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Old 07-26-2020, 09:03 PM
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Default Playing instead of just practicing

I started playing through 4 tunes the last few days, while working on a tough stretch in one of the tunes. I knew I would pop a tendon if I just worked on that stretch and nothing else so I used the 3 other tunes as an extended warm-up before hitting the tough one. In the past I almost always concentrated on just 1 tune and then played 1 or 2 once in a while during the week to break things up.

Tonight I added two more that I had learned in the past and I'm going to re-acquaint myself with them. Everything is in CGDGAD right now, later I'll get out 2 more guitars, one in DADGAD and one in Orkney and have some nights when I just play in one or both of those tunings, going over stuff I had learned and forgotten.

I'm enjoying my playing much more doing this. This reminds me of when I was a 20 something sitting there with those big books that Neil Young, the Beatles and Led Zep had out and playing through all the tunes I knew. I ended up memorizing a few tunes that way, I'm wondering if this will kick start some of my gray matter

If something gets good enough to record, I'll do it, but I'm shifting my goals a bit away from trying to achieve that "perfect" recording and just concentrate on the enjoyment of playing.
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Old 07-26-2020, 11:09 PM
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Once I get a tune roughed out I usually play it though from then on. For awhile I may play a section over again and do another section and go back into the the other section again. Did that make sense? Since I'm not performing I've got into some bad habits where I'll play a song three times through or something. I don't need anymore material but I keep running into things I want to research and now I have to many tunes again. Sometimes I chuck the learning and play what i call a set. But then after about a half hour or forty five minutes I feel like a break. I kind of section off my playing where I'm either working on things or just playing tunes.
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Old 07-27-2020, 04:34 AM
NormanKliman NormanKliman is offline
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I’ve found that going over new material very slowly for the first hour or so of my playing time provides my hands with an excellent low-impact workout. I’ve always had plenty of specific execises for developing technique and for warming up, but, because I know the exercises forward and backward, I tend to play them at performance speed until they start sounding better. When I do that, sometimes my hands are too tired and sore to go on, but when I play slowly for that first hour, without any regard for rhythm or tempo, my hands are in better shape to continue playing.

Ideally, I’d always spend an hour playing slowly like that whenever I pick up the guitar, but I don’t think that kind of patience is normal.
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Old 07-27-2020, 07:59 AM
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Recently, I had a small gig of playing background music (my own instrumentals) on a tour boat sunset cruise....90 minutes.
Since I could pick my date for this, I opted to delay for a bit and use the time to bring a set list into place of my original tunes as a way to refresh my material and get it "performance ready" . In the end I picked about 25 of my songs in three different tunings which equated to about 30 minutes each to fulfill the approx 90 minutes. While I knew one guitar would be used, my Bourgeois, I kept several of my guitars in these tunings and ran through the set list and updated and even re-learned some of my stuff. A good exercise.....helped me broaden things after working through just a few new ones in recent months. I need to do that more often!! LOL!
A goal for the winter months might be to record, or re-record some of these tunes with different guitars other than the original they were played on.....we'll see....something to think about.
The gig went great, after some initial "horror" of the crew not being able to get power to the outlet we'd planned on for my acoustic amp....we got that fixed. Folks were split between enjoying the background music while we cruised the sites and caught a beautiful rainbow over Newport, while others were intent on asking questions about my background, the music/guitar and focused on the actual content. Fun and rewarding experience!
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Old 07-27-2020, 01:44 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TBman View Post
I started playing through 4 tunes the last few days...In the past I almost always concentrated on just 1 tune and then played 1 or 2 once in a while during the week to break things up...

Tonight I added two more that I had learned in the past and I'm going to re-acquaint myself with them...

I'm enjoying my playing much more doing this...

If something gets good enough to record, I'll do it, but I'm shifting my goals a bit away from trying to achieve that "perfect" recording and just concentrate on the enjoyment of playing.
This is the way I play/practice nowadays. I enjoy just playing my music and focusing more on rhythm and tone (enjoyment first, I'm never going to be great). My overall playing has actually improved considerably by not OCDing on perfection (which I personally will never come close to). I will focus specifically on a piece or two when I'm ready to record.
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Old 07-27-2020, 01:51 PM
MartinGibsonFan MartinGibsonFan is offline
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I think there is a middle ground, that I like, between playing and practicing and that's experimenting.

J
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Old 07-27-2020, 02:32 PM
stanron stanron is offline
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You can look at 'playing' as part of a comprehensive practice schedule. It's essential, if you want to perform, to practice 'performing'. It's a different mindset from learning a piece. Part of a learning process is to not continue past a mistake. When performing you never stop for a mistake, you carry on as if a mistake was never made. You may sit to practice but stand to perform. A performance might require capo changes and or tuning changes. These go a lot better if they are sorted out in advance.

I know not everybody wants to perform but recording is a form of performance and presents the same or similar conditions. All in all it's a very good idea.
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Old 07-27-2020, 06:50 PM
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I added a standard tuning piece tonight and broke out the J-45. Gotta change the strings though,
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Old 07-30-2020, 01:58 PM
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Interesting Barry, I did the same thing this morning. I've been more focused on learning Ed Gerhard's arrangement of The Water is Wide so it get's a lot of my time. This morning, I got up and wanted to get 45-60 minutes in before going into my office. WIW is in dropped D so I grabbed my new to me Emerald X-20 and tuned it to DADGAD and just played through 5 other DADGAD songs I've learned in the past and while not perfect, it was sure enjoyable. At lunch, I took a 30 minute break and played through WIW on the Dropped D tuned guitar. I need to do more of this for some mental breaks and diversity.
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Old 08-01-2020, 10:30 AM
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Can you define practicing? To me playing is practicing. Some people consider playing songs as something else.
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Old 08-01-2020, 11:10 AM
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Originally Posted by rllink View Post
Can you define practicing? To me playing is practicing. Some people consider playing songs as something else.
Playing the same sections of a tune, over and over and working on technique drills. Etc.
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Old 08-02-2020, 07:24 PM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by rllink View Post
Can you define practicing? To me playing is practicing. Some people consider playing songs as something else.
Most good players challenge themselves with tunes that are not easy to play. This is one way to become a fine player. In doing so, portions of the tune is challenging and needs more practice than other parts of the tune. Timing needs to be worked out. Chords need to be worked out. Technique and fingering needs to be worked out.

Take skiing for instance.... There are beginner trails and expert trails. You have to ski the hardest portions of the beginner trails before you can advance to the intermediate trails. Some skiers never get to the expert trails unless they work hard and 'practice' the beginner and intermediate trails.

Are there tunes that you play that challenge you.?? If the answer is no, there's nothing wrong with that. But, you'll always be a beginner or an intermediate player if you don't challenge yourself with 'expert' tunes. Once you find a challenge on the fretboard, you'll need to focus on that challenge specifically. You'll need to practice one or 2 barres at a time before it all comes together as ….. One piece.
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Old 08-03-2020, 03:48 PM
MartinGibsonFan MartinGibsonFan is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TBman View Post
Playing the same sections of a tune, over and over and working on technique drills. Etc.
I call that Noodling



J
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Old 08-03-2020, 03:51 PM
MartinGibsonFan MartinGibsonFan is offline
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I define practicing as ' THINKING ' while you are playing.

Thinking about why I didn't pull off that Pentatonic Scale cleanly.

Thinking about why I didn't play that major scale correctly.

Thinking about another chord shape that defines the same chord you are playing.

Thinking about another note that is the same pitch as the current one you are playing somewhere different on the neck.

Practicing to me means, thinking about ' WHAT IF ' while you are playing or while you are pausing.

Practicing means thinking to me.

J
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Old 08-03-2020, 04:48 PM
MartinGibsonFan MartinGibsonFan is offline
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As a side note, not being a performer or having a captivated audience, I RARELY play.

If I'm not sitting in a church pew playing Amazing Grace or impressing my groupies with Eric Clapton, I'm probably Noodling or Practicing.



J
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