From Terry’s
book, Shred
Is Not Dead:
Technical guitar playing is probably 99.9% in the mind. It’s not
really what you practice, it’s how. You must develop your ability to concentrate
to an immense degree. This is easier said than done. Try this exercise within
an exercise:
Take one short lick or sequence… Loop it – play the example over and over again. Don’t think about anything but what you’re playing. Feel the pick hitting the strings. Is it dead on? Are you getting a full sound on every note? Feel the tips of your fretting hand. Are you using just enough of the finger to get a good sound without being inefficient? Are your fingers springing off as quickly as possible without cutting the sound off? Are you lifting them too high? Try to sense all of this at once. Keep going.
During the looping exercise, are you thinking about what happened
in school or work today? Are you wondering what’s for dinner? Are you thinking
about what’s on TV? Are thou thinking about an object that’s iin the room you’re
in or an event that’s happened to you? Most likely, the answer to one or more
of those questions is ‘yes’. Or maybe you were distracted by a sound, like
birds or cars outside your window. The answer to all of these needs to be ‘no’.
You absolutely must concentrate completely on whatever you’re practicing
at a particular time. Essentially you must ‘be’ the exercise. The mind wants to
wander – and certainly will – unless you take control.
[TJH]
From MickeyHart.net:
“The GLOBAL DRUM PROJECT Tour brings Mickey Hart, Zakir Hussain, Sikiru Adepoju, and Giovanni Hidalgo together again in a reunion sparked by the 15th anniversary of the ground-breaking album Planet Drum. Released in 1991 on the Rykodisc label it went on to earn the first-ever Grammy Award in the World Music category. The tour is the group’s first in almost a decade. It also marks the resumption of an artistic relationship – between Mickey Hart and Zakir Hussain – that goes back to the late 1960s.
“For Hart, this reunion is an opportunity to take Planet Drum into new places. "This is a deep drumming groove. We’re taking the archaic rhythm worlds into outer space. Planet Drum explores rhythm and noise…it’s a sound yoga of processed acoustic percussion headed straight for the trance zone that becomes a dance of ancient and modern worlds. Deep drumming is a skeleton key into these realms."
If this kind of stuff gets your juices flowing, take a look at WorkshopLive’s percussion lessons with Kalani. He teaches a variety of hand drums and small percussion instruments. The lessons are designed for intermediate players who want to expand their knowledge of rhythms, styles and instruments.
Tour dates for the Global Drum Project:
I’ve been browsing the Kronosonic resources I downloaded from GtrOblq, and found a few interesting tips for developing precise and clean technique. It’s under the heading “Mr. Clean.” (No author is listed.) Among them:
- “Use a sharp, rigid, thick, small pick – like a Stubby or something similar. These have better ‘memory’ and will have better response. The sharp tip will also reduce the amount of friction and surface area coming in contact with the string – facilitating greater accuracy and speed.” I suspect this is less true for acoustic players, who have a lot more physical mass to move than electric players.
- ‘Plug in your amp and go for the clean channel… Use no effects whatsoever – not even reverb!...Use a moderate amount of volume. Too little volume will result in excessive force ands too much will damage your hearing and not facilitate long enough practice sessions.”
- “Use an ‘economy’ of motion and force. In other words don’t physically play to hard and, conversely, don’t be a wimp either. Use just the amount of energy to get the job done, Most people use way too much force when they play – hacking away.”
- “Relax when you play. Smile (it really does help.)” I can picture Buckethead playing a million notes a minute with a big goofy smile on his face under the mask and KFC bucket.
- “Generally, keep your thumb behind the neck – exceptions are okay but stay cognizant of when you’re being lazy.”
- “Be patient. You’ll get nowhere quickly. Developing technique will take a lot of hard work and dedication… If you persevere through the dry spell you’ll come out sooner or later and you’ll be not just one step past where you were but exponentially beyond what you were able to do, seemingly, just days before.”
[TJH]
Musicians, like athletes, practice a craft that takes a toll on
their bodies and, again like athletes, they don’t like to admit it. A recent
Northwestern University study found that almost all incoming freshman music
majors – freshmen - already have a
playing-related physical ailment. Hearing problems, carpal tunnel syndrome,
tendonitis, shoulder problems from bad playing posture - all are familiar to
players almost regardless of instrument. Throw in years of traveling from one
low-paying gig to another in the back of a van, eating fast food and breathing
second-hand smoke – it’s enough to make you change to a safer job, like
rodeo clown.
Dr. Kris Chesky, a physician with a doctorate in music education, has
developed a specialty in saving musicians from themselves. At the University of
North Texas Center for Music and Medicine, he helps musicians with
playing-related health problems like hearing loss. He's published studies on
the wrist impairments of clarinet players, the painful hands of pianists and
the damaged mouths of trumpeters. And he's using technology to measure the
exact sound levels classical musicians expose themselves to. That’s right –
it’s not just rock players who have decibel excess. College marching bands, for
example, can get awfully loud (and it can’t help that they’re playing marching
band versions of “Louie, Louie”, either.)
For more, here’s an interview with Dr. Chesky from the Dallas
Morning News.
[TJH]
“…Every gig has its own inherent musical challenges. The most important thing is to be able to creatively and artistically have your soul in that musical space at that time. I used to sub in a band on a television show here in New York, the Rosie O’Donnell show. And it may have been at the first gig when the drummer said to me, “Doing this gig is kind of like doing sprints. You have to be totally on, with everything perfect in your musical execution of something, and it could be four seconds long.” And that was the inherent challenge in doing that gig. You might have four of five measures of music, but they had to be a perfect four or five measures of music…”
[TJH]
Success in music takes three things: talent, luck and hard work. The only one you can do anything about is the last one, so work hard, and forget about talent and luck. They'll take care of themselves.
[TJH]
"If you don't have time to practice,then you should get out of the business."
- Jazz pianist BIlly Taylor, quoted in Larry Coryell's Improvising: My Life In Music
[TJH]
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