Quality Practice

[Banter Shack]

Hey folks,

I've heard a lot of influencers in the guitar sphere repeat the phrase "quality over quantity" when talking about practice. Since this is a guitar forum and a lot of you are probably seasoned musicians, I would love to know your thoughts. What exactly constitutes quality practice?

As I'm still a beginner, your advice and suggestions would be massively appreciated. Thanks a lot!

[rick-slo]

Learning to play quality pieces at and slightly above what is comfortable for you gradually being able to handle more difficult pieces. If there are certain parts of those pieces that you stumble over you can consider some exercises covering those areas. Learn pieces well, not half baked.

[srick]

Adam Rafferty just had a great little course on that. Possibly he’s recorded it.

But he advises concentrating on some basic things:

• Warming up properly - use a scale, but play it with feeling.
  
• Rhythm - he does a lot of drum noises and beatboxing to get the rhythm of a piece before even playing.
  
• Getting your thumb in the groove (if you’re fingerpicking) and if you’re not fingerpicking, listening for the bass
  
• Touch and tone - really listening to everything you play

The course was very reasonably priced. His website is http://www.study with Adam.com

You might want to drop him a message and see if he will run the course again. IMO, it was one of the better courses that I have taken since I started playing fifteen years ago.

Best,

Rick

[MThomson]

For me it's about the concept of deliberate practice. This means you have a goal in mind - I want to improve/get better at blah blah blah.

And then you select practice routines that lead to this and while you're practicing, you are critically evaluating the sound you are producing and whether you are achieving your aim. This usually starts with achieving the quality at a slower speed and then building up. Or perfecting a simplified version of the final destination and then building up the complexity.

So a trivial, underthought example might be as follows. If you want to improve your ability to play chords fluently you would contrast quantity vs quality:

Quantity would mean playing lots and lost of chords. But you could still be stopping to change fingers and then starting again and the fluency never developing.

Quality might mean breaking down the chord changes and evaluating how quickly and efficiently you are changing and then drilling this. Once the changes are seamless, you can then incorporate into the pieces you want to play, hopefully with more fluency.

But in all of this my number 1 rule is to make sure that whatever you are doing is fun, or at least you're also making time for having fun with the guitar, because that's what it's all about.

[Andyrondack]

Originally Posted by Banter Shack

Hey folks,

I've heard a lot of influencers in the guitar sphere repeat the phrase "quality over quantity" when talking about practice. Since this is a guitar forum and a lot of you are probably seasoned musicians, I would love to know your thoughts. What exactly constitutes quality practice?

As I'm still a beginner, your advice and suggestions would be massively appreciated. Thanks a lot!

Keep fresh, if you are aware and alert to what you are doing then your brain is making new connections which is a technical way of saying you're actually learning new skills, once you start to play something on 'auto pilot' and think about something else you are not learning to do anything, you'll just be re-enforcing what you already know how to do, great for remembering what you have already learned but not for building on it and moving forward.
Take a look at modern sports training techniques which emphasize practicing skills for short bursts and randomised so the brain stays alert and doesn't just drift onto auto-pilot.
Keep fit, don't sit down practising for too long, get up at regular intervals and exercise.

[Banter Shack]

Thanks a lot for your replies, everyone. You've all given me tonnes to think about here. Truly appreciated.

[rllink]

I've thought about this. I want to learn new things and I want to get better. On the other hand I'm seventy one years old, I don't have a promising future as a guitar player ahead of me. Last year I decided to take some lessons and I was interviewing some potential guitar teachers and a couple of them lectured me about their emphasis on quality learning to maximize my time and make the fastest progress possible. I had to ask myself after talking to them, just where am I going at this fast pace and what do I expect to accomplish in the end. Because I just don't see an end to it all. I just imagined surrendering myself to their disciplined regimen for the rest of my life and being no closer to the finish line at the end. Luckily I found a teacher who told me that learning to play the guitar was a life long endeavor and that we would learn at a comfortable and sustainable pace. It has been a rewarding experience so far.

To the point, after a year quality practice to me is any practice that helps me progress as a guitar player.

[rick-slo]

Originally Posted by rllink

I've thought about this. I want to learn new things and I want to get better. On the other hand I'm seventy one years old, I don't have a promising future as a guitar player ahead of me. Last year I decided to take some lessons and I was interviewing some potential guitar teachers and a couple of them lectured me about their emphasis on quality learning to maximize my time and make the fastest progress possible. I had to ask myself after talking to them, just where am I going at this fast pace and what do I expect to accomplish in the end. Because I just don't see an end to it all. I just imagined surrendering myself to their disciplined regimen for the rest of my life and being no closer to the finish line at the end. Luckily I found a teacher who told me that learning to play the guitar was a life long endeavor and that we would learn at a comfortable and sustainable pace. It has been a rewarding experience so far.

To the point, after a year quality practice to me is any practice that helps me progress as a guitar player.

Find some doable pieces you like and learn to play them well if you can.
Keep up some repertoire. Then you have something. Some people forever
just noodle around with riffs and parts of some songs or tunes and that is
basically it. Avoid that.

[bssongs]

Originally Posted by StevieB86

Hey folks,

I've heard a lot of influencers in the guitar sphere repeat the phrase "quality over quantity" when talking about practice. Since this is a guitar forum and a lot of you are probably seasoned musicians, I would love to know your thoughts. What exactly constitutes quality practice?

As I'm still a beginner, your advice and suggestions would be massively appreciated. Thanks a lot!

There's a lot of great answers here. My main instrument for a long time was Cello. In regards to quality over quantity: If I'm working on a piece of music, quality practice is going measure by measure, zeroing in on the smallest task to complete for example, a single shift in position and working on that at a crawling speed. Focusing at a microscopic level. An hour of that will be better than an hour of just running through the piece, mistakes and all.

With guitar it may be the same thing (a shift) or it could be a picking pattern, string crossing, chord change, etc. Take whatever you're working on, zoom in as far on it as you can, set the metronome to slower than you think and focus as long as you can. It'll do wonders for your playing and your resilience.

Hope that helps!

[Ceabeceabe]

I am currently trying to implement quality practice on my claw hammer banjo techniques; double and drop thumbing, and melodic styles. I have a pretty easy piece to play slow so as to focus on the techniques. Things start out well in the beginning. I am hitting the right string/strings, getting good tone and flow. But if I don’t watch out, soon enough I start to go a bit too fast and every once in a while I am hitting a wrong string or too many strings at once. Then a bit later (and faster) “once in a while” turns into way too often and I can’t tell what song I am playing. So I gotta stop, and refocus. I am gradually speeding up the tempo and getting more things right for longer periods of time…so I feel I am making progress.

[Banter Shack]

Many thanks for your comments, everyone. I wish I could reply to you all individually, but I would be here all day lol. However, the advice you have offered has only strengthened my desire to visit AGF more often and mingle. Thanks again!

[jseth]

Stevie;

There are some great replies on your question, each of them with merit...

However, with you being a beginner, I want to emphasize this aspect of the guitar... it is a LIFELONG journey, no matter where you want to go with it! To that end, EVERYTIME you hold your guitar, you're gaining something with it... familiarity, comfort and feel.

It's just fine to set goals and have a structured approach to learning, however, do not discount what some have referred to as "noodling" - just playing for yourself, having some fun with the instrument (isn't that REALLY one of the main points?), discovering for yourself how bits fit together - it's ALL part of playing the guitar and should not be forgotten or "poo-poo'd" as a waste of time.

Certainly, I've learned a lot from structured practise sessions... but I've learned even more from just "messing around" with this friend of mine, the guitar!

[guit3090]

Lots of great interests here, I am 68 and have been playing since I was 12. You have to have a guitar you are comfortable with. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan
show influenced me. I had been taking viola lessons at the time, A couple of tips, find a playable guitar, that you love. Pick a practice time that is comfortable for you. One thing that always helped me was playing with players better for practice It would take too long playing. with someone else, to take. Many great posts here,

Best, Jim

[Banter Shack]

Thanks for keeping these comments coming in, folks. I truly wish I could reply to every one of you or at least click a "like" button, but neither of those options is feasible. I would just like to say that I'm reading every sentence and your advice is nothing short of sterling. It's much appreciated!

[Cecil6243]

When you're learning a new song don't get caught in the trap of going over and over sections you already know. Work on progressing through the new sections.