How do you practice new material

[pegleghowell]

In slow motion,,,as slow as I can possibly play and have it still sound like a tune.

[NormanKliman]

Originally Posted by jwellsy

...Is there any PC software that slows & loops songs?

Audacity for audio and VLC for video. Both are free. If you’re asking because you really don’t know, you’re in for a nice surprise! VLC isn't very user friendly, but slowing and looping are very quick and easy once you know how.

Derek wrote:

“Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.” One can underestimate how much practice learning some new skill on a
guitar can take (on the other hand some overestimate it such as "learning barre chords takes years"). You may see another guitarist whiz through
learning some new tune (where practically the only task is to commit it to memory), but that's mainly because the skills required by the new tune
have already been learned in the past.

Yeah, I was going to say in my post, "Spend time learning to do it right, then spend time learning what you can get away with." I do think it can take a few years, though, to develop the muscles needed for some techniques.

pegleghowell wrote:

In slow motion,,,as slow as I can possibly play and have it still sound like a tune.

That's good advice, but then you have to deal with a whole different set of circumstances when you speed it up, right?

[Deliberate1]

Originally Posted by NormanKliman

If you still can’t play the change smoothly, it often helps to have a look at the last note of the first chord and the first note of the second chord, to see if you’re actually trying to do something unreasonable there, like using the same finger on different strings. In that case, just change one of the two notes to make it flow. Open strings can be useful like that.

Norman, I have read this passage and remain confused by the references to “first” and “last” notes. Are you suggesting that I look to find alternative fingerings for the same chords “to make it flow”? That is, to establish an easier transition?
Cheers
David

[NormanKliman]

Hi David,

Sorry, I’ll try to explain. Look for the exact moment of the chord change and consider what’s happening before and after that moment. If there are four beats to each chord, that moment would be between the last note within beat four and the first note at beat one. If there’s something irreconcilable on either side of that moment, change one or more of the notes (not the fingering but the notes themselves) to smooth it out.

Here’s an example, from 0:40 to 0:41 of Paco de Lucía’s zapateado “Percusión flamenca.” Slow down the YouTube video to catch all the details. If you don’t know how to do that, just let me know and I can try to upload a slowed version of the audio. He's playing with a capo at the first fret, but I think the recording has been sped up just a bit because you'll have to capo at the second fret to match the pitch.

The YouTube video:


A transcription: http://canteytoque.es/PacoZapateado.png

As you’ll see in the transcription, he arpeggiates a plain old D chord with an alternating bass and changes to a barred C at the eighth fret. For the last two notes of the arpeggiated D chord, he swaps the chord tones for the open second and third strings in order to free his left hand so he can move it up to barre at the eighth fret. This little detail goes by in a flash and nobody notices the open strings, and it also helps that they don’t sound too dissonant at that point in the piece.

In this case, any guitarist is going to realize immediately that you can’t jump from the first-position D chord to the barred C and make it sound smooth, so this example isn't a particularly good one. I say this because sometimes the same principle is involved when there’s not a huge fretboard leap that makes the transition so obviously unviable. Like I said upthread, when the two chords are within a reasonable distance and you still can’t make it smooth, sometimes it’s because you’re unintentionally trying to do something else that’s unviable, like using the same finger at two very different parts of the fretboard. I can’t think of an example of that right now, but I’ll probably notice something during my evening playing in the next few days, and I’ll post it here if necessary.

Hope you see what I mean. Just let me know if it’s not clear or if you have problems with the video and/or transcription.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by Deliberate1

Friends, I am a couple years into my guitar experience and am just having the best time thinking of a song, finding the chords on line, and then having at it.
I find new material to be a great teacher, or at least opportunity to expand my boundaries in a much more pleasurable way than drills.

Hi David
I find new material fun to pursue as well.

If it's a fingerstyle solo piece, I'll approach it differently than something I'm doing for the Worship Team at church.

But both are brain-stretching at times, and I appreciate the challenge.

[soma5]

In first position, it is possible to see the D and Bm7 as differing in only one fingered note. You can play the D as 23200x (treble to bass) and the Bm7 as 232x2x where x means don't play or mute. It is easier if you play the D with your middle, ring and pinky fingers so you can use the index to finger the B on the A string second fret.

Just another way of thinking about this particular chord change, and making it easier to do quickly.

[jeanray1113]

I’ve been working on Mark Hanson’s arrangement of In the Mood for a long time. When I first started trying to learn it, it was way above my skill level. At times, I wouldn’t work on it for weeks or months. Then I started working on it in earnest. Last year I was really close to it being performance ready when I fell and fractured my humerus. It was months before I could play again. To my surprise, whenI got back to the guitar, I hadn’t lost nearly as much as I feared I would have on this piece. It has taught me so much. Breaking it down into bite-size chunks and playing those sections— sometimes just a measure or two- over and over. Paying attention to exactly what is required to master a difficult chord change- efficiency of movement, altering posture to make a difficult stretch easier. I’m planning to perform it at the student concert at music camp this summer— assuming we will HAVE music camp.

[Deliberate1]

Friends, once again, I am obliged for all the generous advice.
David

[Gordon Currie]

I devised a method that works for me 45 years ago:
1. Break it into manageable chunks
2. Play it slow (25% of tempo) at first and only speed it up when I am good at a lower speed
3. Use a metronome.
4. Don't ever make the same mistake twice without addressing it.

#4 ended up being the most important to me.
I have a working theory that our minds will 'record' everything we do more than once, and begin to form a habit.

A mistake (or other unwanted sound) that happens twice is *this* close to becoming ingrained. (I call them 'red flags.')
At least for me, eliminating bad habits is truly difficult and a waste of time compared to never developing the habit at all.

[TBman]

Tonight I wanted to start learning Dust In The Wind so I put the tab into GuitarPro so I could learn it and play along. I dropped the tempo to 40bpm to start and I'm going to keep there and then move up after I learn certain sections better, which might need 30bpm for a night or two. I haven't played in standard for a while and using so many fingers at once is going to take a bit to get under control,