Practice and Getting Better
We all have heard the phrase, practice makes perfect, but it’s not actually true. The actual phrase must always be PROPER practice makes improvement. What the hell is perfect anyway? Perfect is very subject for an instrumentalist and so many approaches and levels exist that the idea of perfect is frankly quite dumb. Consider the number of players we find on YouTube whose technique is incredible and their playing of known tunes is perfectly spot on. Yet we come away feeling, ok cool but I’m not inspired. I feel meh. Yet I watch a video of B.B. King and am blown away. He had the technique for what he wanted to play but he brought the “feels”, the emotional commotion, that turned is playing into something with incredible force.
So the first question that I ask about your practice, which is the one I berate myself with regularly when practicing or playing for my own pleasure is “am I practicing correctly?” Am I getting the right notes with clarity? Am I blurring anything? Is my timing correct? Any of us will have discovered that even in 4/4 we may tend to speed up or slow down subtly, and given my personal love of Alex Lifeson’s work, 4/4 is an irregularity, not a common thing and I discovered I was playing stuff for years thinking it was correct only to discover that I was dropping notes, or slurring when there should be clarity. I’ve never claimed to be a great player, but I know when I’m having a good day and when it’s not happening. And you know the same thing about yourself.
Live Lessons
Live lessons can be a wonderful thing. When I was young, a very long time ago, I took lessons from a great guy called Brian Wilson (not the one you may think of) in Etobicoke Ontario. Brian was patient and not only brought the songs that I wanted to learn but brought stuff I had never heard of. Take Five by Paul Desmond and Dave Brubeck is something that I still play today, and that I can get through it is thanks solely to Mr. Wilson.
Songbooks and Records
I stopped taking lessons after a while, not because Mr. Wilson wasn’t helping but because my head was elsewhere. I learned from printed songbooks which gave the basic stuff and abused vinyl records to learn solos. Not an unusual approach for the time. But did I get better? Whatever better meant in that context? Sometimes, but the lack of a reference in the form of a great teacher allowed me to make mistakes and then replicate them ad nauseum. I still screw up Over the Hills and Far Away because I messed it up so badly at first. I learned to read music and can do so at about the level of a grade two English reader but never devoted the time. I found tablature useful, but mostly mechanical and while it gave the notes, it didn’t give the flow the way of a live lesson would.
Software Tools
Later on, I tried some of the computer based learning tools, basically recordings with onscreen tablature. I was not successful. Playing while sitting in front of a screen trying to follow tab is not a skill that I ever developed. In speaking with other players, the responses varied widely between its awesome and I’d rather have my teeth drilled. For those that these tools benefit, they are superb, but if the tool doesn’t work for you, move on.
Back to Live Lessons
As my daughter became an adult, I tried live lessons again. I will say that my assigned teachers had lots of skill and were very patient, and while the music theory portions that I requested were helpful, I was not trying to learn songs but to understand what the creator of the music was intending and to try to think like the composer in the hope that I might “get it”. You will have heard that hope is not a strategy, and it is an absolutely true statement. I came away from my lessons wondering whether I was getting value for my money. The lessons were close by, the teachers were solid, but it wasn’t working for me.
Online Songs
I have to admit that I have difficulty naming anything recorded in the last twenty years that makes me excited to play. I know that there is new music, but none of it creates enthusiasm in me. I blame myself first but i’m not alone in this feeling. Add in autotune and all the digital stuff and for me, there is no magical feel. I play a tune featuring Tim Henson, and while his technique is amazing, I get bored within a minute and turn it off. So when looking into online song training, I’m looking at stuff composed and recorded mostly in the seventies and eighties. I recently got what I call the Boston Box from MXR and playing those old Boston tunes again has been a blast, but it does put me back in 1976.
Online How-To
Like most of us, we are busy. I don’t play video games or watch TV. I read a lot and have other pastimes that keep me busy when I am not working. Thus my guitar time is still limited. At the advice of Keith Williams of Five Watt World, I tried Truefire. While I have the full package, I know that I am not getting the full value because by the time I get to sit with my guitar, I’m often pretty tired and my brain is not in knowledge gathering mode. However, I do find that their lesson curricula is excellent and the teachers are really great. Because I can control the flow, stopping, rewinding, it’s almost like being with Brian Wilson again, but I can do it when I want, how often that I want, and the cost is incredibly reasonable considering the deliverable. I’m not sponsored by Truefire, although if they wanted to do so, I’d be very happy because I like their platform and I recommend it highly. I find it specifically valuable to any player who wants to work on his or her own terms, at his or her own pace. Some have said it’s designed for older people. While I do qualify as older, I don’t buy into that position. I spend time in guitar shops and while I do tend to have more conversations with adults than young people, I have yet to find a young person who is committed to his or her instrument who was not a pleasure to speak with, regardless of any genre preferences that the individual may have.
It used to be, that a successful guitar shop had a great set of teachers for lessons. Music lessons are still a good business, generating far more profit percentage than the sale of a brand name instrument. It’s also what we in business call recurring revenue, and that is a very critical thing because that revenue can sustain a small shop through the dead months. I don’t take anything away from the value potential of live lessons, but for me, at this point, they don’t add value, so I go with Truefire. If interested you can find out more at Truefire
Wrapping Up
A lesson can help break a rut, or a stop. It can change your head space. However you approach learning something new, do it. That new guitar, pedal, amp or whatever might be fun, but in and of itself, it’s just a tool and if you aren’t leveraging the tool, you aren’t getting ahead.
If you like what I do here for you, please become a supporter on Patreon. Your monthly contribution makes an enormous difference and helps me keep things going. To become a Patreon Patron, just click the link or the button below. Always feel comfortable to send in a question or to post a comment. I read them all and respond as appropriate. Thanks for your support of my work. I’m Ross Chevalier and I look forward to sharing with you again soon.
