Forging ahead
Many great articles have been written on the subject of practice. This is my tilt on practice as it’s something I get asked about quite frequently.
I’m one of those musicians that other musicians often love to hate. Why? because I’m what has been termed as “a natural musician”. It is a real term. Look it up. This type of musician has an uncanny ability to consistantly play well with little or no practice. Or so it would seem.
Truth be known, it’s not a great position to be in, as the temptation to get too comfortable and just ride your “natural ability” can seriously affect your musical growth and developement over time. Personally, I chose to work at it, regardless of my inherant ability to play the instrument, and push myself to be the best guitarist/ musician that I can be.
Most of my growth as a guitar player has come through the many varied musical projects I have been involved with over the last 30 years. I made it my business to only get involved with things that were going to teach me something new. I seldom took a step backwards. It had to challenge what I already knew and push me to the limits and even beyond my abilities at the time. Basically I looked for the “sink or swim” stuations.
I never had a regular practice regime that I followed religiously. It always revolved purely around whatever project I was involved in at the time. Currently, Inner Secrets, The Santana Show. I had been listening to Santana for years already, but I hadn’t “LISTENED” to him. That was first cab off the rank as it were. Days on end of listening to him day in, day out, and absorbing his style. Finding his signature licks. All guitarists have them. Getting to know him personally by watching interviews and reading articles. Know the man, and you’ll get an idea of where he’s at with his guitar. I know it sounds more like I’m plotting an assassination attempt, but this is how I do it.
After that, I needed to put him in his musical context. Time to start studying Latin and African music in general. Fortunately I have Latino musicians in the band, and from that I have been able to gain a fountain of knowledge on the genre.
Why do I do all this when I can just learn it all parrot fashion and be done with it? Because this project, like others I have done has to be mine, and in order to make the music mine I have to first understand it. The end result, hopefully, is that your average Santana fan get’s a rendition of Santana that as far as he or she is concerned is spot on. But to those more astute listeners, it will be more than that. They will clearly hear ME all over it.
So for me personally, my practice schedule is about 2 weeks of me being left alone to study the part as it were before I even pick up a guitar and start playing with it. Then I’m just working on anything remotely tricky that I need to get my fingers around. If I find a new scale that I haven’t really used before, I’ll study it a bit so I can call on it again in the future at will. Thus adding to my musical vocabulary.
This is how I’ve been doing it for 30 years. Having listened to an old desk tape of me from about 20 years ago, it has paid off. I barely even recognise that old tape as me anymore. This is how I check my personal progress. Listening to old tapes.
We are all different, and have different learning patterns, abilities, requirements, and more importantly, desires. This is just mine. It’s all I need and I’ve been happy with the result. If I do a Steve Vai show next year, it might take three weeks instead of two.
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