Sorry, it’s a long post... Just thought I'd share. I have a lot more thoughts on this, I will add them to the thread later... I thought I might include a photo of my 'practice journal'. lol Enjoy... hahaha

I have been a hardcore practicer for a very long time. I’ve always done well, and generally excel at whatever I pursue. Music, work, sports, whatever. But, since tackling the Chapman Stick it dawned on me that there might be some issues with 1) How I practice, and 2) How I learn. You know, I am spending hours at something, but none of it really “sticking”. Not like it should. Why? And yeah, I might seem like I am super hard on myself but I am not. I just like to do things efficiently, and I really don’t want to wait until I am 60 years old to play the music I hear. I mean, I learned “Eruption” when I was 7 years old on a bat of a home made instrument tuned CGCGCG. No guitar teachers, just the record and a thumb to slow it down. Now that I am 43, and I have all kinds of other experience, plus access to teachers and information I should be able to just jump on this thing. Hell, I already tap, even...

I think that this whole ‘practice maniac’ thing hit me in music school. You had this crazy workload, tons of ear-training and theory stuff, heaps of reading, sight-singing arrangements, ensemble practice and listening to do. Hours of practice = success. More hours = more success. Or so I thought...

But now, many years later I feel like it doesn’t work; and my current ability to play on the Stick is a perfect example of WHY my approach to practicing has been flawed. Not just on Stick, but with all the instruments I play, particularly guitar. Guitar is quite a wild ride, I’ll tell you about it sometime...

They teach you a lot of things at a music school, but they really don’t talk about how to practice. Oh sure, it’s touched on and discussed from time to time (“Mister Kerr, you NEED to spend more time on your chord solo...”) but there is really not a lot of thought put into efficient presentation and assimilation of material. And I have been to, taught at, and been taught in several conservatories since that schooling and the attitude is the same. People toiling away at all hours of the day, a slave to their “practice routine”.

So just so you know, I am a huge fan of Troy Grady’s “Cracking The Code” Series, and his latest bit on effective practicing and motor-learning coincides with some of my own, ummm research...? Also, a really good book called “The Talent Code” and a great website “Bulletproof Musician.com”.

So ,as you can imagine, in my ‘routine’ there are a LOT of scales, and arpeggios, and sequences of scales and chords, and left hand vs right hand stuff, plus tunes, some jamming and it makes for a pretty arduous evening. 2+ hours a night Mon-Thurs. Fri= 6 or so hours, and Sat-Sun = 10-20 hours. Plus Lessons with Steve A. and some jamming.

And that is a schedule I have been keeping pretty consistently from pretty much the beginning. I decided, though that 2016 is my “restart” year. I have a busy work schedule, plus I wanted to get a handle on what works for me so I to a hiatus from my Stick lessons temporarily. The good news is that Steve Adelson gave me a lot of information that I am still going through that should tide me over until I am ready to resume. Besides, I told myself that I felt like I just hadn’t really had enough time to digest the material...

So, fast-forward to the last week of December. I thought it might be fun to take a look/listen to my practice routine. So I videotaped it for 1 week straight. Then I didn’t even watch it for a week. But when I DID get around to watching it...

I was absolutely horrified. With scalar stuff, I would just rattle off repetitions. Like doing really crappy sit-ups, with no real attention paid to the quality of the repetition. Indeed, on intervallic sequences I made the same mistakes repeatedly, and I would sometimes play the same thing hundreds of times. And my attention span... Good lord, I am so easily distracted. And songs. Oh man, the complete lack of interest I am displaying is downright disgusting. How can someone who is so terrible be so bored? Well, I am not bored but my brain doesn’t like being force-fed this way...

So I took a day off of Stick, and thought I might go through a typical guitar practice session doing the same thing; videotaping it, and then reviewing it. Good lord! It was the same thing! I have been doing this for decades! And you know, I really haven’t practiced any guitar in months but I really haven’t lost any technique. Sure, maybe a bit of endurance but... (So Why do I insist on practicing stuff that I will probably never forget? Am I afraid I am running out of memory? Is it some sort of maintenence program?)

AHA! A-fucking-ha.

Redundancy. Boredom. Lists. Routines. Repetitions. While it satisfies my ego, in that I have “fulfilled my practice obligation”.I would bet that the learning I am doing/getting is completely short term, and this practice methodology is downright barbaric. A big apology to self...

It’s like I have a Malmsteen CD, and I am trying to push it through my forehead to get it into my brain. No worky...

So I did some reading, and some experimenting with my practicing. I found that by really simplifying my tasks (Goals), and by really listening to how I played it and increasing the quality of my repetition, and then subsequently doing far less reps/sets things come together much faster. Also, having a lot of variety, a sort of structured “randomness” to what I am working on is critical. Also, letting go of exercises is important. I am like a damn hoarder, I won’t move on until I am certain I have “mastered” it, but really that is most likely what is standing in the way of getting it down. I am pretty sure that I have to learn to move on, try different stuff and then revisit the same concept in maybe a changed context later on.

Steve Adelson said in our most recent lesson something along the lines of “Hmmn, maybe the chord shape needs to be different for you in order to remember it. Maybe symmetry is not a strength for you...”

A-ha. Absolutely correct, Steve. My tendency to micro-manage and work on stuff that is sort of the same, but just slightly different doesn’t work. My brain shuts off. Yet I do it anyways, why? It needs unique things... The symmetry thing is fine, but the context is crucial.

Thoughts?

Scott, this is going to take some time to fully understand.... I'll be thinking about it over the course of the day. Would that be ok?


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Focus is essential "don't practice you're mistakes" and "don't practice what you already know" are two bits of wisdom I picked up over the years and they work for me. I may post my practice log, but be warned people think I'm insane when they see it. Two things you will continue to see however is variety and ear training. This is a great subject. Thanks for posting

Brett

I'm with Rodrigo, this takes some digesting and I just got off a 4 hour flight,literally, but having said that its a topic dear to my heart at the moment. Oddly enough I went out and bought a book to use as a practice/stick journal just last week. I just spent about 90 mins on the plane re-watching the lesson I had with steve last week and making notes on my laptop.
Its all about efficiency and not wasting time for me , I've got about 10 years on you! So like Brett says I actively try to play the stuff I need to work on, not just muck around with what I know I can do.
I'm back to the ship tomorrow so I'll make another 5 week schedule and stick to it ( no pun intended but its a good one ), it worked really well last time. I also think its good just to " not play " for a day or two sometimes , take your mind completely elsewhere.

About "mastering " stuff before moving on.Maybe that is too hard a task to use as a measure of progress. I've been out live 4 times in 5 weeks and none of what I do is ever played the same way, mastered note for note and so on, but I can pull it off with mistakes most people won't notice and I think the kind of sponteneiity adds a good quality , for me anyway, its not classical music after all. So my one line response has blown out a little but its a good discussion to start. I've dabbled in Music all my life but I'm not really a "schooled Muso " like you so I guess sometimes I'm just really enjoying playing without too much concern about the fine detail of " what it would be on paper " that I'm playing . Still , my next month at work will have a theory focus, I know that much already. Good topic Scotty ! Time to go explore this hotel

Scott, I feel very strongly about this issue and I warn up front that I am extremely conflicted, opinionated, and very hypocritical. This will be long but I'll try to organize it.

#1: "Excellence in anything equals time spent on it." That's Sink's Law #12 and it applies to everything in life, from your relationship with your family and loved ones, to your fluency in a foreign language, to juggling, to music, to...you get the point. Not one of my deeper or controversial Sink's Laws.

#2: "You don't get better if you don't do it!" is another way to put it. But as you're saying and discovering, you don't necessarily get better just doing it either, if you're not into it, not paying attention, or reinforcing bad habits or techniques or just bad playing in general (and you yourself know what is "bad" for you and your goals--which I'm jumping ahead.)

#3: Don't just practice; don't just drill; WORK ON STUFF. Define "stuff" however you want it, but don't play scales to play scales. You don't get points for clocking in and doing your time. You only get points by getting better (defined by YOU!) and by enjoying yourself (Jumping ahead again).

#4: Know Thy Limitations and Plan Ye around Them. If you know you always flub that bridge, practice the damn bridge! Or make it easier, if you're always gonna flub it. This particular point is actually my deepest and best and applies to all life. This has genuinely made me a better person: I'm aware of my shortcomings (HUGE first step, self-awareness), and so, knowing my limitations, I plan the frick around them! I suck at navigating so never try to just "wing it." I have a map and a GPS and a good-natured attitude about getting lost. Same for music: I suck at scales, so therefore I work on them all them time....HA! (see the part at the beginning where I said I'm a hypocrite.) This is where I fail to do much about my greatest weaknesses but have to just keep going and keep trying.

#5: Above all, Thy Must First Rock it Out. If you're not enjoying it, you're probably not going to pay attention and you're going to put that instrument down a lot quicker than if you ARE enjoying yourself. If you enjoy scales, then knock yourself out. I have a weird avoidance of scales and must "trick" myself into practicing them. Here's how I explained my "eating your vegetables" metaphor to Rodrigo last night:


#6: If I don't want to do what I'm doing that I know I need to in order to get better--and I still can't make it all that fun (hi, scales!)--either self-loathing or competition or deadlines will get me there. Some times you need an external push from a competitor, boss, or customer that will make you do things, and challenge yourself, and apply yourself--when you really just want to play video games.

#7: Nothing makes you eat your very-much-needed vegetables like having a teacher. Get a teacher that will allow you to still enjoy yourself (Thy Must Rock It Out) but who will also make you eat a vegetable or two. This is where I have aspirations but haven't figured out yet what I'm going to do about it. See hypocrite point.

#8, which is also Sink's Law #8: Deadlines are our friends; without them, little creatively ever gets finished. Assign yourself an artificial deadline if you don't have one imposed from the outside.

#9: Back to knowing yourself, what are your goals for your music? If you want to gig playing covers, that determines a lot of what you need to practice. If you just want to rock it out, and jam, and write stuff (me, obviously), then you need to practice on stuff that gets you there. If you want to play Bach and classical on your Stick, that will probably determine what you should work on.

I realize that this #9 might be controversial--teachers want their students to be well-rounded and know the basics and not just learn what they want to learn--and I don't disagree with that at all! This is just what works for me, and what keeps me playing, and what had given me many decades of wondrous joy in my music and some pretty fricking cool melodies and riffs. I play to my strengths, try to amuse myself so that I don't walk away and pick up a gaming joystick, and I push myself daily to do Great Art because I can! And if I can, why I am killing that 234th Orc when I could crank out a sonata in a week--okay, give me 10 days--if I really tried? So I assign myself ridiculous assignments, like hey, I need a 5.5 minutes song with Chapman Stick guitar, bass, and full orchestra, and lo, 5 months of work later, PainStickingly was born! (I could have leveled up that bard/shaman instead and would have enjoyed both!)

--Steve, Your Genetic Mutant Freak

Interesting and timely topic and one that I've been pondering for several months. I'm 68 and yesterday Cambria put through the $300 deposit on my (Plum) Railboard.

68's a good number Mr. Young.
Right behind you on the calendar. Still practicing 3-5 hours/ day and looking to the future. I've played with 90 olds, Les Paul and Bucky Pizzarelli. It's just a number.
Congrats on your Stick order

Steve A

Keeping in mind of course that I have been making headway. It's just that I feel like I am working too hard with very little to show for it. So "learning how to learn" has kind of pre-empted any other goal like independence, note recognition, etc. I am still working very hard towards those things. The whole idea here is to maximize my ability to capitalize on the time and energy I invest in study.

That image from my practice journal was a kind of shorthand checklist; it helps me get focused and at the very least there is a beginning and an end to my practice evening. That particular one was from a Saturday in the second week or so of January I think. I have come a ways since then...

So in my readings on the net and various books etc, they say that six hours between "practicings" is the optimal timeframe for one to really get things to "Stick" to long term memory. That is a tough one. My practice "primetime" is about 8:00pm until midnight. That means that I have a lot of hours in between my sessions. Damn work gets in the way again... I will figure something out. Even if it's just 10 min at all three of my breaks which are roughly 2 hours apart.

It would seem that about 45min in, The first distraction hits. So, I have been practicing in 45 minute bouts, and then taking 15 minutes to do something physical. Exercise of some sort...

As for the actual content of what I am practicing, I am trying to put the same amount of emphasis on each measure of a piece. I want to avoid that struggle with having the first bit of a piece nailed, but the rest is weak. This means that one measure at a time, I practice it until I can remember it. That is my only objective. Tempo is taken out of the equation, and refinement like that won't happen until the entire piece can be remembered. Now it seems like it takes longer to piece a few fragments together, which means that you don't get that initial feeling of kicking ass; you know the feeling you get after you have hammered a section a billion times... I feel like there is a lot less effort into working on it "until I can remember it". It's in my memory, dumped into chunks, and I can refine the whole thing.
I am testing a real monster piece of music practicing like this - so far so good.

More to come.

I wanna hear that!!!!


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I have no practice method, other than to practice a few hours a day, work on stuff I know (maintenance) then work on the next new bit to add to the stuff I know.......
I prolly could be better if I aimed correctly.....but..... I'm kinda lazy.


chheeerrs,
Larry David