A column on practicing

[Carey]

I've found a number of useful ideas in this article, particularly doing more
random practice (though with some overall focus), and less repetition at one time. YMMV..

https://www.violinist.com/blog/laurie/20146/15906/

[p^h]

Great article with lots to think about! Thanks for posting.

[TBman]

Interesting stuff, thanks.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Hi Carey,
Thanks for that very thought provoking article! I thought the bit about the metronome was quite interesting. Practicing with a metronome is almost unavoidable, but I do find it does make things harder in many ways.

[Carey]

Ok Andre- you made me pull the metronome out of the drawer and put it back on my music stand, at least.

From the article : “A different part of your brain is activated when you’re using a metronome, than when you’re not. There are fundamentally different brain activations going on.”

So that might be why my hands feel like they've switched places when I turn
the thing on? I'll give it another go this afternoon.

[guitargyro]

That article has a many ideas I’ve been using lately. Coming off of a slight injury from overplaying (after a year+ of almost no playing during Covid), I’ve struggled with not being able to play as much as I want to.

But my teacher was already telling me that it’s not about how much you practice, but how well.

Metronomes can be tricky to use in this way because they tend to bend your playing to either playing way UNDER your ability, or way ABOVE. At first I disagreed because I always used them as a way of forcing myself to play SLOWLY and without any mistakes. However my teacher insisted that that’s almost as bad because you are playing the parts you can play faster, slower, and the parts you need to focus on too fast.

I’m still getting used to this approach. On classical, for me it can be difficult to work out fingerings that you like without a somewhat destructive “programming” in of mistakes, if that makes sense. Once you settle in on a way that works, you’ve played 10 that didn’t and that now seem to want to reimpose themselves on you.

But the most useful insight really has just been to strive for being more mindful in my practice. Making NO mistakes, even if it means slowing down to a snails pace is a discipline in itself. But I do believe that my old way of relying on 1000 repetitions merely results in programming in around 300 incorrect muscle memories that then need to be deprogrammed.

Marcin Dylla has made a huge point of not using a metronome in many interviews. Which has definitely made an impression on me. I really like using one to play scales. But only because I have a routine of consistently changing the rhythm groupings instead of speeding up tempos. Basically going: 8th, triplet, 16th, quintuplet, sextuplet, septuplet, 32nd, nontuplet, etc… it’s a lot of fun and I feel it has helped my rhythm sense substantially.

But I’m definitely going to try breaking up my routine as the article suggests. Sounds interesting.

[Gtrfinger]

I love articles like this, and books on guitar related pedagogy in general. Many thanks to the OP.

[marciero]

Interesting article, much of it not surprising.

Regarding metronomes- The article says that the metronome is an outside stimulus, and practicing with it *may* not help you when the metronome is off. That wording suggests that they are basing this on the fact that they see different parts of the brain that are activated, rather than, say, evidence from a study. In other words it *may or may not* help. It is also true that other musicians are metronome- like in that they are outside stimuli. It would seem likely that practicing with a metronome might improve ones ability to play well with others. In my experience players who play exclusively by themselves have difficulty with timing and rhythm when playing with others. The thing about playing the off beats being "strangely difficult" is also puzzling as this is a standard exercise. And if you play jazz or swing this is in fact the default -most natural setting.

One thing I do with a metronome that is difficult to practice in a solo situation is playing slightly behind, ahead of, or right on top of the beat. I can see where a solo performer would have less use for this type of thing as it only makes sense within a group rhythmic context.

There are a whole series of hand clap metronome exercises. The simplest is setting it to 1,2,3,4 and clapping on the "and" of every beat. If you ask a random person to do this even at a slow tempo it is almost guaranteed that they will gravitate to on the beat. It's totally a mental thing. Its more difficult to sustain it at fast tempos. I can clap faster than the tempo that at which I can do this.