Playing instead of just practicing

[Lamenramen]

All the people I am impressed with on the record seem to say that they practiced a lot but did not do a bunch of scales or technique exercises. They advise to learn to play songs you really enjoy and just keep putting in the time and it will work out.

There is this undercurrent if they just love guitar and they just play whatever song that makes them happy or piques their interest.

And often they do it by ear or these days YouTube video and in doing so get ear training, perhaps a few ideas about fingerings and technique from their heroes and get better.

Then after years of practicing for hours a day (In total likely way more than the 10000 hour mark) due to the love of the guitar they got really really good.

This path is not the way I had imagined to successI had thought that the best way is to focus on technique through scales, efficiently learning Fingerstyle patterns, theory, and analyzing why I can’t play something like people do their golf swing. It’s sort of a deconstructionist or reductionist methodology. There are books and tutorials and topics of the week and newsletters, and formulas for how to practice each month by month and goal posts that move.

I have thrown all of that out now. I have been focusing on learning songs by artists I admire. Learning the song is a joy and motivation to keep going. I have noticed that I have gotten better and inevitably these songs (Fingerstyle) have Various new fingerings and stretches and barre shapes that I have not over analyzed or labeled as advanced or above my grade I just looked at them as something I have to do in order to play that nice sounding part and i kept plugging away at it and in sort of in a karate kid way made me noticeably better and more advanced than I had realized. Without a huge plan or the latest in human performance optimizations.

I am much happier this way and I am suspecting that this path that my new philosophy has put me on may actually end up getting me to my desired skill level faster.

[rllink]

I'm not sure, but I might have been practicing this week, interspersed with playing. It seems different.

[raysachs]

The only time I feel like I'm "practicing" is when I'm learning a new finger style piece. I have to learn each section by running through a few million times (maybe not QUITE that many) until it becomes automatic and I don't have to think about it. That's purely practice, no other way to describe it. But once I've learned something, I just PLAY it. I don't play out, I don't perform for anyone but myself and occasionally if some family is in the house and they hear it and come check out what I'm doing. Obviously I have to play each piece fairly regularly or I start to get really rusty at it, so you could call that practice, but to me it's just playing. Basically, once I know the parts and have stitched them together and can play the whole thing through, then it's all just playing to me.

And the other things I do on a guitar is always playing. I strum and "sing" a lot, although singing is not really the word for the sounds that come out of my mouth. But I just pull up a song with it's chords and play it. I generally play it better after I've done it several times and gotten a better feel for it. But I wouldn't even try to play a song if I didn't basically know how it should sound, and then it's just a matter of finding the best way for ME to play it. And from the first time through it, I'm playing, not practicing. If some chord or chord sequence is tripping me up, I might find several songs with that chord/sequence in them and play them a lot. You could call that practice, but I just call it playing.

And on electric, everything I do is playing. I might be recording a song, in which case I'm playing parts on different tracks. Or I might just be messing around, playing rhythms until I come up with something I like, play it into a looper for 2-3 measures, and then play leads along with it until I start repeating / boring myself, and then I find another rhythm, loop it, play to it, rinse and repeat.

Everything is playing except the process of learning a fingerstyle piece, which can definitely be practicing.

-Ray

[EZYPIKINS]

Every time is practicing. Even when playing for money. Everything you do is a learning experience. What to do. What not to do.

[jseth]

I frequently wonder if all the folks who are practicing so industriously remember "Why?" they practice...

It's for THE BIG GAME, folks... it's so you can PLAY...

I will nearly always opt for playing time versus practice...

[rllink]

Originally Posted by jseth

I frequently wonder if all the folks who are practicing so industriously remember "Why?" they practice...

It's for THE BIG GAME, folks... it's so you can PLAY...

I will nearly always opt for playing time versus practice...

If they knew why in the first place. Often times you ask someone what their end goal is they can't tell you. Maybe they saw someone on TV or YouTube and they have some vague desire to be like him or her, but they don't sing, or they don't want to play with or in front of anyone. So they try to find direction by playing random scales and doing random exercises.

I see that a lot more in ukulele players than I have in guitar players, but I have still run into it in the guitar world too. I'm all for practice in that sense, but I gotta know it is taking me where I'm trying to go before I can really get into it.

[jseth]

Originally Posted by rllink

If they knew why in the first place. Often times you ask someone what their end goal is they can't tell you. Maybe they saw someone on TV or YouTube and they have some vague desire to be like him or her, but they don't sing, or they don't want to play with or in front of anyone. So they try to find direction by playing random scales and doing random exercises.

I see that a lot more in ukulele players than I have in guitar players, but I have still run into it in the guitar world too. I'm all for practice in that sense, but I gotta know it is taking me where I'm trying to go before I can really get into it.

Don't get me wrong - I've put in my fair share of studying and playing scales, arpeggios, etc... and working with a metronome, especially at a PAINFULLY SLOW rate, has been incredibly valuable for me as a player...

I certainly always had "playing" firmly in my vision... and did all that work to enable myself to be able to play the sounds I hear inside my head...

Playing and sounding LIKE ME has been the goal for quite a while now... much as I love many other guitarists (and saxophonists and pianists, etc...), I've never wanted to "sound like THAT..." - always wanted to find the way to sound like me...

[rllink]

Originally Posted by jseth

Don't get me wrong - I've put in my fair share of studying and playing scales, arpeggios, etc... and working with a metronome, especially at a PAINFULLY SLOW rate, has been incredibly valuable for me as a player...

I certainly always had "playing" firmly in my vision... and did all that work to enable myself to be able to play the sounds I hear inside my head...

Playing and sounding LIKE ME has been the goal for quite a while now... much as I love many other guitarists (and saxophonists and pianists, etc...), I've never wanted to "sound like THAT..." - always wanted to find the way to sound like me...

I think that is a healthy and helpful approach to it. Several years ago I took singing lessons. The teacher asked me what my goal was. I told him that i just wanted to sing well enough to not embarrass myself. So six lessons later he told me to go forth and sing, come back if I thought I needed some more lessons. There was a lady, a beautiful singer, who had been taking lessons for eight years. I asked the teacher why I only needed six lessons but she had been there eight years. He said, "Because you want to sing like you and she wants to sing like someone else." That sort of goes with what you are saying and doing, work on being yourself.

[MartinGibsonFan]

For me, transitioning from practicing to playing was an A HA moment.

For some, it could be that A HA moment, to realize, you just need to play and think less about practicing.

Don't get me wrong, practicing is important, but playing is more important.

I think I have about a 10% to 90% mix of practice vs play

MGF