work that we must all do to succeed.

Conclusion

Are you struggling with catastrophic frustration? The kind that makes you feel despondent when you think about picking up your guitar? I have also felt that way at times, as do all aspiring musicians. There are solutions that will get you back on a path of progress toward your goals. Find a good teacher with a solid program and students who can actually play. Set up a good practice routine, follow instructions, believe in yourself, and be patient. If you do these things, your success as a guitar player is inevitable. Don’t give up!

 

Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

Practicing Guitar vs. Playing Guitar

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By Chad Crawford,  Guitar Instructor, Greenville Guitar Lessons

Practicing guitar and playing guitar are not the same thing, and it is important to understand the difference if you want to maximize your progress. While playing guitar is the end game of practicing, and we need to spend plenty of time playing, practicing is the means to the end of playing. It is essential to practice well and not allow playing to take over during what should be practice time. Although this may seem obvious on the surface, it is very easy to fall over into playing while trying to practice. Here we will look at the differences and consider how to avoid this pitfall.

So let us consider the differences between the two and how to avoid mixing them up. Playing guitar is the broad application of all our knowledge and technique skills into making music. Practicing guitar is deliberate focus on a narrow range of knowledge and technique skills with the specific goal of cultivating improvement in those specific areas. While playing, we focus on all that we can do. While practicing we focus on what we can not yet do, or do as well as we would prefer.

Here are some steps you can take to ensure that you are practicing instead of getting stuck in a rut by playing through your practice time:

  • 1. Consider where you are, where you need to be, and how to get there – if you have no master plan for reaching your musical goals then you can be sure that your practice time will consist of merely playing what you already know rather than making specific improvements in those things that will allow you access to the next musical level. To devise a master plan you should look to the music you wish to play and find out what kinds of chords, rhythms, and scales/arpeggios arise in that music. You need to master those things to play that kind of music.
  • 2. Define goals for every practice session – if you practice with no particular goal in mind then you will get exactly where you planned to get – nowhere. In every practice session you should have a plan to work on improving specific aspects of knowledge and technique according to your overall master plan. Committing your plan to paper will aid you greatly in keeping it in view as you practice.
  • 3. Focus on specific aspects of knowledge and technique during practice – when you are for instance practicing the scales you need for your preferred musical style, focus specifically on timing, note articulation, resolving notes, technique (relaxed fingers!), two hand synchronization, and eventually speed. You may have to break these goals down across several practice sessions per week so that you can devote adequate time and attention to each. Playing licks that you already know, or mindlessly wandering up and down through scales, is not practice. That is playing and it will not help you improve nearly as much as practicing.
  • 4. Push yourself to do better than yesterday – profitable practice does not come from merely repeating what you did yesterday. It comes from making it a point to do better than you did yesterday. Doing better than you did yesterday does not come from merely accepting the vague proposition that you will try do better today then you did yesterday. It comes from focused attention to the minute details of your playing, such as striving for better note articulation of scales, faster chord changes, or deliberately playing with less overall muscular tension than yesterday.
  • 5. Maintain your attention on the details – it is very easy to allow your mind to wander off when you are doing repetitive aspects of your practice routine. Focus yields much greater results, and focus is an ongoing choice because the mind tends strongly toward wandering off from one thing to another. Choose to keep your mind focused on the details of what you are working on.
  • 6. Include some playing time in your musical endeavors – it is pointless to pursue music if it is going to mean nothing but practice. Allow yourself some time within each practice session, or a few times a week if that works better for you, to just play without being overly concerned about the perfection of the details. Perfect the details during practice, and then relax and let your hands do their thing when you play. During playing time, do whatever is the best you can do and don’t allow mistakes to rob your enjoyment of it. Just play and enjoy what comes out well. As you progress through diligent practice, you will find that your playing includes increasingly fewer mistakes and more enjoyment. It is a process. Give it time.

    • Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

    Practicing for Maximum Results

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    By Chad Crawford, Guitar Instructor Greenville Guitar Lessons by PMI

     If you have been playing guitar for any length of time then you know by now that the one supreme key to results is this: practice! However, it is possible to practice routinely and still get poor results. How is this? It is by practicing the wrong things, in the wrong order, and in the wrong way.  So how can you know what to practice, what order to practice it in, and how to practice for maximum results? Follow the recommendations below to make the most of your practice time.  

    What to practice: 

    Playing guitar is a complex combination of mental and physical skills. In order to master the subject we need to break it down into manageable pieces. What specifically to practice is too big of a subject for a short article. However, what we can do here is narrow down the possibilities. The most important thing you need to consider is your goals. If your goal is too generalized it will not help you nail down what you need to practice. For instance, if you set an overly broad goal such as, “I just want to be able to play guitar,” this is not going to help you identify what information you need to learn and what techniques you need to master. If you are not sure about your goals then you should give some thought to what kind of music you like to listen to. Then you must identify what you must learn to do to mimic this kind of music. Those are the things that you need to practice. Make a list of those things and then go to work on them every time you practice. Do not get bogged down in practicing one technique or one song. Practice a variety of things pertinent to your goals.  

    A common problem I see among aspiring guitarists is the tendency to want to know and master everything about guitar. While the idea is not a bad one in theory, the reality is that music has been under development for several thousand years. It is a huge subject. Some universities offer doctorate level programs in music. As a hobbyist you do not have time to master “everything” about guitar. You are going to have enough on your hands just to master one style and play fluently in two or three related styles. So don’t waste your time learning exotic scales and chords if your intent is to play popular radio songs. Learning obscure modes is not going to make you a better player if you are still struggling with applying the pentatonic scales. Master the basic chords, scales, and techniques and then work on applying them effectively. Once you have reached a level that you can enjoy playing the basics then it is time to work on the more complicated stuff, and then only if it is applicable to your goals at that point. 

    At the other extreme is the tendency to want to learn only bare minimum requirements for playing specific songs. There is a bit of controversy in the music teaching community as to whether learning specific songs is a good approach to musical mastery. I think learning songs can be very helpful to mastering knowledge and techniques on the condition that the songs are incorporated into a balanced program of learning music in general rather than just learning the bare minimum information and techniques to play the specific songs. Taken by itself, learning songs is a dead end that leaves many aspiring guitarists frustrated and burned out. Don’t let this happen to you!  

    How to practice: 

    One of the recurring problems I see with students of guitar is the tendency to get into a self-defeating routine with practice. It is not that a practice routine itself is problematic. Practice certainly does need to be a routine undertaking. The problem develops in that practicing specific exercises becomes a matter of mindlessly running through the same material with no specific mental focus on improvement. Practice becomes an exercise in repeating the same stuff from yesterday in the same way. This is the number one issue I see that impedes progress. When you practice any skill, it is important that you focus on doing it better today than yesterday. Whether it be memorizing some chord, scale, or song, or improving the speed or finesse of chord changes or scales, it is important to push yourself to make an increment of progress every time you practice something!  

    Another common problem is the tendency to rush through practice. While speed is essential in executing chord changes and phrases, you must balance speed with accuracy. Rushing through every exercise as fast as possible will only delay your progress. Make the effort to ensure that your execution is accurate as well as fast. This often means that you will have to slow something down to a tempo that may be completely unrealistic for actual playing and then practice at that speed until you can execute the technique fairly well. Then gradually increase speed as you are able.  

    Finally, be sure to practice as often as possible! Learning guitar is all about memory in terms of both mental recall and physical muscle control. Every day that you do not practice you lose a bit of recall and muscle memory. That is just the way the human machine functions and there is not much we can do about it. Therefore, it would be best to practice every single day. However, this is not feasible for many hobbyists. In this case, make it a point to practice more days than not … at least five days a week.  

    Follow these guidelines to ensure that your practice routine is leading to progress rather than frustration!

     Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.

    Unlocking Your Creative Muse

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    By Chad Crawford, Blues & Classic Rock Guitar Instructor, Palmetto Music Institute

    Among the challenges we face as developing guitar players, cultivating a sense of artistic creativity may seem among the most formidable. Many assume that creativity is a mysterious insight arising from the recesses of the fortunately gifted minds of a select few. In fact creativity is not a mystery. As with all things musical it responds to focused effort to cultivate it.

    So how do you get from having “no creativity” to the point of being able to write songs and play improvisational solos?

    First let us address the occasional Mozart who shows up with tremendous innate musical abilities. There is indeed a phenomenon of natural talent, but for most musicians, other artists, engineers, inventors, writers, etc., natural talent is not in fact the key to creativity. So the Mozart’s are irrelevant in terms of understanding how a person of typical native ability can develop creative prowess. Forget about natural talent, and most importantly don’t fall for the common misconception that creativity is something that you either have or do not have as a result of inheritance.

    Now let us consider what creativity actually is. Is it really assembling something out of nothing in a mysterious seizure of inspiration from quarters unknown? No! Even Mozart had to sit with paper and pen and work his inspirations into orderly, flowing pitch and time relationships. Consider this quote from prolific inventor Thomas Edison, whose record on creativity speaks for itself: “Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration“.

    Creativity is neither an unknowable mystery, an accident, nor a fleeting peek into the ethereal mists. It is rather a predictable result of a process involving mastery of the fundamental elements of an endeavor, and then applying those fundamentals in such a way as to generate beauty of function and form. Notice that I did not say anything about creating something from nothing, or even something totally new. Creativity does not mean creating something from nothing. It means assembling the known into that which effectively solves problems or manifests beauty. It is well within the reach of anyone willing to apply themselves to the process.

    Now let us consider how this applies to music, and specifically to guitar. Music is fundamentally two objective phenomenon: pitch relationships and time relationships. Musicians assemble these relationships in such a way as to create the more subjective phenomenon of an emotionally satisfying flow of tension and release. This does not require the creation of anything new, but rather a well developed awareness of how pitch and time relationships work together to create a satisfying flow of tension and release.

    So let’s break it down now even more specifically to the things we need to have mastery over in order to make music that satisfies us and our intended audience.

    1. Know your notes on the fretboard – everything we do as musicians involves assembling notes in melody (one after another) or harmony (in unison, such as a chord or double stop) with reference to a tonal center (key). If you do not know the notes then you are limited to playing by patterns or by ear. While playing by patterns and by ear are useful tools, if you wish to cultivate maximum creativity then you need to allow yourself as many options as possible. If you can visualize the letter names of the notes you are playing then it is much easier to choose resolving notes for phrases, or make useful alterations to chords to achieve just the right shade of mood.

    2. Know the names of the notes in the Major Keys – the Major Scale is the starting point for all we do. Everything else is an alteration of some sort to a Major Scale. If you know the names of the notes in the key you are playing, and can also see them as you play them on the fretboard, these together will give you a great deal of power to achieve a desired musical effect without having to always guess your way through things with experimentation.

    3. Understand Intervals – intervals are the building blocks of the pitch aspect of music. A thorough understanding of intervals will allow you to know what effect a note is going to have before you play it. If you know your intervals then you will be able to create musical effects at will, alter scales and chords to create precise shades of emotion, and transfer musical ideas from one key to another with ease.

    4. Understand the effects of the basic divisions of the beat – along with pitch relationships, relative timing between pitch events is one of the fundamental components of music. A good set of timing relationships by itself is very powerful (think of a powerful drum intro that sets the mood for a song). If you understand the basic divisions of the beat and how to modify them to tastes then you can create strong shades of mood at will.

    5. Understand scale harmonization – knowing how to translate a particular scale into chord sequences will enable you to assemble pleasing chord progressions in a matter of moments. Knowing the chords in the key and the notes in the chords will also give you a lot of useful options for resolving solo phrases.

    6. Listen to a lot of music – musical inspiration is often a residual effect of exposure to other music. Saturate your creative muse with immersion into a wide variety of music, and pay attention to the individual details such as the vocals, drums, and bass. In doing so you will cultivate a deeper intuitive understanding of music, much as a child learns to speak by regular exposure to speech.

    7. Start from the known – creativity is often a matter of slight alterations to common ideas. Learn the signature licks, chord types and sequences, and rhythmic ideas of the masters of your preferred style. Then experiment with alterations until you uncover ideas that express what you wish.

    8. Constantly refine your technique – if you have ever wondered how an accomplished guitarist can play something very simple and yet have it sound very beautiful and powerful, the trick is in the technique. What many experience as a “lack of creativity” is in fact a lack of technique refinement that will make an otherwise great idea sound lifeless or even just plain bad. Technique development is not just a matter of mere repetition. It is essential to pay attention to the quality of sound (a.k.a. “tone”) during technique development practice. Don’t rush through technique exercises with the goal of merely getting them over with as quickly as possible. Listen carefully to the small details. Strive to improve the quality of sound resulting from each pick stroke.

    If you are breathing then you have creative potential. If you cultivate the appropriate knowledge, technique, and persistence then you can be sure that your creative muse will show itself. Get to work!

    Copyright © 2005 Palmetto Music Institute. All Rights Reserved.