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What is your current practice routine and playing to your strengths vs. improving weaknesses ?
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joevidetto
Posts: 191
Joined: Jun. 15 2013
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 What is your current practice routin...
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Hi all,
Since I've been spending quite a bit of time with the instrument lately, I'd like to share some of what I do, some personal reflections on my own practice, and hear some of the same from you who are willing to share.
Recently retired - I now have no excuse for lack of time...it's exhilerating, other than that I wish I had this kind of time when I was younger - but hey, spilled milk : )
My current goal is to relearn every piece or song (that I still like) that I had spent many hours with in the past....which doesn't mean I ever learned to play them at a performance level....now that crosses a LOT of styles, but most of it involves technically challenging pieces. For some reason my ear went to these types of things, and it may well be because playing technically challenging pieces is one of my relative strengths.
So my morning routine consists of watching Netflix while I work through reading the pieces I'm working on - I started with classical pieces. I know divided attention is less effective - but F#$ it - that's the way I enjoy practicing lol
What I learned - is how hard (that is, how long it takes) for me to memorize a full piece and play it at performance level. The smart thing I've done in my recent years is create a list of songs/pieces that I continually revisit. The pop song list has about 50 songs, and the recent classical list has only 5. My 5 classical pieces are:
1.) Bach - Allemande from 3rd cello suite
2.) Asturias - Albeniz
3.) Variations on a theme of Mozart - Sor
4.) Chopin Prelude op 28 no 20 - as transcribed by Liona Boyd
5.) Romance (anonymous)
It's been 2 months of several hours of morning practice - and I'm still quite far away from playing these 5. I realize also that I learned parts of these pieces well, but never actually learned the whole piece - for example, the beginning of the Asturias is relatively straightforward arpeggios, but the slow part is actually quite beautiful and not so easy (for me) to read. Since my sight reading is poor, quite often it takes me quite a bit of time to get my fingers in the right place and play through even 1 or 2 measures fluently....and then lots more time to combine measures into a fluent line, section etc. I have to annotate my pieces extensively with every position change, fingerings that might be obvious to a good sight reader, and chord diagrams. I'm going to later share an example. I have to do the same for flamenco pieces.
--> I'm wondering if many of you have to perform such labor to learn a new piece, and if you have any tips, shortcuts, etc.
--> Also - are there other more elementary practice exercises/strategies that would speed up my pace at the above ? I don't think so, but I'm open to suggestions.
I can do the above for about 1 to an hour and a half - and then I'm fatigued, usually 'classical-music-outted' for the day.
After that I can move to flamenco for 1/2 hour+, depending, but after that I'm 'nylon-stringed' out.
I do have an end goal (which has been constantly changing lol) - which is being able to confidently perform 45 minutes to an hour of my favorite pieces on a nylon string guitar. You may recall I was looking for easier classical pieces and thought mixing genres would be a bad idea - but all of you convinced me otherwise (thanks for that). I now plan to mix classical, flamenco, and even a few Steve Howe solo pieces.
Ah -this post is already longer than I planned - I'll save my pop practice routine for another post (depending on the response to this one).
As I always say - thanks in advance for your friendship, comraderie, and all the advice and sharing you guys generously give.
Best,
Joe
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Date Dec. 28 2023 14:16:43
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Norman Paul Kliman
Posts: 59
Joined: Dec. 5 2023
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RE: What is your current practice ro... (in reply to joevidetto)
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Hey Joe,
If you want to work on picado, I’ve got some exercises:
http://canteytoque.es/pmiexc.htm#picado
I focus on Exercise 8, but I recommend you go over the other seven exercises to learn about the consequences of starting with index or with middle. In these exercises, it’s easier when you start with your middle finger, because, in the descent, you’ll be moving to the lower-pitched strings with your index, and the goal is to play the exercises well starting with either finger. It’s awkward when the pattern forces you to move to lower-pitched strings with your middle finger. After 15 or 20 minutes, the awkward sensation goes away, and everything else is much easier to play thereafter.
Rasgueados are another technique that’s often overlooked in practice routines. I usually warm up my rasgueados by playing basic rhythm patterns of soleá por medio (could be any rhythmic style in any key, really), and for that you’ll want to have several cierres and remates, which are the ideas you play over beats 7-8-9 and 10-11-12, respectively. So, find a strumming pattern or three that you like, memorize five or six cierres and remates, and just play for your own enjoyment for a few minutes (rest and repeat). Make sure your rasgueados skate across the strings rather than digging into them, and don’t overdo it (you can damage your tendons).
Like you, I also play a lot of pop tunes and just a few classical pieces to keep me spry and interested. Unlike you, however, my focus in recent years has been on easier things, or rather things that shouldn’t be so difficult for me to make sound good. I tend to play a little rough, and when I come across a relatively simple guitar situation that I play roughly, I use it as an exercise. Classical Gas is a good one for fun and good tone, although I think beginning flamenco guitarists should stick to flamenco for a few years. Glad to see the mention of Steve Howe. I no longer play “Mood for a Day,” but I have a blast playing “The Clap.” Other covers include my arrangements of Beatles tunes, blues, some jazz, etc.
You’ll beat yourself up but you’ll come out much stronger for having learned Paco de Lucía’s zapateado “Percusión flamenca.” In the late 80s and most of the 90s, I listened to his studio recording of that a lot, just because it was part of a compilation release (greatest hits tape or or something like that). About 10 years ago, someone pointed out the video, and, without the string section of the studio version, I finally noticed the extraordinary guitar work going on there. That’s an excellent piece to learn, as is Manolo Sanlúcar’s zapateado "Los Caireles," from his album “Recital flamenco.” Those two are my ultimate exercises. Very hard to play well all the way through, and, if I’m out of practice, it might take a couple of evenings to get up to speed. But once I can play them at performance speed, everything else is much easier to play.
Hope this gives you some tips.
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Date Dec. 28 2023 17:17:27
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Ricardo
Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: What is your current practice ro... (in reply to joevidetto)
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A lot of people that use music scores to learn, waste a lot of valuable time running through or slowly reading through entire pieces. Then, start over, or focus only on a tricky section. This might bring pleasure but it won’t ever get you to performance level, or goal tempos. I have shown the Tomatito falseta video too many times, but that is literally how it has to be done, with or without the score in front of you. Loop phrases at tempo, adding chunks gradually only as the previous is mastered…always returning to the top and working up to the stop point, or loop point. It is very much less time consuming but of course sounds bad if you are playing with people around or for your own enjoyment. Don’t add a single note until your previous phrase is as you want it at the tempo you want.
I have been going through some Fuenllana tabs in the former manner for enjoyment with no intention of performance. It is shocking to me that the guy was blind and did all that work, it is hard stuff to play at tempo. If I did want to perform this piece, I would need to do exactly as I suggested in the latter method, one short phrase at a time.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Dec. 28 2023 19:23:07
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joevidetto
Posts: 191
Joined: Jun. 15 2013
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RE: What is your current practice ro... (in reply to joevidetto)
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quote:
Loop phrases at tempo, adding chunks gradually only as the previous is mastered…always returning to the top and working up to the stop point, or loop point. It is very much less time consuming but of course sounds bad if you are playing with people around or for your own enjoyment. Don’t add a single note until your previous phrase is as you want it at the tempo you want.
I'd like to continue the discussion on learning full pieces at a reasonable tempo. I practice in a very similar way as Ricardo described - and I feel like it takes me a long, long time to learn a whole piece in this way - the one thing we don't see Ricardo doing that I have to, and that takes me a long time, is first annotating the piece with fingerings and learning to read through it. I can only really sight read in the first position and have to think hard to learn and play through the text in time and with accuracy, so even GETTING to the point to be able to practice in the way Ricardo is doing for this Tomatito falseta takes quite a few days of slow analysis, fingering markups, placing chord diagrams above where appropriate, annotating the position changes, etc.
I wanted to ask if most of you learn and practice in the same way, and if indeed it takes you a very long time to learn a complete piece in this way. If so, share a couple of the pieces you've learned in this way, and whether you've been able to maintain them in memory.
Now I don't really measure my hours of practice, but I'm sure if I did I would be in many tens of hours into the hundreds before I learn a piece in this way and can play it with confidence - or maybe it just feels like hundreds...don't really know, but clearly many tens at a minimum.
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Date Feb. 2 2024 0:40:43
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Ricardo
Posts: 14825
Joined: Dec. 14 2004
From: Washington DC
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RE: What is your current practice ro... (in reply to joevidetto)
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I did not transcribe that falseta of tomatito. I went by the VIDEO mainly, but the Encuentro thing came with a book. I only glanced at the book to confirm timing situations that were unusual. I basically watched the video a couple times (he does a “slow” version LOL), and tapping my foot to feel the compás (which later I do to memorize it, which is the stage you observe in the video) and sing along sort of, with his phrasing while doing that. This procedure gets the thing into my head, but NOT under my fingers. There was some delay time to process the video before upload to YouTube, but the whole affair took less than an hour. I only had a vague idea about the fingering before that video was made, I am literally learning it before your eyes. I was not racing, I wanted to know how long it would take me, and the answer was 8 minutes. I know some guys that would get that MUCH faster than me, and I know people that might struggle with that very first phrase for the entire DAY. (Not talking about beginners that can’t change 2 chords in rhythm). So the main point here is you don’t need to spend too much time with that transcribing stuff….yes THAT would have taken me a lot more time to do, to confirm notes and fingerings by ear.
If I do some music that way (transcribe and by ear, put in fingerings), well believe it or not, I still need this chunking thing at tempo (or medium tempo), because things change drastically at higher speeds. I inevitably go back to a score or whatever and redo the fingers once I realize what the heck this music is gonna feel like at tempo. I have noticed even PDL refingering certain falsetas, which means he also goes through the longer process where after screwing up on stage too many time he changes the thing to something he definitely WON’T mess up anymore. So don’t underestimate the value of running phrases (at least short chunks) at the actual speeds. It really helps move things along in terms of your time economy.
_____________________________
CD's and transcriptions available here:
www.ricardomarlow.com
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Date Feb. 2 2024 11:59:16
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