Hanson's Art of Solo Fingerpicking....

[EllaMom]

SprintBob, based upon your posts in this thread, I decided to go back to Mark's Contemporary Travis Picking book, and review it, from the beginning. Now I remember why it seemed like I blew through it so fast. There are several pieces, i.e. Sloop John B., John Barleycorn, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, The Water is Wide, and others, where the "assignment" is to play only the harmony, Travis style, but not the melody. So what did you do with these, sing them? I don't sing and don't want to, so I ended up skipping these songs. And there are a lot of them like that. In fact, it looks like Freight Train and Over and Out Rag are the only two that have you playing melody and harmony/bass, right? Or am I missing something?

[Blueser100]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

SprintBob, based upon your posts in this thread, I decided to go back to Mark's Contemporary Travis Picking book, and review it, from the beginning. Now I remember why it seemed like I blew through it so fast. There are several pieces, i.e. Sloop John B., John Barleycorn, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, The Water is Wide, and others, where the "assignment" is to play only the harmony, Travis style, but not the melody. So what did you do with these, sing them? I don't sing and don't want to, so I ended up skipping these songs. And there are a lot of them like that. In fact, it looks like Freight Train and Over and Out Rag are the only two that have you playing melody and harmony/bass, right? Or am I missing something?

I felt the exact same way about the exercises you mentioned. I don't sing either, but I just did those exercises until I felt I had the technique down cold and then I moved on to the more interesting instrumental pieces. I'm revisiting this book now and will focus on getting those instrumental pieces under my hands.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

SprintBob, based upon your posts in this thread, I decided to go back to Mark's Contemporary Travis Picking book, and review it, from the beginning. Now I remember why it seemed like I blew through it so fast. There are several pieces, i.e. Sloop John B., John Barleycorn, Will the Circle Be Unbroken, The Water is Wide, and others, where the "assignment" is to play only the harmony, Travis style, but not the melody. So what did you do with these, sing them? I don't sing and don't want to, so I ended up skipping these songs. And there are a lot of them like that. In fact, it looks like Freight Train and Over and Out Rag are the only two that have you playing melody and harmony/bass, right? Or am I missing something?

Carol,

The Travis Picking book is primarily aimed at teaching the fundamentals of alternating bass fingerstyle technique. It's not really Travis Picking to me because Merle Travis used his thumb and one finger and Mark teaches thumb and three fingers. The point of the book and the course to me is to teach the basic patterns and then introduce the student to a taste of solo fingerstyle playing where you begin to play a melody with the thumb and rhythm parts. So that is why the Travis book is considered for some to be a prerequisite to the Solo Fingerstyle book. That said, there are 3 pieces (Freight Train, Hesistation Blues, and Over and Out Rag) that you would call solo fingerstyle arrangements.

I really felt that doing most of the Travis book prepared me well for the Solo book. I download the audio tracks off the CD's with both books onto my computer and transfer them to my iPad. I'll import the tracks into my iTunes library and then I can import them into the app Amazing Slow Downer where I can speed up or slow down or change the key of the track or song. I don't sing (what a scary thought that is!) so I enjoyed a lot of the Travis picking book playing along to the tracks provided on the audio CD. What's really cool about the tracks on the CD's is that Mark plays them with feeling and dynamics like he would if he were performing the songs to an audience. I find that really helpful to someone like me who has been playing for 4 years. Sometimes for example I tend to play in time but say in "straight eighths" rather than what would sound better with "swing eighths" to give the music some personality and flavor.

With there being so much instructional material out there, it's a double edged sword in that you can be overwhelmed by it all. I'm glad I've stuck it out with Mark's material. He presents it in a way where it does not seem overwhelming but he is clear that it still takes practice, focus, and attention to detail to play the material well. He offers the same advice as someone like Tommy Emmanuel in that you want to consider the guitar to be a singer.

One last tip, I really think recording yourself playing the tracks and pieces is huge as a tool to hear how you are playing and comparing to how it sounds by someone like Mark playing it with a performance feel to it.

Hope this helps in planning your strategy in getting the most from both books. FWIW, you might also want to check out Mark's book Beyond Basics - Fingerstyle which he did before the Travis Picking book. There's some good stuff there and his arrangements of Key to the Kingdom, Canyon Canon, Wheels, and Windows are relatively easy but really nice songs to play. They are solo pieces that stand on their own and I still really enjoy playing them all. Canyon Canon and Key to the Kingdom are two songs he has done on his CD's and in concert.

[EllaMom]

Thanks, SprintBob. I do have Beyond Basics and learned Canyon Canon, Windows and Wheels. I can play all of them easily and by heart now...altho when I say "easily" I still flub at some point every time I play them!

One of my teachers had me working in this book. When I quit going to him, I stopped working in that particular book. Another one to revisit!

On the Travis book. So you play along with Mark's recordings, AFTER slowing them down. To be honest, I will never go thru all the steps you did to get it to the point where it "lives" in a software program that enables it to be slowed down. I'm motivated, but not to do that kind of thing.

I'm glad Mark is working out for you. And I'm glad for what you've shared here, as it has, in turn, helped me.

[SprintBob]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Thanks, SprintBob. I do have Beyond Basics and learned Canyon Canon, Windows and Wheels. I can play all of them easily and by heart now...altho when I say "easily" I still flub at some point every time I play them!


One of my teachers had me working in this book. When I quit going to him, I stopped working in that particular book. Another one to revisit!

On the Travis book. So you play along with Mark's recordings, AFTER slowing them down. To be honest, I will never go thru all the steps you did to get it to the point where it "lives" in a software program that enables it to be slowed down. I'm motivated, but not to do that kind of thing.

I'm glad Mark is working out for you. And I'm glad for what you've shared here, as it has, in turn, helped me.

Carol,

ASD is probably the best $15 app I ever bought. I use it nearly every practice session for both my fingerstyle and flatpicking work. It's also available in a desktop or laptop version. It's not as complicated to use as you think and it's probably my best practice aid. It's got a lot of functionality (slow down and speed up, change pitch/key, isolate sections of a song, looping, etc.). I learned about it listening to a Pete Huttlinger interview (he used it) and after I got it, I found out my brother who has been playing guitar for nearly 50 years uses it.

Cheers,

Bob

[EllaMom]

Thanks, ,SprintBob. I will look into it. The key word you used that motivates me to do so: "easy"! LOL

I particularly like the fact that you can isolate a certain section. That was driving me crazy with Red, White & Blue Rag. I figured out the first page, but the 2nd page was challenging me so I kept replaying the ENTIRE piece just to hear that section. It was annoying and a waste of practice time to listen through the first section.

[tbeltrans]

The software tool I use for slowing down music to learn by ear is Transcribe!.

https://www.seventhstring.com/

One really cool thing it does that I am not sure other software with similar intent will, is the ability to slow down videos too. If you download a Youtube video (or from any other site or rip a DVD), you can slow it down and loop it. The sound stays in sync with the video, and is a GREAT learning tool!

Also, Transcribe! is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. So nobody is left out in the cold on this one.

When learning a tune, whether your own arrangement or from somebody else (a great way to get new ideas...), it is quite normal and advisable to isolate sections to work on. It is quite common to have trouble spots in any piece of music you play, and an expected part of practice is to be isolating these and working on them. The trouble spot can be as small as going from one cord form to the next or it can be a measure or more, or even a whole section of the tune. No matter, take it just the smallest amount you need to.

The general idea is to take the smallest section (even just two notes if necessary) and at the slowest speed necessary to play it cleanly. You are training your body's muscle memory, and you don't want to train it wrong.

David Sudnow, in his piano course, talks about how you need to adhere to two things if you want to learn as fast as possible:

1. Always practice on time.
2. Never make mistakes.

Or, to put it in one easy to remember sentence: Always practice on time, perfectly.

Sudnow goes into a lengthy explanation of how the body knows WHERE something by WHEN it is, using the illustrations of shaking hands with another person or reaching for a glass of water. Your body must know WHERE the other and is or WHERE the glass is by WHEN it is. If you didn't know this, your body would not know where to stop and would injure the other person's hand or knock over the glass.

So getting from one note to another ON TIME is how your body learns the music correctly.

As for the admonition of "don't make mistakes", Sudnow compares that to ironing a shirt. If you are ironing a shirt and you iron in a wrinkle, you are then forever trying to get that wrinkle out. If you took the care to not make the wrinkle in the first place, the shirt would be quickly ironed and done.

He said that the body learns much faster than we realize, and if we make mistakes in our practice, we teaching the body to make those mistakes, and then forever having to be careful every time we come to that troublesome spot.

If, instead, we take it SLOWLY, and do it right every time, no matter how slow we have to do it while learning it, we will have not taught our bodies how to play it wrong.

While what Sudnow said is really the ultimate ideal to aim for, there is a lot to be said for it. He spent years doing all manner of studies on how adults learn, so this isn't something he just made up and decided sounded good. It is the difference between a good performance and a great performance, between struggling with learning and moving always forward toward our goals.

Sudnow also made it clear that this method of practice is counter to how our modern culture operates, with its speed and immediateness and inability to focus on anything for any length of time. He described it as an almost "Zen-like" approach to learning to play an instrument, with a care taking that we will probably have to struggle against ourselves in the beginning to stick with.

Many other musicians have echoed this same idea. I remember an article years ago in Guitar Player, in which the entire article, by Dan Crary, talked about practicing and the idea that "slower is faster".

Anyway, this is something else for all of us to consider, and I a certainly not the "poster boy" for it.

Tony

[EllaMom]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

The software tool I use for slowing down music to learn by ear is Transcribe!.

https://www.seventhstring.com/

One really cool thing it does that I am not sure other software with similar intent will, is the ability to slow down videos too. If you download a Youtube video (or from any other site or rip a DVD), you can slow it down and loop it. The sound stays in sync with the video, and is a GREAT learning tool!

Also, Transcribe! is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. So nobody is left out in the cold on this one.

When learning a tune, whether your own arrangement or from somebody else (a great way to get new ideas...), it is quite normal and advisable to isolate sections to work on. It is quite common to have trouble spots in any piece of music you play, and an expected part of practice is to be isolating these and working on them. The trouble spot can be as small as going from one cord form to the next or it can be a measure or more, or even a whole section of the tune. No matter, take it just the smallest amount you need to.

The general idea is to take the smallest section (even just two notes if necessary) and at the slowest speed necessary to play it cleanly. You are training your body's muscle memory, and you don't want to train it wrong.

David Sudnow, in his piano course, talks about how you need to adhere to two things if you want to learn as fast as possible:

1. Always practice on time.
2. Never make mistakes.

Or, to put it in one easy to remember sentence: Always practice on time, perfectly.

Sudnow goes into a lengthy explanation of how the body knows WHERE something by WHEN it is, using the illustrations of shaking hands with another person or reaching for a glass of water. Your body must know WHERE the other and is or WHERE the glass is by WHEN it is. If you didn't know this, your body would not know where to stop and would injure the other person's hand or knock over the glass.

So getting from one note to another ON TIME is how your body learns the music correctly.

As for the admonition of "don't make mistakes", Sudnow compares that to ironing a shirt. If you are ironing a shirt and you iron in a wrinkle, you are then forever trying to get that wrinkle out. If you took the care to not make the wrinkle in the first place, the shirt would be quickly ironed and done.

He said that the body learns much faster than we realize, and if we make mistakes in our practice, we teaching the body to make those mistakes, and then forever having to be careful every time we come to that troublesome spot.

If, instead, we take it SLOWLY, and do it right every time, no matter how slow we have to do it while learning it, we will have not taught our bodies how to play it wrong.

While what Sudnow said is really the ultimate ideal to aim for, there is a lot to be said for it. He spent years doing all manner of studies on how adults learn, so this isn't something he just made up and decided sounded good. It is the difference between a good performance and a great performance, between struggling with learning and moving always forward toward our goals.

Sudnow also made it clear that this method of practice is counter to how our modern culture operates, with its speed and immediateness and inability to focus on anything for any length of time. He described it as an almost "Zen-like" approach to learning to play an instrument, with a care taking that we will probably have to struggle against ourselves in the beginning to stick with.

Many other musicians have echoed this same idea. I remember an article years ago in Guitar Player, in which the entire article, by Dan Crary, talked about practicing and the idea that "slower is faster".

Anyway, this is something else for all of us to consider, and I a certainly not the "poster boy" for it.

Tony

Well, dang. Time to retool. Again! I can play several songs by heart now, but not cleanly. I guess I need to slow down and play each one, and when I get to sections where I tend to flubb, to stop production and work on those sections until I've them nailed too. An image just flashed into my head about how a movie is made. They don't shoot the whole thing in order. It's shot in sections, out of order, which each section calling for multiple takes. From the actor's perspective, they'd have no clue what the "story" is unless they'd read the entire script first. In our world, reading the entire script would be knowing, or listening to, the entire piece. And then taking it apart, bit by bit, to learn it.

Thanks, Tony!

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by EllaMom

Well, dang. Time to retool. Again! I can play several songs by heart now, but not cleanly. I guess I need to slow down and play each one, and when I get to sections where I tend to flubb, to stop production and work on those sections until I've them nailed too. An image just flashed into my head about how a movie is made. They don't shoot the whole thing in order. It's shot in sections, out of order, which each section calling for multiple takes. From the actor's perspective, they'd have no clue what the "story" is unless they'd read the entire script first. In our world, reading the entire script would be knowing, or listening to, the entire piece. And then taking it apart, bit by bit, to learn it.

Thanks, Tony!

Yes, these ideas definitely put a different spin on things. For one thing, considering this stuff will make us come face to face with what we really want from our involvement with the guitar.

I know plenty of folks who just want to strum "cowboy" chords as simply as possible to accompany their singing. There is a lot to be said for that. I could spend WEEKS perfecting an instrumental solo, and the person strumming the cowboy chords with SINGING will garner the attention of an audience, where I won't. I am sure the person playing cowboy chords and singing is just as happy doing that in his or her living alone as I am doing my thing. So one approach is certainly not better than another.

There is a book I have read and reread by George Leonard called "Mastery". George Leonard was an editor for Look magazine and had an Aikido school. He wrote an article about having a practice "on th path to mastery" in that magazine, and it apparently got a lot of response from readers interested in more information, so he wrote the book. It is a fairly short read, but quite powerful in its message.

Essentially, the message is that having something you pursue for the journey, rather than the destination (i.e. the path to "mastery") adds a deep richness to our lives, especially in an age where we are becoming increasingly distracted.

Anyway, there is one part in the book where he talks about how it is "on the mat" that we come face to face with our true motivations for doing a thing. We may decide that the thing is not what we really wanted to do and it may be time to try something else. It could be a time to reassess our attitude toward the thing we are practicing and get back on track. It may be that we are doing fine and we just keep on with it.

Being confronted with the idea of practicing "on time, perfectly", if we do seriously stop to consider it, could well be that time when we coe face to face with ourselves "on the mat" (i.e. with our guitar practice).

When I post something like this, I am reminding myself as much as providing others something to think about.

By the way, I jst finished writing out my initial arrangement of "When You Wish Upon A Star".

Tony

[stanron]

Originally Posted by tbeltrans

David Sudnow, in his piano course, talks about how you need to adhere to two things if you want to learn as fast as possible:

1. Always practice on time.
2. Never make mistakes.

Or, to put it in one easy to remember sentence: Always practice on time, perfectly.

There is an exception to this rule. This rule is for the first steps of learning, where you are developing what can be called 'muscle memory'. Your hands will automatically learn anything you repeat, so if you repeat a mistake your hands will learn that mistake and it will become automatic. It's not the end of the world, you just repeat that bit without the mistake more times. It's not the end of the world but it does mean a lot more work and can lead to loss of incentive.

The exception to this rule is 'Performance Practice'. When you are performing, the opposite to this rule pertains. When you perform you must never stop because of a mistake. You keep going as if no mistake has happened and the more experienced you are, the less likely an audience is to spot the mistake.

In order to get from the position of home student to public performer it is a good idea to practice performing. Tuning in advance, no crib sheets, perhaps standing with a strap and having your back to any equipment and facing an imaginary audience. This is a good way to practice those pieces you have already learned. Make set lists of them and try them out. Use of capos and altered tunings can mean changes to set lists for smoother delivery. Tempo changes need to be considered as well. As with other areas of playing, practice can lead to improvement. Preparation pays.

This is not to say that 'slower until correct' and 'stop at any mistake' is wrong. It is best practice for the first stages of learning, but after that different rules can apply.

[SprintBob]

Good advice Stanron, I am trying to do this every day with the music I am working on whether playing a song in its entirety or a section of the song I am working on. It's a confidence builder too.

[tbeltrans]

Originally Posted by stanron

There is an exception to this rule. This rule is for the first steps of learning, where you are developing what can be called 'muscle memory'. Your hands will automatically learn anything you repeat, so if you repeat a mistake your hands will learn that mistake and it will become automatic. It's not the end of the world, you just repeat that bit without the mistake more times. It's not the end of the world but it does mean a lot more work and can lead to loss of incentive.

The exception to this rule is 'Performance Practice'. When you are performing, the opposite to this rule pertains. When you perform you must never stop because of a mistake. You keep going as if no mistake has happened and the more experienced you are, the less likely an audience is to spot the mistake.

In order to get from the position of home student to public performer it is a good idea to practice performing. Tuning in advance, no crib sheets, perhaps standing with a strap and having your back to any equipment and facing an imaginary audience. This is a good way to practice those pieces you have already learned. Make set lists of them and try them out. Use of capos and altered tunings can mean changes to set lists for smoother delivery. Tempo changes need to be considered as well. As with other areas of playing, practice can lead to improvement. Preparation pays.

This is not to say that 'slower until correct' and 'stop at any mistake' is wrong. It is best practice for the first stages of learning, but after that different rules can apply.

True. I posted on this somewhere around here just yesterday, differentiating between the "practice room" and preparing to perform. My comments here were about the "practice room" and not performing. Having done a lot of performing, I can safely sa that the skill of smoothly recovering from a mistake is a skill one MUST develop.

As I said in my post (though not the part you quoted), this form of practice is the ultimate ideal. I meant that as humans, we are always prone to make a mistake somewhere. It is quite rare to play something all the way through without mistakes. I suppose that is the problem with taking a part of a post to quote and leaving out the rest. We lost context and then the follow up comments only have that information to consider unless they go back to the original post.

Tony

[reeve21]

Tony,

Thank you for the reminder to slow down. I have a couple of pieces that I can almost play at something close to performance speed. I've been stumbling along on them for weeks. I made more progress in one evening playing them very slowly with the metronome than I have in a long time!

[Cameron_Talley]

Slowing down is something I have problems with, too. It's pretty easy to go fast on a simple Travis pattern--and then when you get to the more complex stuff it breaks down.

I'm working on the Travis picking book, myself. I scanned the whole thing and put it on my iPad. I'm currently working on the Ring-Finger variations. (About the middle of the book I think?)

[TBman]

Ahh, Good Time Blues....

At the time I bought Art of Solo I wasn't into the blues. I was just practicing Red White and Blue, then some Freight Train from the Contemporary book and then when I went back to Art of Solo I noticed Good Time Blues. I have the cd on my computer so I listened.... Hey I like it. A good slow tune to get under my belt.