Art is something which confounds our senses. Science appeals to our propensity towards the measurable. Hence, art occurs when so many simultaneous variables work together to present a package that stimulates our senses in a way that just makes us say, “Holy Shit that was amazing!”

The key lies both in the inspiration and the execution.

Inspiration

It’s one of my pet peeves nowadays, that schools only ever teach students how to solve problems, they never teach how to find out what problems to solve. I feel this is because the educators have no knowledge, or at least no recognition for the process of inspiration to pursuit an endeavour.

And I admit, it isn’t entirely their fault. In fact, I’d say that the fact that inspiration comes so fleetingly and at so hopelessly inappropriate times makes the concept of teaching it extremely hard to grasp by the reigns.

Though sudden inspiration comes to us no matter what field we are in, I think the artist is plagued moreso by this inconsistency. Science usually follows upon various logical thought processes. Then suddenly everything converges, the ideas fit together. Eureka!

I may be wrong, but my own creative process in composing music, as well as that of others is hardly like that. It’s like a tune suddenly comes into our heads and if we don’t record it somehow, it’s gone forever, or at least much harder to retrieve. This is less a problem for the scientist, who usually can fall back upon empirical concepts for inspiration.

This is much harder in art, because though we can define such concepts (eg: music theory), it doesn’t lend itself to a definitive answer.

Science is basically an act of convergence, an attempt for hard to vary explanations. Art, one of divergence, of trying to make the familiar things seem new in various different aspects. No wonder artists over the years have made a name for themselves as being manic, bipolar alcoholics. Their job is so much harder!

Jackson Pollock's Art. Image Credit: abstract-art.com

I think the distinction is best seen with professional Chess players. A computer can calculate every single possible move and outcome from a single point in the game. If we could do that, we’d all be chess masters.

But the real masters can’t do that either, at least not consciously. What they have in fact is the experience of many thousands of games such that they can see the moves which will most likely provide them with a favourable outcome. This is something the layperson cannot do.

It is this condensing of experience, science and judgment of the odds that we cumulatively call intuition that defines an art.

I think that eventually we will be able to dissect art down to its fundamental elements. We can explain why Pollock’s art is so amazing, its the math; its the fractals hidden in the seemingly random spatters. We may very likely employ algorithms to duplicate his artwork at will.

But the art will remain, because there would be only the distinct few who can manage to produce the final result. It baffles the logical mind, as it should; the human mind is a wonderful thing.

No related posts.

I’m going to be blunt in this short article. It is about appreciation for music. Some people may say that beauty is in the eye (or ears in this case) of the beholder. I wish to refute that, at least in this context of music.

I contend that there are criteria by which music can be considered good. For it is an art, and any art that is beautiful wasn’t made so by delusion or accident. There are conditions by which something will be considered beautiful by a group [1].

If you think you will be offended in any way, I advise that you stop reading now. If not, read on.

Musical Roots of our Ancestors

I don’t think that it was a fluke that rhythmic patterns and music arose spontaneously in basically every single human culture around the world. From the bongo drums of Africa to the pipes of the church organ, we find that there are only so few rhythmic patterns that really arise.

Tune in to any pop station, and I bet you will hear some form of the standard 4 beat rhythm in the background in at least 99.99% of the songs.

My point is that these things don’t arise randomly; there is an underlying mechanism governing what we term as good music.

Appreciating Musical Theory

Because of this, we can actually dissect and try to explain why things sound that way. Out of this was born music theory.

As a few basic examples, a major scale sounds different from a minor scale, the former may sound brighter and more cheery. To take it a little further, various cadences make different sounds, for example a 2nd inversion perfect 5th chord to a 1st inversion root chord will sound like your classical ending chords in classical music.

You can even say that there are certain ways to distinguish different styles, of music. For example, Jazz players often like various diminished scales, and will be using a C7 instead of a C chord. Or they may do some improvisations on pentatonic scales, whereas classical players may prefer the Mixolydian minor scales. [2]

Pardon the more technical jargon of the previous two paragraphs, but let me make a point that the Mixolydian mode was first describe in Ancient Greece, used by some classical musicians, and is also the mode by which some modern guitarists use to write their songs. The Song ‘Sweet Child of Mine’ is one of those.

What I am saying is that this theory is Universally applicable. If you had all the musical knowledge at your fingertips, and could think of each scale in terms of the way certain frequencies of notes blend together, then you could make any sort of music that you wanted to make.

After all, the reason why we think some combinations of notes sound ‘wrong’ together is simply because of the innate dissonance of putting two or more non-complementing frequencies of notes together. Yes, music is math, and math is always perfect.

What distinguishes the Musicians from the Laymen

A layman with no musical education can easily appreciate music for its emotionally stimulating qualities. However, he/she will not see the musical structure behind the playing past the basic rhythms.

The experienced musician who has been exposed to this sort of theory understands how and why each note sounds and the way they interact with each other, both as a creator and listener. This is not dependent upon whether or not they had a formal education (and therefore know the theory formally), for the experience of creating music is the thing that leaves the impression upon the guitarist. Sooner or later, he/she will start to appreciate the patterns that are in music.

Because of this, things which sound completely indistinguishable to the layman becomes clear to the musician. A fast guitar solo may just be a long string of musical orgasm to the layman, but it is a clearly and precisely put together piece of musical progression to the musician. That in itself means that the musician is capable of appreciating something which the layman cannot.

Finally, there is the numinous quality to music which only the musician can appreciate. It’s that sort of feeling that leaves you wondering, “how the hell did he/she do that?” It arises because we have some knowledge of how, but yet could not comprehend how much further the art could be taken.

It was the same sort of feeling that many people got when they got their first ipod. The elegance blew them away, because it shows us the wonder that can arise from design principles which we recognise but cannot duplicate ourselves. It is the reason why we are particularly attracted to various arrangement of words like, “No man who ever held the office of President would congratulate a friend on obtaining it.” It is the same feeling which scientists get when they discover some new truth and then realise that there is so much more to be found.

That ‘so much more to be found’ is the essence of why we are blown away by some things. Any step towards that elusive state of transcendence simply excites the bearer of such knowledge. That is precisely the kind of appreciation for music that musicians can get. We as musicians simply ‘feel it’, regardless of whether we know how to describe it (I don’t think I fully know how to either).

Concluding Remarks

I must say that there are two main implications for what I have said. The first is that the more you know about something the more you want to know, and the more you can appreciate it. I believe this is true across all fields.

The final implication is that there are also going to be set rules by which one goes about composing music. But that is a topic for another day.

For now, do respect that if you have never created music, you will never appreciate it to its fullest. [3]

***

Notes:

[1] There may be individual nuances, but for something to be considered beautiful by something like say, 10,000 people (like there are in a small music niche), there must certainly be some key defining characteristics.

[2] This is a very big generalisation, yes. But I simply wanted to point out a scale not often used in Jazz.

[3] In this case, I do not refer to the current value by which one can derive from music. The powerlifter getting psyched up for a max lift, the yoga practitioner seeking inner calm, all can rely very fruitfully on the emotional rewards of music. That is an indispensable and very important part of the musical experience in my opinion.

At the same time, let us not forget the other side, which I say again, is largely inaccessible to those who have never created music.

No related posts.

Now, I hate over-analysing the costs that I would spend on my guitar hobby. But jumping into the pursuit without some ballpark idea of how much you should be spending is an equally tragic mistake.

In this post, I attempt to dissect the potential cost of playing the guitar. This is important for anybody who does not possess an unlimited budget, since any pursuit can become a potential money sink.

If anything, this post will give some potential areas in which you could possibly be spending money, an important thing for beginners to know.

Do note however, that these prices seem reflect the prices within the scope of my residence (Melbourne, Australia), and may be cheaper or more expensive elsewhere in the world. However, I can say that prices generally do not vary too much; you can easily get a price range that is in the ballpark.

There are three broad categories of costs to consider when buying a guitar. The baseline cost of purchase, the cost of maintenance, and the cost of potential enhancement.

The cost of purchase

This is straightforward. If you’re buying an acoustic guitar, then this refers to the cost of the guitar. If you’re buying an electric guitar, then the cost is that of the guitar and amplifier.

Of course, this is subject to price ranges. In general, a cheap plywood acoustic guitar can be as cheap as $50 brand new [1]. A solid wood acoustic will probably cost a minimum of $150. This price range can then extend all the way up to a couple of thousand dollars. As an anecdotal note, I could not tell the difference between an off-the-rack $900 acoustic and my friend’s $3000 acoustic (of which the wood had been treated and aged). But then again, I’m a hopeless acoustic player, and the difference was certainly too marginal for myself to detect.

With electric guitars, the price ranges will vary more. A starter kit with guitar and amp can go as low as $150-200. An entry-level branded guitar could cost a minimum of $400. Make that above $1000 for one tier up, to $2000 for the mid-tier, and in excess of $4000 for limited editions and signature models.

As with amplifiers, $100 will probably get you a cheap 10W amp (enough to disturb the neighbours, mind you) that has only a volume, tone and distortion knob. As you increase the price, you get more power, and more functionality. Increase it to $2000, and you could probably get a 60W Marshall with multiple inputs, volume and tone controls, overdrive and clean settings, amidst other things.

The cost of maintenance

Maintenance is probably an inaccurate word, but it conveys the meaning well enough: the ongoing costs of your guitar playing.

The basics could include the cost of your string replacement, guitar cases and cleaning materials. If you want to be pedantic, electric guitar players can even consider the cost of electricity (not much).

This cost can vary of course, depending on your string type and replacement frequency [2]. Of course, it also varies according to how beat up your equipment gets (generally more so for careless people or people who play live).

Assuming that you are a beginner, your case likely came free or at a low cost, the cost of electric (if applicable) is miniscule, strings that need to be changed pretty infrequently (I used to play until my strings broke), and some basic cleaning and polishing of your guitar, then we are probably looking at a cost of $50 a year. This, of course, depends. Either way, it should not be too significant.

The cost of potential enhancement

This the cost of making your equipment better.

Needless to say, the potential cost of this varies a lot.

You could get the best amplifiers available, get the best guitar, the best set of pickups, [3] the best recording microphone, the best set of effects hardware, the best editing software, and the best , not to mention the best strap and picks, foot a bill of $20,000 and then realise that you now want to make your own studio. Then you realise that 1 guitar isn’t enough, and you need a custom-made flying-V with an EDGE-pro tremolo.

Any hobby will be subject to the amorphous yet strongly addictive power of consumerism. I’ve got no other recommendations there. One could easily spend $100,000 on this ‘hobby’. For beginners there can be easy recommendations, come to the advanced stage, when your equipment begins to matter, the only thing you can do, is to use your own sensible discretion.

—
Notes:
[1] I had a friend who got his guitar in China for 20RMB. It was lousy, the fretboard was slightly uneven, and the tone quality was bad. But hey, it’s a guitar.

[2] In a tropical and more humid climate, your strings tend to wear down faster. Having lived in Singapore, I can vouch for the fact that after 1 month of daily playing, my strings were basically starting to rust and lose tone. Here in Melbourne, if I’m not doing a performance, then string quality doesn’t seem to deteriorate even after 2 months. Hence I changed strings once a month in Singapore, and about once every 2-3 months in Melbourne. Given that each set of strings costs $6-10, that represents at least a $50 difference.

[3] I’m going all out to say that I’m biased in my preference for certain brands. Namely, Ibanez guitars, DiMarzio Pickups, Marshall Amps, and Korg Effects. With regards to software though, I’ll pick anything that’s good.

Related posts:

1. Does the Quality of Your Equipment Matter?

We’ve all heard two conflicting viewpoints.

The first is that a engineer is only as good as his/her tools allow. The second would be that the tools do not in any way dictate the results.

The short answer is obviously: It depends.

In this short post, I will answer that question first with respect to the guitar, and then more generally as a lead up to my next post, “The Beginners Guitar Budget”.

How Good a Guitar Do You Need

That depends, how good do you want to be?

I mean that seriously. The bottom line is, that as you get better and more technically proficient, you start to ‘feel’ the instrument better. In a sense, you get more picky.

More notably, a lousy instrument does not allow you to play it in certain ways. Ask a concert pianist on the difference between a concert grand piano (cost in excess of hundreds of thousands) and a baby grand (tens of thousands), and he/she will go on about the action of the keys, the quality of the tone, and a hundred other things. They would only play their best on the real grand piano.

Even for the recreational player who wants to bring his/her skills to an intermediate level, I’m very sure the person could tell the difference between a $1000 guitar, and a $100 guitar. The latter would sound muffled, probably have an uneven fretboard. Some notes would be hard to play, and the sound of others would be cut off.

There must be a limit to how low you can go.

Specific Guitar Recommendations

I will recommend that anyone who takes up the instrument take it at least to an intermediate level of proficiency. This means that the quality of the instrument does matter.

The next question is whether you are playing with an acoustic of electric guitar.

If you are are acoustic player, tone is important, and tone is dictated by the type of wood used to make the guitar. Hence, you can get a cheap plywood guitar for probably $100-200 that has lousy tone and a lousy fretboard. Or you could get a middle-of-the-line guitar that would easily last you a good half lifetime that is made of a solid wood body and fretboard (the wood depends on what type of sound you like) [1], and would probably fetch anywhere from $400-2000 depending on the wood quality. Finally, you could go for broke and buy a >$2000 guitar that would probably last you forever. These are typically the types whereby the wood is treated in a specific manner to take the quality of the sound and the overall ease of playing to a great level.

I will say that the price difference reflects a true difference in quality as far as acoustic guitars are concerned. In fact, this would be the same for electric guitars as well.

In this case, we have to deal with a few more variables. First would be the actual precision of the manufacturing of the guitar. Second would be the quality of the pickups, knobs, and optionally, the tremolo system. Third will be the quality of the amplifier. Fourth would be the quality of your effects rig.

Furthermore, I would like to add that if you intend to record your own music, then the quality of the recording equipment and editing software also comes into play. Not to mention the record venue.

Why this is important

Firstly, cheap guitars generally do not have good craftsmanship. The guitar, being a string instrument, must be able to balance the tension of the strings to a great degree. At the same time, it must deliver the right tone and ‘feel’. Even electric instruments made of different types of wood will sound different with the same effects settings. The defining factor is simply when you pick it up and play a cheap instrument and an expensive one side-by-side.

This is important simply because a better instrument is easier to play, and delivers much more consistently in terms of tone. This makes practice a joy. Also, I can bet that if you ask a professional musician, he/she will tell you that the quality of the instrument limits one when performing high-level techniques. For example, a cheap piano’s keys doesn’t bounce up fast enough for certain progressions to be played. (The pianist is literally too fast for the piano)

Next, as an electric guitarist, your effects rig is very important. Frankly speaking. Each additional tool adds ever more to the musician’s creative arsenal. This greatly amplifies his/her creative tendencies and adds on to the overall experience, both for the player and probably more importantly, to a potential audience.

If you give a guitarist a whammy pedal, they will attempt to try to use it to create unique solos. Even a cheap addition like a finger slide will open up ever more options. This is even more prominent when you switch from a guitar without a tremolo system to a nice Ibanez Edge System – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibanez_Edge

This has implications in composition. Much of the work of musical composition [2] involves trying out different things and keeping what’s good. It’s a hit and miss game, one that you get better as you keep trying. Needless to say, you need the equipment to try in the first place.

It Depends

Of course, I trust people to exercise their own judgment when dealing with such sweeping statements. I have presented a case to support the fact that becoming great as a guitarist demands such equipment.

In some areas it will be less so. For example, you need a tennis racquet to play good tennis, but the difference between a $2000 racquet and a $400 racquet isn’t going to be great. The same goes with items like running shoes.

This will vary greatly from field to field though. A painter may need only a pencil and paper to spark creativity, but still needs a studio to produce great work. Similarly, a fisherman needs a good rod to catch big fish; a lousy one would simply break.

In general, for any pursuit worth becoming the best in the field in, the equipment will matter whether you like it or not. Think of it as a kind of barrier to entry. Which is why I stress the need to look forward and determine how far you want to take your skill, for at the higher levels, it can become quite a sink for cash.

In the end, the short answer to the question is: YES!

—
Notes:

[1] Guitars are made of various types of wood, which directly affects the tone of sound produced by affected the natural resonance of the guitar. Just to give some examples, Spruce body guitars tend to be lighter and give a lighter, resonant, and sharp tone. A mahogany body guitar will then be the opposite, heavy, giving a rich, mellow, and slightly dampened tone. Of course, there is everything in between.

If you were a country guitar player, I doubt you’d get a mahogany guitar.

[2] I need to write an entire different post which shares my own methodology for musical composition. More of that next time.

Related posts:

1. The Guitar Budget
2. Artificial Harmonics

This is just a little post, but I thought I’d make the point.

Playing Live is not the same as playing at home. In fact, playing for any sort of audience is not the same as your regular practice, even if it in front of video camera.

The reason this is the case is because of the numerous different factors that have to be taken into account to give a performance that would mirror that which you can pull off in practice. I would like to run through some of these which I have noticed over my very short and haphazard time of playing for live audiences.

Essentially, I think there are only two things that you need to take note of.

First: What Type of Musician are You?

If you are an acoustic guitar player or a solo singer-songwriter, you basically have two factors to consider, the clarity of your amplification equipment (mic and amplifier) and the right balance between the two. This being only two instruments, is pretty easy to do by yourself.

If you have a 4 piece band, this instantly compounds the problem, since you have to make sure that 4 different instruments work together in harmony to sound like you sound in the studio. Not to mention the mic volume, the extra reverb of the venue, the drum dampening, the effect of temperature on the tuning of your instruments, the fact that you need to ensure that every one in the room regardless of where they are needs to hear the same thing, and a multitude of other factors. Oh, and I must mention that if the venue has lousy monitors, then the way you hear yourself will be completely different from what the audience hears.

We know that we need the audience to hear what we want them to hear, but you also need to hear yourself to be able to execute the more complex sections of your music. It’s really a pain to play deaf in front of a large audience.

There were three things I learned:

1. Always do a thorough sound check prior to the event
2. There are professional sound engineers for a reason, use them if you can, and if you don’t have the luxury, don’t do anything ambitious
3. Nothing ever turns out as planned

This is the reason why professional musicians spend years getting their live performances right should tell you something about the complexity of the task and the amount of manpower that goes into a performance. If you’re the type of instrumentalist like myself, look at a performance by Steve Vai (Where the Wild Things Are Video) and be absolutely amazed not just by the musical flair, but also the probably one hundred sound engineers, mixers, costume designers and other people behind the performance.

It’s no wonder why most musicians look like amatuers, simply because of the many other factors that go into a great performance.

It is indeed a humbling thought.

Next: What Does the Audience Think?

Frankly, nobody cares about what kind of work you’ve put into a performance.

As with anything else, be it business, your investments, or your exams, people want to see results. We don’t care what sort of code goes behind Facebook, but the founders and programmers have to know in order to give us the features that we want.

As a musician, this is even harder, since you are being judged on a subjective and more importantly, real-time, stage. Unlike a Facebook which is judged by the User interface and the speed in which new features are pumped out is measured in days, the musician has the task of delivering exactly as promised second for second.

Also don’t forget the horrors of dealing with the critics, especially if your music is not mainstream (whatever that may mean).

In essence, I think what I’ve learned is that I can never be quite good enough, and that gives me motivation to keep on getting better. I also think that you have to be quite shameless, and keep on trying new things, many of which will only be met with the harsh feedback of your audience.

Still, I trust that after another 30 years of musical endeavour, the patterns should start to evolve nicely for me to be able to put together a feast for the senses on stage.

No related posts.

In the previous article, I talked about how to practice like the Pros.

In this short (very short) article, I outline what I’ve felt are the 5 principles which helped me the most in getting my playing to be more consistent.

Because most people play the guitar as a hobby and often don’t have the luxury of sitting around for 10 hours a day doing nothing but the guitar, we need to learn to make the most use of our time. I would expect most people to probably have 30-60 minute blocks of time to practice, and this article is addressed to that group.

Of course, if you have longer blocks and apply these principles, you obviously still stand to gain. So here we go.

1. Practice lots of different and hard stuff

Practice tapping. Practice alternate picking. Then move to sweep picking. Then try doing sweep picking patterns using alternate picking. Try exclusively hammer-on/pull-off licks. ETC (try this link for ideas)

Stuff tends to complement, eg: outside picking complements alternate picking 3 note scales. You thus save time by doing this.

2. Drills before Songs

Practicing various licks and drills does two things:

1. They serve as a warm up.
2. They make the song ‘seem easier’ in comparison, especially the technical parts

Very likely, doing strict drills nails down the technique for a song and leaves room for further improvement. This wouldn’t be the case if you strictly try to practice a song, especially given people’s tendency to make it sound ‘good enough’.

In essence, drills breed perfection that carries over to your other playing.

3. With drills – repeat x 20 and move on

If you are doing a 4 bar scale, repeat it 20x, trying to get faster each time, then move on regardless of how good you’ve done. Don’t come back during this practice session.

Improvements happen over time, usually at the bare minimum over a day or two. This capitalises on the spacing effect and saves you time.

In this case, I urge you to try this method of practice for 1 week and see if after that week you have made great improvements in short time.

4. Have a specific set of drills which you must go through in every session

These should obey the first 3 principles. This is most importantly a reminder of what core skills need to be practiced before moving on.

5. Focus and Repeat Ad-Infinitum

This should be a no-brainer but it’s worth mentioning. Consistency is key, and results are not manifested until Years (yes! YEARS!) later.

This comes from my hypothesis that there are two successful groups of musicians. One group who is born talented and is given the time and resources to excel. And the other group who goes out of their way to stick to a certain practice schedule forever.

You and I would be much better off having a consistent, daily schedule something like this:

Scale up or down depending on needs and don’t forget to experiment.

So try it (if you haven’t already have a good schedule like this), for just 1 WEEK, and you will see this difference. I certainly did.

Related posts:

1. No time to practice? Great! – proper spacing of practice
2. Recording Your Own Practice Sessions

My Methodology for Practicing the Guitar has shifted over the years. Looking back, I see how each method was affected by its context.

However, nowadays, I believe that I need to practice like the Professional Guitarists [1] out there. Namely, my technical fluency must be comparable to that of the pros. This MUST be achieved by consistent practicing of scales and specific patterns.

That is the distinction between an amateur and a pro. A professional plays his part PERFECTLY, while an amateur plays the part so that it sounds good enough to a common audience.

If you want to skip my story and just get to know what to do, skip down to the section, “What I Should have Done”. If you’re interested in a good story, read on.

How good do you want to be?

The logical question from this is how good do you want to be? Certainly, not everybody wants to be as good as a professional guitarists. More importantly, not everybody has the time to reach that level.

It has been opined that it takes 10,000 hours to reach mastery, about 9 years of practicing 3 hours a day. Many people look at guitarists like Paul Gilbert and wonder what trick they used to get that good. I think it more likely that someone like him has been playing and drilling consistently for decades to reach that level. If you take a look at most professional guitarists, the most common feature is that they focus as hard as they can for blocks of time in drilling a certain set of skills.

What I did through the years

I did not bring this mindset to the table when I started out. I started playing guitar when I was 14, and being the typical high school kid, I wanted to look cool. My mission then was to be someone who was fit (I was in track and field), smart (get good grades), and yet was well versed in music. I was playing the piano at this point in time, but everybody played the piano.

Becoming the ‘best’ electric guitarist in school was a straight ticket to greatness.

Hence, my focus was:
(1): Play popular songs that were just out of the reach of most guitarists
(2): Get good enough with all sorts of techniques (bending, vibrato, sweep picking!, etc)
(3): Play only the songs that I loved playing so that I would continually play them

At the time, the song Canon in D by Jerry C was really popular, so I shot for that song. I ended up performing it in front of the school at the beginning of Year 10 (secondary 4), only about 13 months after strumming my first note. The vid is still up on youtube.

What I did ‘right’

One notable feature was that I progressed at an astounding rate compared to my other friends who were took guitar lesson or were classically taught. I think there were four reasons.

First, instead of practicing scales, I practiced songs. I played things that were practical. Because of this, I learned all sorts of techniques, from economical picking (which I now don’t use), to bending, to tapping to sweeping. These complimented each other and helped me progress faster.

Second, I went on to something new when I though I was good enough, not when someone else (teacher) thought I was good enough. I also recorded some of my playing, to see if people would think that I was good enough. This meant that my playing was very good to the layman, though a professional might disapprove.

Third, because I was playing all the songs that I loved (Iron Maiden was my favourite), I put in probably 1-2 hours on weekdays and up to 6 hours on weekends.

Fourth, I had a musical background to begin with, and am blessed with pretty big hands. I have to face the fact that I was already a piano player and thus my finger dexterity was better than most. I also knew how to ‘play by feel’ to a certain extent. Lastly, my left index finger to my pinky can stretch comfortably from the 5th to the 12th fret on most electric guitars.

These came together to make me look like I was a great player to most people, and it won me a reputation as one of the better players in the state.

The Good and the Bad

I now reflect back on that and see that I did many things that were good for my technique and others that were bad.

Let’s talk about the bad first.

Because I practiced so many things to the level of good and not great, my technique was sloppy when it came to the task. Of course, no one caught this, since playing at high speeds seems magical to most people, including fellow guitarists [2]. That bred the next problem, which was that I thought that I could continue on doing this.

Because I was seen as a great guitarist for a high school kid, everything was really good, and it fed my ego as well as some bad habits which I had to eventually unlearn (which I’m doing now). Either way, if I continued doing what I was doing, I wouldn’t get much better.

The good was that by doing things so broadly, I obviously got a lot of attention. Playing at various gigs as a 16 year old was a seriously fun thing to do. At the same time, because of my wide interest and background in music theory, I wrote some of my own songs which I also played in front of various audiences.

What I Should Have Done

However, something changed when I got out of high school, and that was the realisation that if I wanted to be good, I had to be as good as the professionals. I was being judged in a whole different way, more demanding and ruthless.

I then realised that I had to take a good look at my practicing methodology.

This is when I started to take the lessons I saw online more seriously. I decided to practice without effects, which make you sound better than you really are, and practice with a clean guitar sound. I paid attention to every note that I hit wrongly and every time I did not play something in time. I also tried to practice many different scales and licks. My favourite list of such can be found at guitar dreams, with part 1, and part 2. These exercises have now formed the foundation of every practice session.

Finally, I experimented with various ways of picking and fretting. From all alternate picking, to economical. From pick angle, to how hard I picked to the plane in which I picked. And so on. I focused on getting things right with the least amount of tension and to be able to play each one consistently well. I really blocked out periods of time where all I did was focus on practicing guitar. This naturally served to bolster and re-ignite my passion for playing, and it is what I want to do in the future.

Finally, and probably most importantly, I look up to several guitarists who can be qualified as virtuosos and recognise that in due time (probably 7-10 years from now), I will be able to be at a comparable level to these people.

What I should have done back then was to integrate these two approaches. I should have structured my practice sessions such that half of it was strict technical work and half of it was playing anything I liked. This would have kept the interest level high, advanced my technique, and yet made me look good in front of my peers.

Hence, I do not think that the traditional method of teaching is the most optimal. A traditional teacher will bring the learner through a set step of progressions which may or not be conducive for the equally important parameters of technique and interest level. One without the other is certainly going to leave the learner ultimately dissatisfied.

With that, I wish you good luck, and I hope that this story can help you review your practice methods for better progress.

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Notes:
[1] Professional Guitarists here is referring to the professional guitarists which I draw inspiration from. These tend to be the instrumentalists, most notably, Paul Gilbert, Steve Vai and Buckethead.

[2] I have found that when you first start out learning something at a high speed, it all sounds like a mess. When you reduce it down to lower tempos, it doesn’t sound like anything with any resemblance to the original piece at all. Once you do learn it, you can distinctly hear and recognise each note, but yet played slow and fast, the same series of notes sounds different. This distinction must be even more blurry for those who are not musically inclined.

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1. Practicing the Guitar Seated vs Standing
2. 5 rules for Time-Efficient Practice

Though I must say that my level of intelligence isn’t poor, neither is it outstanding.

I certainly could not compete with many of the academic geniuses I knew in my high school. They were the few who could memorise and recall information so fluidly that learning came so easily.

So I decided to try and find ways of hacking my learning to make up for this difference. Very soon, I discovered that the principles I was using not only applied to my academic coursework, but also other fields, like music.

This e-book is a short consolidation of that intention. What I present is a 30 page package with tips on the vague subject of learning, coming from my own experience.

If you want a 1 sentence summary of the message of the book (If you’re too lazy to even read 30 picture-filled pages), it is this:

Decide today, not tomorrow, to take control of your learning, and to patiently experiment to see what works best for you.

I hope this hopes anyone brave enough to venture into the dark mysteriously world of how your mind learns.

Without further adieu, Here is: Learn Like a Pro v1.0.

Click Here to Download PDF

Apply these and WIN!

No related posts.

You really don’t know what you sound/look like until you have recorded a video of yourself and then watched it.

This is a short post, because it only has one message: Every set interval (I do it once a week), record a video of your practice sessions and then watch it.

You will probably be surprised about how stupid you really sound (I found out the hard way by seeing a video of a performance I did. I was thinking, “People were watching THAT!”)

Of course, the final goal is straightforward: To see your own performance in the eyes of the audience (this applies to any type of performance like a speech, etc)

So remember, we don’t know how we look, sound or anything else for that matter…

Related posts:

1. No time to practice? Great! – proper spacing of practice

Admittedly, some people truly want to simply play music in the way that it is presented in scores or other means. However, there are some people who really want to write their own songs.

Somehow, there is a creative knack in some people and they really want to write something that they can call their own. I admit, I’m one of those guys.

The question is: Is there such a thing as a certain level of competence before you can compose music?

The answer is, yes and no. You probably need a certain level of competence with music theory, but the practical considerations (like how good your techniques are should be secondary).

The first point – The Theory Behind Music

If you are unfamiliar with time signatures, crotchets, and even up to cadences, then composing music is going to be tough.

Though there is an extended amount of creativity that can be injected into musical composition. It will be much, much smoother if you understand basic progressions and how they sound. It creates a whole new perspective. Perhaps I’m wrong, but I still think that an intermediate understanding of theory is necessary.

Of course, you can teach this to yourself and don’t need to go for a traditional degree from a ‘credited’ organisation like the Associated Board of the Royal School of Music (ABRSM). Heck, even going to the Music Theory wiki will give you some knowledge.

If not there are always paid and free programs around to learn this. An example is 8notes.com, but any serious site can teach you. Hanging around musical communities can also be a good way to pick it up. Rest assured, its going to be much easier than any subject you take at school, and most people really just hype up the stuff you need to know to compose, trying to sound ‘educated’.

I will not set a threshold for how much you need to know, because I think that it really depends. Just use as much as you need and learn the rest along the way, music is a journey after all.

The second point – The practical aspects

Do you need to play like your idol before you start composing? Heck NO!

Anybody with a good idea can compose a song. You need zero technical competence. In fact, I will contend that composing and practicing your own songs is better. The reasons are as follows:

• You will be motivated to show off your piece

The corollary from this is that you will practice harder and smarter to get your piece done right. On top of that, there are the obvious emotional and social rewards from having an original piece.

• You will try to stand out, and hence experiment with all sorts of techniques

This basically builds up your technical competency. So in fact, the situation can be reversed, whereby you’re so motivated to play your own songs that you increase your skills in various techniques due to the act of practicing them.

• You can’t be wrong

When you’re playing someone else’s piece, you’re always wrong. The best imitation will never ever be looked at with the same light as the original. You will only truly come of age when you have your own original pieces, however good, that you can call your own.

The upside is then that you can experiment with creating your own style, your own preferred techniques, etc. In essence, your own ‘sound’.

Wrap Up

In any case, I don’t see much of a downside to composing your own pieces. Even if you don’t make it as a musician, composing your own songs can be a tremendous learning experience, one that shouldn’t be passed up.

Image Credit: AgniMax

Related posts:

1. A Musician’s Appreciation of Music