Complete Method Book

I’ve been using A Modern Method for Guitar – Volumes 1 2 3 Complete ( Berklee Press) with some of my guitar students, and I recommend it for helping establish a solid foundation for serious musicians. Like so many method books, it has it’s particular approach, but it’s one that not only emphasizes exercises but also explains technique as it goes and is very inclusive. This method book was first recommended to me last summer by jazz guitarist Steve Jacobson , and I wish I’d discovered it long ago.

Keep the Beat

An absolutely critical aspect of successful music-making is keeping the beat, in particular the downbeat of each measure.

Some of my rock-star students lose the beat because they’re busy filling up space with flashy riffs and fast action. I tell them that no one will want them in the band if they can’t play along with others.

Playing with a metronome helps, especially one that emphasizes the first beat of each measure, tapping one’s foot can help—unless it doesn’t, and especially I think it’s a good idea for a player to do less. The idea is to add elements as the timekeeping improves.

Simplify at first, add the bells and whistles later.

A Written Record

Keep a music journal. Put it in a form that appeals to you. If it’s on paper, it can be a record of your practice, or articles you read and like—pasted pictures, even. If it’s electronic, it may include sound files, YouTube videos, whatever.

Keep a written record to support your history, so you know where you’ve been. It may give you an idea where you’re headed.

It may help your teacher track your progress as well, to understand you better, to better assist you.

Practice, Practice, Practice

The old admonishment (and smart answer to the question, “How do I get to Carnegie Hall?”) is generally taken to mean that you should practice continually. (If you practiced constantly you’d collapse and die.)

Of course it’s good advice.

What’s less known is that you do need to have those times between practice, and that they should come rather frequently. If you’re practicing a half-hour, try practicing 15 minutes, taking a 15 minute break to do something else, then practice the same material over again during a final 15 minute bout. Take a page from studies about studying, which show that reviewing material after a brief break helps push that material from short-term into long-term memory.

Relax

People don’t often hear your mistakes, they hear the music, get the overall effect. Take a lesson from actors who perform “in the moment.” When performing for others you should never do-over a poorly played note. And when practicing you shouldn’t do-over either, or not often. If you stop every time you make a mistake, you’ll get in a bad habit of doing so, and you’ll stop-and-start when others are listening. Amateur actors correct mistakes they make speaking, pros behave as if they’d spoken correctly, and move on.