Hi Jamie,

I have a question about picking and building up to higher speeds.

I read somewhere that the late, great Shawn Lane once said, “Generally speaking, when practicing fast licks, it is supposed to be better to practice at a slow tempo and build up to speed. But my idea is ‘play as fast as you can even if you make mistakes.’ In the beginning, you may lack precision but you can get over that. First gain speed and gradually get clearer. It’s a better way – at least I think so.”

This runs counter to what you and most other instructors teach. Obviously it worked for Shawn so it can’t be completely flawed, but is there anything of value in this statement for normal humans?

In a similar vein, Michael Angelo recommends picking as fast as you can first, then using that motion as your basic template for picking technique and practicing slow from there on, the idea being that the first picking-hand position you go with is the most natural and comfortable for you (I’m assuming this isn’t directed at complete beginners). Where do you stand on that idea?

Thanks for any comments and keep up the good work,

Bill

Hi Bill,

Those are very interesting questions, and even though the contentions made are almost diametrically opposed to what I and many other teachers would advise, I think they deserve examination, and I even believe there is value to be discovered. In any case, as you say, when a great player says something, I always listen closely. They may not understand completely all the implications or related factors of what they are saying, but there is most likely something valid in their perceptions.

First of all, yes, I think we can safely assume that these procedures worked for these people, at least some of the time, and at least at some period in their development. However, we have no way of knowing if they could solve all their problems this way, and if they at times needed to employ other methods. We have no way of knowing if there were things they wanted to do and never were able to do, because these methods were not sufficient. And, we have no way of knowing if these methods only became effective after a certain period of technical development had taken place.

I think we should keep these uncertainties in mind when examining this issue.

And as long as we are talking about things that we can and cannot be certain of, I will tell you this without a doubt: for the vast majority of people attempting to learn guitar, these methods will bring exactly what they do bring for the thousands of guitar students I have met in my life: these methods of practice and problem solving will bring almost insurmountably disastrous results! I am talking about technique that is so flawed, so limited, and so ingrained into the players muscle memory that most people, without the benefit of the remedial techniques GuitarPrinciples offers, will simply never overcome them.

So, what is going on here?

I really think that when Shawn Lane says “in learning a new lick, just keep playing it over and over. The mistakes will gradually get worked out and it will get cleaner,” he is talking about learning a lick that is already well within the level of your ability. It is on the same plane as your horizontal growth at the present time. It does not contain movements that are beyond you at the moment, things you cannot do comfortably or smoothly at any speed.

There are many things I can play perfectly at sight, having never seen the music before. That is because (aside from knowing the neck well), there is nothing there I have not seen a million times before, and nothing there I cannot execute with almost no conscious thought. Then, there are things I can play pretty well, perhaps not up to tempo, and perhaps with some mistakes. I will have to work on them a bit, because they are simply more complex, and perhaps contain movements I am not so familiar with, or are completely new. Perhaps I need actual physical development of some muscle or nerve connection to play it well.

Then, there are really difficult things I have never played before (remember, I play mostly classical). The best players have to take months to perhaps a year to do the kind of analysis and practice necessary for extremely difficult music (and bring it to “performance level”). It is very important to keep in mind that many styles, especially improvised styles, use a relatively small number of discretely different movement patterns. If you are a rock or blues player, most likely, you are doing essentially the same movements, perhaps in different contexts and with different inflections, throughout your whole playing life. Even new licks are not too different than the ones you know. Of course, every player is going to fall somewhere on this spectrum in terms of variability of movement patterns, and that will influence the practice methods you find effective.

Auto Correct

I actually have a name for this idea of “doing something over and over until it starts coming out right.” I call it “auto-correct.” I use it myself, and I use it with students. However, it is important to know how to use it, when to use it, and especially, when not to use it.

I may have a student sitting in front of me, playing something we have worked on awhile. He or she may mess up a passage, and I will say “okay, take that part again.” But, I will add these extremely important words “increase your attention and intention before and during this next attempt.” In other words, some mistakes will occur simply because we are not paying enough attention to what we are doing, or, even more likely, are not thinking ahead to our next series of movements, including hearing the music in our heads as we play. So, my first line of attack with mistakes where music has already been practiced is “auto-correct.” It very well may happen that by simply going over the passage a few times with strong mental focus (and it is always a big help to play it mentally before each new attempt), it starts to improve. But, if the mistake does not yield to this approach, it is a good indication that something else is going on, that the problem is not in the mind, so to speak, but in the fingers.

It could be bad fingering, unclear fingering, erratic fingering, physical tension in any part of the body; a million different things. At that point, a diagnostic process of analysis must be conducted, and there is only one way to do it. If you doggedly stick with “auto-correct,” the methods you have asked me about, you are going to be a seriously frustrated guitarist, because when the problem is of this nature, it does not fix itself!

Another point to appreciate is this: in my book “The Deeper I Go,” I define intelligence as “responsive awareness.” I also make the point that there are many domains of intelligence, and physical intelligence is one of them. Some people’s bodies are more naturally “responsively aware” than others. For these people, auto-correct is going to work at an earlier date in their development, and more strongly. However, all of us can teach our bodies to be responsively aware, to be “intelligent,” that is what proper training is all about. The more sophisticated our technique becomes through training, the more “auto-correct” will work for us, and in increasingly complex situations.

But, much more important than all of this is to know what to do when auto-correct is not solving our problem, which is 99% of the time! What must be done is, essentially, the Basic Practice Approach (the fundamental practice methodology taught in The Principles). I will say to the student having trouble with something, “play the passage for me no tempo; show me the bottom of your practice.” That will tell me all I need to know. I will see the discomfort the student is truly experiencing (without knowing it), and I will see what they are doing to create or exacerbate that discomfort. I see what is wrong, why it is wrong, and what to do about it, and then we get to work.

Expanding Upon A Basic “Template”

Now let’s talk about this other idea of learning a skill by simply having a go at it as fast as you can, observing the action, and assuming that the details of that action are the best possible ones for you to use, and so should be developed.

Well, my first reaction is “try it, see how it works.” I imagine it may be a good idea, and bring good and maybe the best results for some very few people, but again, all of my decades of teaching experience have shown me otherwise. In fact, my basic attitude is, all things being equal, the untrained fingers are incredibly stupid, and can almost always be depended upon to do things in the worst way possible. In fact, it would usually be better to watch what your fingers do, and then train them to do just the opposite!

Now, please remember I am not laying down hard and fast “this is the way it is for everybody all the time” type of rules, because there are none. There are so many variables involved in this whole subject that no rules could ever hold true always. My philosophy is to listen to everybody, think about everything, try everything you have a mind to, and then assess and analyze results. We just really need to be careful in this whole endeavor. I would not be surprised that someone who based their picking technique on the first available action template that presented itself would never know whether they were, by doing so, making many other skills inaccessible to themselves down the road. We frequently hear of long time players who wish they could change this or that about their technique, having discovered superior approaches later in life.

So, those are my thoughts concerning the provocative statements made by these great players. If I were to summarize my reaction to the substance of your questions concerning the statements of these players of great natural talent who, as great players often will, have temporarily taken on the role of teachers, I would say this: it is a perfect illustration of why so often great players are lousy teachers, unless they are teaching already great players!

Copyright © 2005-2010 Jamie Andreas. All rights reserved.

Response from internationally recognized guitarist and music educator, Troy Stetina:

Jamie,

Wonderful insights. When I read these things you write, I always find myself thinking, “yeah, very true.” You always seem to be articulating things that I am aware of, but had not refined into such clearly stated truths. So it’s always very cool to see you hitting the nail on the head.

This was a particularly interesting one… Right on target here with how many great players practice methods work, but only under certain circumstances. When people ask me about my own practice now, I must always qualify my answer, saying that when I was developing technique my practice was quite different. What I do these days for “practice” is only a matter of “dusting off” skills already previously developed. That is a completely different animal from “inputting” the unconscious routines in the first place.

Thanks for all your efforts and insights,

Troy Stetina

I believe we all know that the usual reaction to this situation is a negative one; frustration perhaps mixed with anger, and a little despair thrown in for good measure! When we can’t get something to sound the way we hear someone else play it, even after lots of practice and lots of time, it is a very frustrating, annoying situation. At the very least, we want to hear ourselves making that wonderful music we admire and, more than that, we want to feel like we are getting somewhere as guitarists for the effort we put in, that we have the ability to make continuous progress.

So, when we keep giving ourselves negative feedback, in the form of repeated failed attempts to be able to do something, it starts to take the wind out of our sails, and we begin to lose confidence in ourselves. Diminished desire for practicing usually follows rather quickly.

So, what do we do about this unavoidable situation?

The answer lies in understanding the point I made in my essay “The Inner Master”. We must understand what “Mastery” is, and why it is possible to be, in essence, a Master right from the beginning of our relationship to music and the guitar. And that is because Mastery is an inner attitude and disposition. It is the inner position in which there is no obstruction from the outside to the inside, and no obstruction from the inside to the outside.

Sure, even “Masters” hit plateaus, but they have learned not to react in ways that will prevent eventual transcendence of the limitations of that level of ability. They have learned that all negative reactions will prevent moving beyond the plateau. The only possible exception to this is the person who has learned the wonderful art of turning his anger into an ally, using frustration as a fuel for determination. But even in this case, the anger is handled with mastery, and not allowed to become an obstacle (but that is a topic for another essay!).

The Master has realized the wisdom expressed so eloquently in the New Testament, “resist not evil”. The meaning of this is simply this: the way to overcome that which we do not like is not to resist and resent it, because that only strengthens it, and weakens us. It is to “remain in place” inwardly, to study it, to understand it, and then to act. Then, we achieve power, which is the ability to create change.

And so, knowing this, what does the Master do when they find themselves on a plateau? Why, they build a château on the plateau, and take up residence there! They say, “Hmmm, something is going on here that I don’t understand, so I am going to stay here and study the landscape. I will focus my attention so strongly on what I can see that I will begin to see more.” The Master knows the reason for being stuck is because there is something sitting there, at that level, that needs to be known. So the Master sits, and studies, and if there is one thing a Master has, it’s patience!

For someone who has not discovered the inner position of Mastery, the reaction to being “stuck on a plateau” is quite different. For such a person, there are obstructions from the inside to the outside, and the outside to the inside, and the obstructions arise quickly– anger, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy appear and intensify. If these feelings were examined, the road to Mastery would begin to become visible. If these feelings were examined, we would find that it is not really the natural frustration of not getting what we want that is the biggest problem, but rather, it is the fact that we are, underneath that, feeling inferior and inadequate.

Like children watching their parents divorce, we conclude immediately “there must be something wrong with me; that is why this bad thing is happening”. In both these cases, this conclusion may appear to be justified, given our level of understanding, but it is not the truth. The Master may feel these feelings too, but unlike the novice, the Master does not run from these feelings, they simply become part of the scenery to be surveyed.

The novice feels such emotional pain from these feelings that they are helpless to do anything but try to avoid them. The novice shuts his eyes, and covers his feelings. In fact, the novice wishes to leave the plateau more out of a desire to avoid feelings of inferiority than by the desire to really enjoy a higher level of ability.

Unlike the novice, the Master does not identity with these feelings; they may arise, but the Master does not give these feelings the power to define who he or she is, or can become.

Just because I feel like I am inferior, or unable, is no reason to assume I actually am; that would be a very dangerous belief to adopt on such dubious evidence. And so, the Master sets aside these feelings, and sits, and studies. The Master becomes so involved in the process of communing with the conditions of the plateau that the desire to leave it becomes secondary to the interest and adventure of learning all of what is there. And so, problems become more interesting than frustrating.

Because of this, over time the depth of understanding of the Master increases, and the rising to a new level of ability appears automatically.

To be a Master from the beginning, to have the power to transcend your plateaus, is not about knowing how to go somewhere else. It is a matter of knowing how to look and see where you are right now. Insight into where we are now involves two things: understanding how we got here, and more importantly, knowing what is keeping us here. Often, the two answers are the same. In any case, it is the second answer that is most useful to us. Therein lies our power.

As I said, negative emotional reactions, the habit they become, and sometimes even the need for them, painful though they be, prevent us from leaving our plateaus. But there is a little more to the story. Underneath every reactive feeling there is a belief. If you want true insight into yourself you must uncover the unconscious beliefs that underlie your feelings. And I will tell you this most truly: if the above described feelings are a chronic obstruction to you during practice, then you have the most toxic belief a guitar player can have: you really believe you will never be able to do it, you believe you just don’t have it, and worse, you can’t get it. Your frustration draws its power from your deep down belief that you are innately inadequate. And so all your negative feelings actually resolve down to despair, and despair is living death.

The opposite of despair is hope. And guess what! There is good news: help and hope are here! They are here for those who really want it and are willing to act like they do. That hope is a complete conversion of your practice according to The Principles. Anyone who does this realizes that their belief in their innate inadequacy was simply wrong. They simply were not going about things in the right way, and no one ever told them.

Mastery is not about where you are, but how you look at where you are. The Principles will give you the framework within which you can look at where you are with understanding, not despair. What most people think of as “Mastery” is simply the accumulated power and abilities from much time spent in the position of Mastery. They look at the result of mastery, and think it is the thing itself.

All of what you see in The Principles is the result of my time spent, often many years, on my own plateaus. Or, it is from the study of the plateaus upon which my students have found themselves. Essentially, I have done the work for you, or at least all of the work except the work only you can do for yourself. I have figured out every detail of why people have trouble learning guitar and why they get stuck at some level of ability beyond which they cannot move. I have never seen a plateau from which I or my students could not eventually rise, but only if we sit upon the plateau as a Master.

Sitting upon the plateau as a Master, with dedication, understanding, and patience, we do not allow frustration and despair to obstruct the flow from the inside to the outside. Everything is seen, known, and understood, and we are led to relate in the best and most appropriate way to the level of awareness called “the plateau”. The “plateau” becomes the teacher, and instructs the Master/Student in the wisdom that is necessary to rise higher.

And so it goes, and so it goes.

Copyright © 2004 Jamie Andreas. All rights reserved.
www.guitarprinciples.com

Here are the good ways:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=E03KVay2Gq0

If you are serious about your playing, and would like to learn to play better than you do now, instead of just learning “more stuff” and playing it the same way, I urge you to visit www.guitarprinciples.com, where you will find the knowledge and training that will enable you to achieve your highest potential as a guitarist.

You can still find David’s original text for this lesson here: While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- A Finger Style / Chord Melody Arrangement

Or, if you prefer, there is a “condensed tablature version” that David created for the Guitar Noise blog here: Download gif (Right-click and “Save as”)

As always, please feel free to come by the Guitar Principles website (Guitar Principles) and drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.

Don’t miss Part 1 (Performance Notes) and Part 2 (Performance Notes for the Verses) of this lesson!

This means applying force to the strings in such a way that unnecessary tension is minimized and eliminated, and necessary tension is balanced when applied, and released when its job is done. That is what I am doing when you see me play. The video for this lesson can be found here:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAjCxfTH1fc

You can still find David’s original text for this lesson here: While My Guitar Gently Weeps -- A Finger Style / Chord Melody Arrangement

Or, if you prefer, there is a “condensed tablature version” that David created for the Guitar Noise blog here: Download gif (Right-click and “Save as”)

If you are serious about your playing, and would like to learn to play better than you do now, instead of just learning “more stuff” and playing it the same way, I urge you to visit www.guitarprinciples.com, where you will find the knowledge and training that will enable you to achieve your highest potential as a guitarist. Please feel free to come by the Guitar Principles website (Guitar Principles) and drop me a line if you have any questions or comments.

Don’t miss the other two parts of this series: Part 1 -- Performance Notes and Part 3 -- Performance Notes for the Bridge.

Beyond the fingering, much of what I will explain to you would not otherwise be obvious, or even visible to you. This is because much of what developed players are doing when they play, all those things that “make it look easy”, are, in fact, invisible. You would never know what I or some other player is really doing just by watching. Much of the time, the player doesn’t really know themselves!

Well, you’re going to know now!

At Guitar Principles, we are dedicated to your excellence as a guitar player, and my system of learning and playing guitar is for those of you who are likewise dedicated to your excellence. You are going to see, in this lesson, the application of many aspects of my methods, and it will help you greatly to play this piece and everything else you play.

For those players who would like to go deeper, from the application of these methods of guitar mastery, to the actual foundation of them, you are always welcome to visit Guitar Principles, where you will find the knowledge and training that will enable you to master all the wonderful music, like this arrangement by David Hodge, that you find on www.guitarnoise.com!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=P76DWglLsPE

You can find the tablature here: Download gif (Right-click and “Save as”)

Don’t miss the next two parts of this lesson: Part 2 -- Performance Notes for the Verses and Part 3 -- Performance Notes for the Bridge.

One of the most destructive mindsets we can have is a hurried and worried attitude about our daily work, our daily practice. We are conditioned in our schooling, and later in our life in the working world, to a fearful attitude which tells us we need to perform to a certain standard, or else! We need to get those high marks, or else we fail our class. We need to finish that project, finish that report, or else the ax will fall!

This is why we have the word “deadline”. It means “if you do not finish this required work on time, you’re dead!”

Some people become so used to this feeling that they begin to believe they “work best under pressure”. They need to feel they have a gun pointed at their head, so they believe, to even get any work done!

Well, I want to tell you that if you wish to develop as an artist, you must get very far away from this belief system. You must discover a whole new way of motivating yourself to perform that does not depend on the fear of some terrible thing happening to you. You must find a way to give yourself completely to your daily work, your daily practice, that is motivated only by the pleasure you are getting from every moment of every day’s practice.

I have often had a student tell me that the reason why they did so poorly on the 4 different things I gave them to practice was because they were worried about ” getting everything done perfectly in time for the lesson”, so they rushed through the material, hurried and worried. Of course, rushing through the material meant they missed just about everything that was important, like the fingering, and whether or not they were actually able to play to a steady beat, or even whether or not they were playing the correct notes! And as far as being aware of all body tensions, forget it!

So, I have to break the news to them that their entire week of practice was worthless, and must be done over. I also have to explain that the very attempt to “get it perfect” is what lead them to “get it very imperfect”.

Understand this: there is no such thing as perfect. “Perfect” by itself, is not a goal that your mind can grab hold of and set itself to accomplish. The word “perfect” must be used in connection with a given, knowable, and obtainable goal in order to do us any good. Otherwise, “perfect” is a big fat scary word that can only be used to intimidate and rattle you so much that you will probably accomplish very little.

We must learn to think in terms of goalines, not deadlines, when we practice. Week by week, you or your teacher must set out the proper “next goal” for you to accomplish with any given piece of music you are working on. For instance, if I am working on a scale with a student, I will say something like “next week, I want to hear this scale at 60 to the quarter note, with your fingers working exactly the way I have shown you. I want you to work it up every day using the Basic Practice Approach, to that speed throughout the course of the week. Don’t worry about any faster speeds, just get it as perfect as you can at that speed”.

If it is a song, or a solo that needs to go at 120 bpm, I might set out the goals this way:

1st week: get the notes and the fingers right. Start to walk through the notes no tempo, and discover the most challenging parts, and start to analyze why they are difficult, and what you are going to do about it.

2nd week: test yourself by playing small sections of the music at 60bpms, taking 4 clicks for each note. Make sure all the movements can be done smoothly at this speed. If they can’t, there is no chance of being able to do it any faster. Then, start to work those sections up in speed using the Basic Practice Approach.

3rd week: begin to play to the actual rhythm of the music, giving all the notes their true rhythmic value, not all equal time as before. Discover where the problems are now. Start to work on them, and find what tempo you can play everything at with no mistakes, section by section.

4th week: here, I will begin to assign specific tempo goals for different sections, as I see the student is ready to accomplish those goals.

All along the way, I am giving out other goals as appropriate. “Your pick is going too far out from the string on your up-pick on that scale. Fix it this week with correct practice.” The next week, when that student walks in, I look at the notebook to see what goals I have given, and I’d better see at least some movement toward that goal. (The worst thing a student can do is not look at their notebook, not look at the goals I have set forth.)

This constant process of setting the next appropriate goal, and setting it out clearly along with making sure the means to accomplish it are understood, is what brings constant progress in our study of the guitar. The lack of doing so is why there is so little progress for so many people.

People often go for a very inappropriate goal. If they are working on a fast solo or piece, they try to play it almost right away just like the guy on the record, who probably spent ten years practicing it before recording it! By reaching for this very advanced goal right away, we usually guarantee failure and frustration. Progress as a guitarist, as Segovia said, is a step by step process, and no step can be missed. If I am standing on the ground looking at a staircase going up, and I try to jump up to the 10th step instead of walking up the first nine, what do you think will happen? I will fall flat on my face or fanny, and may be too black and blue to make another attempt.

And yet, that is what many people do when practicing guitar. They do it because of two reasons, the same two reasons responsible for most of what is wrong with the world: ego and ignorance. Don’t be this way. As far as ego, remember this: be humble, don’t stumble. Don’t try to play that solo at 120bpm right away. Spend a month getting it perfect at 60. That way, the path to getting it at 80 is simple. Then 100 and 120 will follow, and be solid, not shaky.

As far as ignorance, I often tell students “the only reason you are practicing badly is because you actually think, deep inside, that you WILL learn this music successfully doing it your way, and skipping so many steps. You are wrong, you won’t. And your faulty playing, when put to the test, is the proof. When you become wise enough (and honest enough) to see the truth of this, you will practice correctly.”

When attempting to set the next best goal for yourself in any situation, ask yourself this question: “if I apply everything I know, up to this moment, about guitar and how to practice, and I apply it to this music I am working on, AND I give it my very best effort, what level of improvement can I reasonably expect?” Ask yourself this question, and pick short term goals, ones that can be obtained in a week to a month.

If you are practicing your lesson material during the week and you start to feel pressured to “get it right” in time for the lesson, don’t start hurrying through things and getting sloppy just to cover everything. Adjust your goals. Forget that scale for this week, and just work on those chord changes. Re-focus your goals and re-focus your efforts. That way, at least you will accomplish something instead of nothing. Better to juggle 3 balls in the air successfully than to drop 5!

Remember, the achievement of each goal IS the way to reach your final goal, just as taking each step up the stairs is the way to the top. Have fun, and don’t make yourself crazy. Even if you do progress correctly, as you should, people move at different speeds. I tend to work hard and move fast, but I like to sit on the steps every once in a while, and just play my guitar while I look around!

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

You know how to plan your work, and you know how to work your plan. You know which steps to take, and you know how to take them. For whatever amount of time you have decided to sit down and work, you know you will accomplish something, and what’s more, you have the wonderful certainty that what you do accomplish will be there the next day, or whenever you pick up the work again.

The work is enjoyable and you look forward to it. And, like a chef who gets to eat the meal after creating it, or a carpenter who gets to sit in the room he has built, you get (earn) the pleasure of sitting (or standing) with your instrument and playing the music, and having it be something special and something enjoyable for you and anyone else who may be around.

How different this is then what most guitar students experience! How different this is from what many of you reading this actually go through in your attempts to learn to play. I know, because I was there, in the pit of despair, and because I have spent all my adult life pulling people out of that pit. And it’s pretty crowded down there!

Down there, it’s more like this: every day you pick up your guitar and get in the ring with that new piece, or song, or something your teacher gave you in the lesson. You try to put on your best attitude, and you grab that piece with both your guitar playing hands, and you wrestle! You give it all you got, it’s like wrestlemania, but that big bad dude won’t budge, he won’t go down. Or, you get him down, but he won’t stay down. You think you got him, but as soon as you turn your back, he’s up and he’s on your back! A lot of you will find yourselves losing your enthusiasm for getting back in the ring.

Before I knew how to do correct practice, I used to feel like a kid who was building a sand castle. Every day I’d go back to build it higher, but it had gotten washed away overnight. Or I felt like a person who kept putting money in the bank, and the bank kept going bankrupt and I lost everything I put in. When I learned how to practice, I felt like I was building something day by day, and nobody and nothing was messing with it overnight. The structure was there waiting for me the next day, and I could invest more time and effort into it, feeling secure that it would in fact be there the next day.

This was a really good thing for me, because I am not a person who deals well with frustration. I get mad real easy, so I’m sure that everyone else in my world is also a lot better off thanks to the fact that I learned how to practice.

Once you understand the mechanics of correct practice, including the mental, emotional and physical aspects of the process, the most powerful tool you can use when you sit down to practice is what I call the Glue Of Repetition, and this glue is applied with another tool, one that every student I have ever taught is required to get, and learn how to use properly: a metronome.

People who understand correct practice know that repetition by itself can just as easily harm you as help you. Because of muscle memory, you can practice mistakes over and over and learn them just as well as the notes you are supposed to be playing. But we will assume that you realize this already, and are well on your way to being able to practice correctly. So let me make some points that will bring you even closer.

Before you can apply the glue of repetition, there is something you must achieve first with the music you are playing. And achieving this often takes fully half of the entire time and energy needed to master the music. And that thing you must achieve is this: one correct playing of the notes being practiced.

I have often sat with someone working on one measure of music for twenty minutes while they made attempt after attempt to get just one correct run-through of a complex lick from a rock solo, or a passage from a classical piece. They made attempt after attempt, and also mistake after mistake! This is what happens for most people, even me. Depending on the complexity of the music, it can take quite an effort to nail the notes square on the head as they should be, as they must be. And realize that this means every note, every pick stroke, every finger, all of this correct, as well as the proper form and relaxation being maintained. If all of this is not exact, the results will be flawed. And when you try to build on those flawed results, you will get more flawed results.

During the process of achieving that one correct run through, every mistake must be pounced on. Our awareness, our attention must be so powerful that we are aware of everything we do and everything we don’t do, but should. And then we must fortify our Intention so that the next run through comes out differently, either getting us what we want, or bringing us closer to it until we get it, that one correct playing of the notes. After this magnificent achievement, it is time to apply the glue of repetition.

Usually, that first correct playing of the music will, and should be done, no tempo. Then, there should be many repetitions done also no tempo. This is the beginning of applying the glue of repetition. To make the glue set and become strong, we take out our metronomes.

The Basic Practice Approach, which we find at the end of The Principles, (and ties everything together into an actual program of action when practicing) tells us to begin by stripping away the rhythm from the notes. This means making all notes into equal time values. This is done so that all the movements associated with making those notes can be done consciously, and examined and experienced consciously. Having to observe the actual time values of the music, where some moves must be faster to create shorter notes, is often the thing that prevents us from becoming as aware as we need to be of certain movements, especially the ones we are having trouble with.

In addition, the metronome, by being used so that four clicks at 60 represents one note (our starting point in going from no tempo to slow tempo when using the Basic Practice Approach) forces us to play much slower than most people ever would bother to do. Doing so leads to incredible discoveries by whoever does bother to.

From there, the glue of repetition is applied until it sets into the muscle memory, and we can ask our body and mind to perform the movements at a slightly higher speed. Again, the metronome allows us to do so by a much smaller increment of speed than we would otherwise use if left to ourselves. By putting the metronome on 80 and taking 4 clicks per note, the increased demand on our playing mechanism is very slight, and usually easily handled. From there, it is a matter of simply working it up, maintaining full awareness and “quality control” as we go along.

When we reach a speed that taxes us, that makes us feel like we are just about making it hang together, that is called our “working speed”. That is the speed to stay at for awhile, and apply the glue of repetition until the music is strong enough to bear the greater strain of a faster speed. It may take minutes, days, or months, depending on the demands of the music, and our level of development.

This “working speed” is our limit (our temporary limit). One very important thing to realize is that this limit, once achieved, must be worked up to everyday. (see Measuring Your Progress).

Another important (and pleasant) thing to realize is that the speed we work for hours or years to attain with a particular piece or technique after awhile becomes very easy for us. When it does, I call this my “falling out of bed” speed, the speed at which I can play something even if I have just fallen out of bed! (yes, I sleep with my guitar). There are a number of things I worked for years to bring to a very high professional level, that I honestly didn’t know if I ever would reach, that I can now play immediately (or give me a few seconds at the most), after falling out of bed. For those of you who don’t sleep with your guitar, this means that you will be able to play it at that speed even before being warmed up.

When the music begins to be “in our fingers”, when muscle memory, and the other forms of memory discussed in On Memorizing, ear and eye memory, are strong, it is time to let the plane leave the ground. It is time to begin to use the metronome as most people do, and set it to the basic beat of the music, and observe the rhythm, although still at a very slow speed, one that requires our fastest movement to be equivalent to a speed we already reached when using the Basic Practice Approach. It is also time to begin playing from memory, and developing the fullest emotional relationship to the music (as we would if we had memorized our lines for a play, and were ready for a dress rehearsal to bring the character fully to life.)

Everything I have said is a description of what is commonly referred to as “woodshedding”, meaning going out to the woodshed for hours at a time to practice. However, what we are talking about is a very intelligent type of woodshedding, one where the woodshed is well stocked with a copy of “The Principles” and a metronome!

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

This was not your local music store selling merchandise and also offering lessons in order to enjoy a second revenue stream and the benefits of increased traffic. This was a music school run by conservatory trained musicians; conductors, violinists, pianists, etc.. Like the average person, perhaps even they knowingly or unknowingly subscribe to the belief that someone is capable of teaching effectively and creating real results, simply because they are able to DO something, simply because they have a natural talent for it.

My father had many natural talents. One of them, which he did enjoy showing off every once in a while, was wiggling his ears. God knows how he did it, but he could do “something” inside his mind, and access the right muscles, and make those little babies dance! Now, I seriously doubt he would have been able to teach me how to do it (although, to the best of my recollection, I never asked!).

Whatever the case may be, I myself proved quite satisfactorily that it is possible to be able to do something, and not at all be able to CAUSE someone else to be able to do it. Many people find something that, for some reason, they find very easy to develop skill with, and they may very well develop that skill, at a very, very fast rate. Some people are just going to take to that basketball, or that guitar, in a big way. They may also start to spend a whole lot of time doing that particular thing, and because of doing this, they may approach the professional level.

But I have this stinging memory of sitting in a lesson with a girl around my age, in one of my early “lessons”. I was teaching her classical guitar. She already played guitar, so she wasn’t a total beginner, but she was new to classical guitar. So, I naturally started giving her the same material that I had begun my classical study with, the Carcassi and Sor collection of studies quite common for classical students. I really didn’t have much trouble with them, so I naturally thought this was a good approach.

Well I have a memory of watching this poor girl really struggling, really being unable to meet the demands of this music. In fact, from my experience now, I see that I was probably witnessing the beginning stages of the kind of handicapping playing problems that can even result in serious physical injury. She just couldn’t put it together. Nowadays, I do anywhere from 2 to 5 years of preparation with a student before putting them into those pieces. There are bars, half bars, and other difficult left hand positions that must be held WHILE you are doing complex and fast right hand patterns. If you are spending an hour or more a day practicing this stuff, AND holding unknown and unfelt tensions in your body, you WILL hurt yourself. I hear the stories all the time; people forced to stop playing because of serious injury to muscles and joints, sometimes for years.

As I sat there, I remember a series of feelings. First, helplessness. Then, confusion, I didn’t know what to do, other than show her how I could play it (I’m sure that made her feel good!) Finally, I felt hopelessness. I started not enjoying teaching. I felt like I didn’t know what I was doing. I felt this way because I was right, I didn’t know what I was doing!

Well, I did know one thing I was doing. I was torturing people and taking money for it! I didn’t consciously realize it, but I must have felt intuitively what I was really doing to this poor student. I was requiring her to deal with music that I had absolutely not prepared her for.

I quit teaching for about two years. When I started again, privately, not at that school anymore, I tried to actually THINK about what I was doing, and how I was teaching people. I began to develop practice methods, teach them to my students, and be very focused on getting results. Even so, it was a long and gradual process of learning ALL the ins and outs of what playing the guitar is about, and why so many people have such a wide variety of difficulties with its many aspects. Over time, I guess all of this became my book, “The Principles of Correct Practice For Guitar”.

I realize now that I wasn’t just witnessing that girl’s ruination as a guitarist, I was allowing it, in fact, I was causing it! I was causing it because I was in the position of responsibility for whatever results occurred (assuming she was doing what I told her to do), and I didn’t know HOW to create good results. I don’t think we could expect that it was her job to figure out how to “get it”, or “put it together”. No, I was getting paid for that. This girl was not only NOT getting what she paid for, guitar playing ability, she was getting some possible medical conditions instead, not to mention a very probably a lifetime of saying to herself “gee, I really wanted to play the guitar when I was younger, especially classical guitar, but I just didn’t have the talent”.

Of course, the only person deficient in talent was me, as a teacher!

As the years went by, the only excuse I could give myself as some bit of solace was that maybe I was pretty terrible, but as guitar teachers go, I was “par for the course”. At that time, my teaching was the usual hit-or-miss approach. It was “sure, come on, take lessons with me. Maybe you’ll actually learn to play, and maybe not. One thing is for sure though, I WILL get paid. If you don’t learn to play, well, I guess you just don’t have what it takes”. I know that many of you players and students out there know this is a common scenario, I get your letters. There are a whole lot of guitar students sitting in lesson rooms around the world, feeling like they are not getting anywhere, or at least not anywhere past where they already are. And the other person in the room (as in “teacher”) is not able to do anything about it, except say “well, keep practicing”, and “oh by the way, do you have the check?, oh yeah and “see you next week”.

What Is Student Abuse?

I once read a very interesting definition of child abuse. It was ” to demand from a child behavior that is beyond their abilities, and developmentally inappropriate”. You don’t punish your two year old for not having the good sense of a five year old! You don’t expect a 7 year old to be able to exercise the kind of judgment that requires the experience of an adult, or even a 17 year old. IF you do so, you are harming them. That’s why they call it abuse.

No, it is a parents DUTY to KNOW what is developmentally appropriate. If they don’t know, they are supposed to find out! Don’t take the job if you don’t take the training!

Well, personally, I don’t see a difference. I don’t see a difference between parenting and ANY teaching situation. Any student is a child when they come to their teacher, no matter what the age of the student, or the age of the teacher. The “child” in the student is the entity that, hopefully, will develop into the accomplished practitioner of whatever is being learned. Perhaps they will become a parent themselves, and teach other people. And that is why, when I see so much evidence of absolutely ignorant teaching, so much “attitude” on the part of teachers themselves about even getting a clue about what they are doing, I can only call it “Student Abuse”.

I would like to illustrate some of the atrocities that I have seen. And I do so not simply for the sake of pointing the finger of blame, although I have no problem with doing that when it is simply the truth. But I do so for two reasons. First, like all victims of an abusive syndrome, the victim of the abuse rarely recognizes that they are being abused. No, quite the opposite. Like all good obedient abuse victims, they believe that whatever nasty things are happening to them is THEIR fault. And the person administering the abuse is always very happy to support that viewpoint. In fact, they will usually suggest and support it if the victim doesn’t think of it first. That’s where the “I guess I just don’t have the talent” part comes in. When no progress is made by the student, the unspoken assumption is that the student lacks ability to learn, not that the teacher lacks ability to teach.

My second motivation comes from the fact that I happen to know a truth that is supremely important: it is possible for any normally functioning person to play the guitar well enough to fulfill the goals of the average aspiring student. Further, it is possible for any normally functioning person to achieve the professional level of playing if they put the same amount of time and focus into it as one would for any highly sophisticated skill or profession, AND if the student receives competent instruction every step of the way.

However, guitar students should know that the people they go to for instruction, the “guitar teacher”, is often particularly opposed to using “methods” or “systems” in teaching. For a number of years, I taught guitar in a local music shop, along with many other teachers. I was developing many teaching “systems” for different styles and levels of students, and investigating many books on teaching guitar. I was the only guitar teacher who used “method books” in the store. When I would talk about the different books to other teachers, they would have disdain for the idea of using books in teaching! I think they felt it was an encroachment upon their divine status as possessors and purveyors of the magic power of playing the guitar, which I guess they would impart to the chosen few by a tap on the head or something. I thought they were stupid and lazy, and I still think so.

Guitar students must wake up to a number of truths concerning the goals they have, and the means by which they seek to achieve those goals. They must understand that this prideful attitude on the part of many so called guitar teachers stands like a guardian at the gates of guitaristic ability. They must understand that a professional guitarist, or those attempting to be one, often feel like part of their ability to actually survive and thrive in this very practical world, depends on ensuring that they themselves are viewed and venerated by the common person as possessed of a special, magical power, and so they often try to keep a certain distance and respect between those who can cause the magic to flow out of that wooden box (themselves) and those who will gather in groups and listen to them (everyone else in the world, audiences).

The psychology behind all this is buried very deeply inside all of us. We use the word “star” to denote famous people. We have “movie stars”, and “rock stars”. Well, what is a star? It is an extremely distant, luminous and awe-inspiring object, which we may gaze upon in awe and wonder, but know we can never touch. There are two kinds of people in the world, those who want to be “stars”, and those who want to worship them. I advise you to be neither. It is the very desire to worship a star that keeps a person from attaining the same position. Yes, talented people who have developed their talent are wonderful, but not when they put themselves in the position of “teachers” and still act like stars, subtly re-enforcing the inevitable distance between themselves and their students, as if their students were nothing but more audience members!

This explains the haughty attitude often met with in guitar player/teachers. I remember how I felt when I watched a video of Segovia teaching a master class. He had this poor woman, quite an advanced player, playing the Bach Chaconne. For about an hour, he tortured this player with facial expressions, gesticulations, and other direct and indirect methods of reducing someone to a state of utter despair. He mocked her for not being able to make a particular stretch for a chord, one that I doubt most people could make. He told her even his wife could do it! I can’t do it! Moreover, upon careful listening of a John Williams recording,of the Chaconne, one can hear him shift to a position where that chord is much easier (avoiding the stretch that Segovia’s wife can do), so John Williams doesn’t do it either. At the end of the “lesson”, after he has taken her apart, and neglected to put her back together, Segovia gives her a sheepish kind of grin, as if to say, “okay, you can get up now and leave, now that we both, as well as the audience, understand that you don’t quite “have it”.

After such a condemnation without anything constructive, I would have, especially in my fragile younger years, felt like killing myself . It was as if he needed to clearly re-enforce his own untouchable status as an artist. This is why John Williams has said of Segovia in interviews “he was a lousy model as a teacher”.

The fact that so many guitar teachers, as well as guitar students, are completely unconscious of this pervasive and pernicious attitude was underscored for me recently upon viewing a video made by the author of one of the most popular books on the market today for classical guitarists. As I was watching this video, the author tells a little story of how he was teaching someone “Recuredos de la Alhambra” ( a venerated piece for classical guitar that often eludes those passionately desiring to play it well for years or a lifetime). He talks about how this woman was completely unprepared and unable to actually attempt this piece. This of course means that expecting her to be able to deal with the piece would be setting her up for failure, and doing her great harm physically and mentally as well, what we have defined as “abuse” above.

But, he blithely divulges to the audience that he was “teaching” her Recuerdos anyway because “he needed the money”! I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was hard to believe that this was how this person related to teaching the guitar, but it was even more incredible that he didn’t feel embarrassed about letting everyone know what he was capable of doing to them, and “for the money” no less! How is this different than someone going to a doctor because they have some dread disease, and the doctors says to himself “well, I know I can’t really do anything about their disease, but I need the money, so I’ll treat them for about a year”. Meanwhile, the patient gets worse.

I have met and taught many people who have endured this kind of abuse. I have met people who had to stop playing for years because of inflammed joints, tendonitis, and all the other maladies that will descend upon someone who is allowed to grapple with the technical demands of music they are not ready for. We can perhaps forgive the student. They don’t have the experience to know any better. But, the person who is supposed to be the “professional”, the one taking the money; he or she should certainly not allow this. He or she should know better, and act better.

None of us are perfect, and we are not supposed to be, or required to be. We are, however, supposed to be working toward perfection. That is a constant in the school of life, and it is a characteristic of every great artist. What we are supposed to be, and required to be, is honest. Honesty, the love of the truth, is the fuel that propels us toward our next level of growth. This is true in the practice room, and in the teaching studio. Honesty on the part of the teacher and student, and between the teacher and student, is the pre-condition for getting past every barrier to growth that arises. It would be great if this honesty is practiced equally by student and teacher, but it must be practiced by the teacher. The teacher must truthfully acknowledge the reality of whatever is or is not happening with the student, and find out what to do about it, or stop taking money for doing nothing.

More and more, I hear from students who are beginning to wake up. They are beginning to become aware of what is really going on with them as they interact with the profession that they must turn to in order to fulfill their dreams of becoming guitarists. I hear from people who are beginning to demand more from their teachers, and who are firing teachers who are found lacking. I say good; that is as it should be. How dare anyone treat so lightly and carelessly the sincere and often desperate desires of those willing to pay their money and their time to become guitarists. Let those teachers be put on notice, and held accountable for results.

I could go on and on with all the various manifestations of this “abuse syndrome” that I have seen, and the harm it has done. Sometimes it is done out of malicious intent, and sometimes out of plain old laziness and mediocrity. I hope that students will begin to learn what they SHOULD be getting from their teachers, and that teachers will realize the true seriousness of the job they do. Teaching music is in many cases providing nothing less than emotional salvation for many of the people of this world who are desperately driven to create music themselves, not to mention the other billions of people who need the spiritual nourishment that musicians provide with the music they create. To do anything that frustrates or prevents the fulfillment of that desire for musical development on the part of the sincere student is just plain sinful.

Education is God’s Presence in this world. If there is one truly spiritual activity that we perform in relation to our fellow beings it is enabling their growth by sharing our knowledge, and sharing it with love. When it is done as it should be done, the world becomes more of the Heaven we are always praying for and are truly responsible for creating. When it is not, we get more of the Hell we allow, and so deserve.

Often, it is not until our later years that we fully realize, and fully despair of, the inadequacy of the guidance we received when we were young. Will Durant, in his monumental “History of Civilization” tells us about one of the most famous letters in history, a letter from the Mogul Emporer Aurangzab (1658-1707), who was reflecting on how badly he was educated by his appointed teacher. The teacher was coming to him after many years to ask for a recommendation to another court. Aurangzab refused, and listed in great detail all the ways in which his teacher failed to prepare him properly for life, and instead of serving the needs of his student, merely served his own vanity and pompous position. He said:

“if you had instructed me as you should have done, nothing would be more just; for a child well educated is obliged as much to his teacher as his father”. I still remember how you amused me with your airy questions of things that afford no satisfaction to the mind, and are of no use in humane society. All I retained of it was a multitude of dark words, proper to bewilder, perplex and tire out the best wits, and only invented the better to cover the vanity and ignorance of men like yourself that would make us believe that they know all, and that under those obscure and ambiguous words are hid great mysteries which they alone are capable of understanding.”

So, there is nothing new under the sun. But, I am hoping that in the little corner of life called “playing the guitar” where I have chosen to reside, there will dawn a new, and brighter day.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

I know that I am sometimes perceived as a serious dude, talking about Principles and other not-so-fun topics, but when you know what Fun is, then you will see why even serious, or thought inducing, weighty matters can be Fun. I want to talk about this subject because it is vital to making progress as a guitarist. In fact, you cannot MAKE any progress as a guitarist, unless you know how to have Fun. We “play” the guitar. You cannot “play” if you don’t know how to have fun. It’s true that “practice” sometimes seems like “work”, but you will see that work is not the opposite of play, or the opposite of fun. Work can, and should, be Fun.

Now, Fun is a funny thing. For some people, going out dancing and drinking all night is fun. For others, that would be torture, but sitting quietly and reading a book on philosophy is Fun. For some people, jamming on the electric guitar for hours is fun, for others, sitting with a metronome for an hour of disciplined practice is Fun (and yes, the same person may find each of these things to be Fun at different times). For some people, having to solve difficult problems requiring great thought is Fun, and for another, it is nothing but a headache. So, what is going on here?

The fact is that anything can be Fun for some person or the other. However, the particular things that we find to be Fun say everything about who we are as people, and what our level of personal development is. However, there is one common denominator that is always present when a person says “this is fun”. That common denominator is “creative enjoyment”. Fun is creative enjoyment. Einstein working out the theory of relativity, or Michael Jordan shooting a basket; both are having Fun. Both are “creatively enjoying”. As long as this quality is present, ANYTHING can be fun. Without this quality, NOTHING is fun.

What is “creative enjoyment”? Well, “creative” is almost self-explanatory. It is basically bringing something new into the world. It could be a dinner, an idea, a blanket, a building, whatever. Whatever is being created, it involves bringing something “out” of yourself, and giving it some kind of form on the outside.

The universal human urge to be creative stems from the one characteristic that always accompanies a creative act: a pleasurable energy sensation in the inner being. The person who knows how to have Fun is the person who knows how to be good to themselves, how to give themselves pleasure, how to make themselves happy.

Everyone is inherently creative. All children are naturally creative. However, creativity carries with it a certain “natural aggressiveness”, and “natural assertiveness. To be creative is to affirm and assert oneself, to use one’s power. Many children have this natural assertiveness conditioned out of them as they mature, and so they cannot find their creative powers when they have become adults. They also cannot find their ability to have Fun. In fact, I have met many adults who actually believe that adults are not supposed to have Fun! When I am teaching such a person, I have to try to re-connect them with their lost ability to have Fun. Sometimes I can, and sometimes I can’t. Some people will not allow it; giving themselves pleasure, and having Fun, makes them feel guilty.

And enjoyment? That is a very interesting word. “En-Joy”. According to the dictionary, “en” means “to put into”. Now, this is a very key understanding. People usually think that things are enjoyable in and of themselves, as if “joy” positively radiates from various things, and we merely have to bask in the “joy” that shines out of them like sunlight. A new car, a million dollars: wow, what happiness, what joy! And yet, we often read of millionaires with lots of money and fleets of cars, who kill themselves after falling deeply into despair and misery for one reason or another. So, obviously, there is no “joy” emanating out of any of these exalted “things”.

When we en-joy something, it is because of what we are putting INTO it, not what we are getting OUT of it. “It” has nothing to give us, until we give “it”, us! What we put into it is the Joy that is already inside of us! Well, obviously, you must already HAVE this Joy inside of you before you can put it into something. That Joy is the native Joy of simply being alive, simply existing, along with everything else. We would all do well to check up on our personal “Joy Quotient”. If it is low, or missing entirely, we should find out where it went. We won’t find it gone to anywhere outside of us, only buried, perhaps smothered, deep within.

Someone who has nothing they enjoy, simply is empty inside. The reasons why this happens would require other essays, but understand that an artist MUST have an inner fullness that is brought out, and combined with “the world” in a creative way, and VOILA, art appears. Music is written and played and sung, because someone has the capacity for “creative enjoyment”, for FUN.

As we go from child to adult, the particular things we find to be Fun will change, and be added to. However, the intensity of that Fun, and the ability to have it, should never diminish. Unfortunately, it almost always does. There is no sadder sight to my eyes than the disconsolate child, moping and moaning “I’m bored, there’s nothing to do”. This poor child is already old, the spark has left, the inner fullness has turned to emptiness, and that emptiness is projected outward, so that the world, full of so much beauty and amazement, looks empty.

No, the opposite of Fun is not work, it is boredom, which is “apathy for existence”.

It can truly be said that the passage from childhood to adulthood, when properly traversed, is characterized by the ability to transform Fun into Work. The only difference between Fun and Work is that Fun is the creative enjoyment of an activity which has no goal other than the activity itself, and Work is activity that has a predetermined goal (Intention). That is why Work can be Fun, because Work is simply Fun with an added dimension. Work, like Fun, can be a form of creative enjoyment; it simply has a goal also. This is the difference between practicing and playing. Practicing is Work (Fun + Intention, or the goal to learn and improve), Playing is just plain Fun (we play because we want to play, it feels good). Fun has no structure imposed upon it from outside, Work has an imposed structure, that is why it is more “adult”.

The properly developed adult should feel both a need for Fun and a need for Work. For myself, I am switching between the two all the time. Even sitting practicing, I may do some technical exercise for 15 minutes, with intense focus and concentration, and then, I will feel the great urge to just PLAY something and have Fun. Which I do. Sometimes, I just feel the need to play for half an hour. Sometimes, I feel the need to Work for an hour. One feeds into, and leads into, the other.

There are two types of students: one needs to learn how to Work, and the other needs to learn how to have Fun. The first is more common. Most people have never learned true Work. Most people’s relationship to Work began as that most distasteful intrusion upon our personal time and energy, when, as children we encountered that thing called “homework”. Yes, homework, another word for “the demand to focus our inner resources upon something to which we have no connection, and no desire for connection, but we do so under threat of some type of punishment from all the Big People”. Wow, what a wonderful way to discover how to “en-joy” life! What a wonderful way to get a good attitude about Work!

So, many people I meet need to be trained to put out the level of energy and focus required to learn the guitar as it should be learned. They simply have never encountered something which made this demand on ALL their physical, mental, and emotional resources. You can fake your homework. You can’t fake your guitar practice, and you sure can’t fake your guitar playing!

However, I will occasionally get the type of student who is happy to practice exercises with the metronome all day, focusing on those fingers for hours all day, every day. However, they never pick up the guitar to just play and have Fun! How sad, how tragic! That is not how we get to be guitar players or musicians. Musicians specialize in having Fun. We are Fun Masters. I have to tell these people ” I am ordering you, as part of your practice, to just pick up the guitar, play it, and have Fun! Remember, have Fun, that’s an order!”

Often, beginners on guitar delay having Fun, putting it off until some time in the distant future when they deserve it. This is not good. Fun, and music making should come into the picture as soon as possible. Anyone just learning to play should have two goals in mind: one, making sure the technical foundation being laid is correct, and strong so that continuous growth is possible, and two, making some MUSIC as soon as possible, something, anything that that turns you on, that gets your emotional juices flowing, whether it is Bach or Rock.

Yes, anything worth doing should be worth having Fun while doing it. The United States Marines live by a Principle, their motto, “Semper Fi”, which means “always faithful”. Here at Guitar Principles, I have told everyone involved in the day to day workings of things (and “not-workings, such as computers, printers, etc.!) to keep our Motto in mind. It is the Principle we operate on here, our first Principle of Business, Work, and Life: Semper Fun!

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

No, it is not true that good players experience a “complete relaxation” when they play, at least not in the sense that many people think of when they use the word “relaxation”. People tend to think of a very passive state, as we might think of in going to sleep, or being hypnotized. Often, this elusive state of “relaxation” is described as such a thing, which is very misleading to those trying to grasp it. It makes them wary of any sensation of “effort” in their playing, and this wariness makes them reject certain approaches and inner sensations that are quite appropriate, and would, if pursued, lead to further development of ability.

First of all, understand this: relaxation is not a state, it is not a condition that you experience. Relaxation is an activity, relaxation is something you do. The failure to perform the action of relaxation does result in a state or condition which we might call “discomfort” or chronic tension. The state that result from performing the action of relaxation may be called “poise”, balance, or “comfort in action”.

Relaxation is something we are either good at, or not so good at. Relaxation, like so many abilities, such as thinking, is something some people never do, and also, again, like thinking, it is something many people believe they are doing when they are NOT doing it.

Look at the word: re-lax. The prefix “re” means to “do again”, as in repeat and repetition. What are we supposed to be “doing again”? “Laxing”, that’s what. Lax means “loose”. The word “relax” is pre-supposing we were loose to begin with, and then, we made some kind of effort, which, when it comes to motor activities, means a contraction of muscle tissue, and then we “re-loosed”, or relaxed, and returned that muscle to it’s original condition of “laxness”, or looseness.

Well, the fact is, many people are NOT loose to begin with. Many people are chronically tense, playing guitar or not. Many people are chronically tense in all the muscles of the playing mechanism during playing, and for these people, there is no possibility of “re-laxing”, since there is no looseness to return to.

Now, you ask “how can I develop this ability if it is not covered in your book”? Well, everything about my book is designed to develop this ability. Everything in my book is designed to DEVELOP this state of looseness, and then train you to return to it after making an effort. (And also to train you to make the smallest effort possible!)

Look at it this way: a person who is chronically tense is like a person who has no “awareness” of their actual condition. They have no communication with their own body. They have no “wiring” between their mind and their body. That is why so often people think they are relaxed when they are not, they think they are loose when they are not. They don’t know what loose is, they have never felt it. Someone with their muscles obviously in knots, perhaps their shoulder up to their earlobe, will happily and sincerely report “Hey, I’m relaxed”! In reality, they are not feeling anything, and they assume this state of numbness is “being relaxed”. They might as well be under general anesthesia!

The way this wiring is created is through the power of the mind, through attention to the body while practicing. Real attention, not “thinking about” the body, but BEING the body, “thinking AS the body”. The second principle of correct practice states “practicing is the infusion of conscious awareness into the body through the mechanism of attention”. Everything about my book shows you how to do this, IF you actually DO what I tell you.

It is important to understand that this “looseness” of the body, and this awareness of the body is a natural thing; every child has it. However, it can be degraded, and it can be lost. Just as it can be developed through attention to the body, it is lost through in-attention to the body, and this in-attention to the body is what most people learn as children, and begin to practice with great fervor. It happens because attention begins to go elsewhere then to our “beingness” in our bodies. It goes into our “beingness” in our minds. As the years go by, we identify not with our bodies, but with the mental and emotional operations going on between our ears, that we call “ourselves”. And a lot of these mental and emotional operations are pretty screwed up! A lot of them are full of tension, negativity and conflict, and the quality of all this energy manifests in the physical body, and that is why there are so many up-tight, constricted people walking around.

So, when someone picks up a guitar and asks their body to start learning and doing all these new things, all of this history comes into play. Of course, we are all going to find ourselves somewhere along the spectrum here, and we will each have our own particulars to deal with, but I have laid out in general what we all go through, and what we all must deal with.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

The reason this message is so important, is because a widespread understanding of it would lead to a radical change in the experience and development of the aspiring guitarist, and because it would lead to a radical change in the experience of how so many of us are “taught”. And if by some reason you disagree with me at the end of the discussion, and that is certainly your right, you won’t be able to invalidate my conviction that my own experience and development as a guitarist and musician would have benefited immensely from having these things understood and practiced by the many people who served as my teachers. And I want to make clear that some of these were understood and practiced by some of my teachers, and I was eternally grateful when they were, and damaged when they weren’t.

Empowerment

First, let’s talk about the True Goal of the Teacher. It is empowerment. Empowerment of the student. The True Teachers utmost desire is to aid, guide, and do whatever it takes to bring the student to their place of happiness and fulfillment as a musician and guitarist. The student may not have a clear idea of what this place is, and certainly not where it is. The teacher may not know either, but he knows more than the student, and he must help the student feel their way if necessary. The True Teacher knows that if this person is destined to be a musician, (which is another way of saying if they really want it bad enough), then their place of happiness and fulfillment does exist, and can be found. And the true teacher resolves to do whatever it takes to make that come about.

For the guitar student, empowerment means the Confidence and Certainty that you have the Understanding and Knowledge you need to fulfill any desires you may have now, or will have later, concerning playing the guitar. For me, it meant knowing that I can do anything I want on the guitar, and if I can’t, I find out how, and by Correct Practicing, learn to do whatever it was I wanted.

As I began to have this feeling of confidence and empowerment, it was a wonderful thing. And for so long, I didn’t have this feeling. And needing to play the Classical Guitar, it was particularly necessary to feel equal to the challenges. Classical guitar is one of the more difficult styles, you know.

The urgent need, the necessity to have the student become “powerful”, and “get it”, every step of the way, is the hallmark of the True Teacher. The need to see results, progress, happiness and fulfillment on the part of the student, makes this kind of teacher try one way, then another, then another, no matter how long it takes or how creative or unorthodox he or she must become.

Teaching the Way You Were Taught

I contend most teachers begin by teaching the way they were taught. They begin using some approach that perhaps worked for them. Often it only worked partially, and there are still a lot of gaps in the teachers own Understanding and Knowledge. (The True Teacher is also the Good Student, always learning and expanding, and being open). But guess what! Once you start teaching lots of people, that one approach is NOT going to work for a lot of your students.

When I was 17, I had been playing for three or four years, and studied Classical Guitar for only one year, but the place where I took lessons thought I was good enough to start teaching there. It was a little Community Music School that had a lot of fine teachers, and I was extremely grateful that I had found a “real” classical guitarist there, who corrected so many of the harmful things I had done trying to teach myself classical. (I had no choice, since it was very difficult to even find a classical teacher back then). He equipped me, that is empowered me as best he could, but we both knew when he had reached his limits, and when I would have only continued to make, what I called in my first essay, Horizontal Growth, not a true raising of my level as a guitarist and musician, or Vertical Growth.

So in this condition, I started to teach there. Believe me, in that little fish pond, everybody thought I was a pretty big fish. The average person thought I played pretty well, impressive in fact, because the average person is impressed if you can play anything that sounds “classical”. Thank God I knew better!

When I started teaching, forget it! I couldn’t get results from most people. Later on I would understand why. I would understand that I had a fair amount of what is called “natural talent”, and I also practiced all the time. So I learned real fast. I quickly learned how to make a decent showing with some rather complicated pieces in the classical repertoire, but many of my students were struggling with the simplest things, and I couldn’t get them to “get it”, to play at least somewhat like I could. I was also, in my ignorance often giving students pieces that were far beyond them, that would do them harm to try to play, because they would be acquiring many bad habits in trying to cope with the technical demands of these pieces. I would also see later on that this was and is a common occurrence.

It was so frustrating, I felt like a thief taking their money, so I quit my teaching gig. ( I don’t recommend this. I’d often wished later I didn’t, but I tend to be impulsive sometimes). When I went back to teaching a few years later, it was with a renewed sense of commitment to always searching for the answer for every student I encountered, to always figure out what it was this person wanted, and what they needed to get it. It is because of this constant orientation that I developed “The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar”, those fundamentals of playing and practicing that are always true, no matter what style or what level of player you are. These are the things good players are doing, whether they know it or not. And most of these things are things they are doing when they practice, not when they play.

But I digress. I just thought it would be helpful to describe myself in the position of being The Bad Teacher, really The Ignorant Teacher. If I would have let it continue I would have become “The Lazy Teacher”. I have met some of those. They could also be called the “Hey I don’t care THAT much, after all, I can play, if you can’t it must be your fault, and anyway I’m getting paid either way, Teacher”.

I was once talking to a fellow teacher, and he said “God forbid I should be judged by my students”. I thought, “God forbid anyone who really wants to play and is willing to work should ever be your student”. I mean, how else SHOULD a teacher be judged? By how well THEY play? No, that’s how we should judge them as players. Teaching is a whole different thing.

Understand this. You can be a great player and a lousy teacher. Often, great players are lousy teachers. Segovia is an example. Just listen to John Williams or many other of his “students” describe his teaching. It was how Chopin taught. ” Do it like this, like I do”. If your were supremely talented, you could come up with something acceptable. If not, you got the boot! Guess which one happened most often. Great players often don’t know why they’re great. Always try to find one that does, or is interested in finding out, and communicating it to you. And then notice whether they ARE communicating it you. Are you making Vertical or Horizontal Growth?

I have a rule in teaching

If the student is not learning, it’s my fault. Assuming the student has desire, and is doing what I am telling them, if they are not making real progress, then I’m not telling them the right thing to do. Or I’m not telling them anything to do! So I need to pay attention, and keep trying new things, or put it in a different order, or whatever, until something WORKS for them. My last essay was on Aggressive Practicing, you could call this Aggressive Teaching. I guess that is why I’m writing this now, because if you are not being taught this way, you are being short changed in your training to DO Aggressive Practicing, and you should know this.

Also understand, no teacher is perfect. Being a True Teacher is not a state you attain, it is a PROCESS you engage in. A Good Student tries to help the teacher be true by always letting them know when they don’t “get” something. Always keep asking questions when you don’t understand something, unless your teacher wisely lets you know you cannot have full understanding of something, but you can have enough to use it, and allow your understanding to grow. It is often this way. But you must never feel like you are totally CONFUSED, that is, feel CLUELESS. You must feel like you have some kind of handle on something. Keep asking questions till you do.

Beware of teachers who get irritated when you don’t get something. That is a warning sign. You are making them feel inadequate. And they want to put the blame on you! (Unless you are not paying attention and trying your hardest, in which case, you should be blamed). They don’t want to examine their approach. Have you ever seen the situation where someone is trying to talk to someone else, and then discovers that that person doesn’t understand English, or whatever language they are speaking? The first thing they do, and it’s kind of natural, is start talking louder, even shouting at them. As if that would make them understand! How many times did I have a teacher who wasn’t paying enough attention to notice I had no idea what they were talking about! I used to have a voice teacher shout at me all the time “Space, give me space”. I was clueless. My head is on backwards when it comes to singing. I need it broken down to the molecular level. I think I made him mad. I’m sure it worked with lots of people. Not me.

The True Teacher is always concerned with what the student is hearing, not what they, the teacher, are saying. Often, for whatever reason, even though the student is listening, he or she isn’t “hearing” anything.

Let me close by saying this. True Teaching is Love. For guitarists, it is intense love of the guitar and intense desire to share that love with someone who desires it also. And what is Love? It’s simple, to love means to “be with”. That’s all. The True Teacher loves the student, and loves the desire in the student that is the same as his own desire. The True Teacher is always trying to be inside, or “with” the student, knowing what they are thinking, feeling, and how they are experiencing this process of “learning the guitar”.

I have to Teach, it’s the only way I can learn!

And for teachers, here is the most important and wonderful fact. When you engage the process of True Teaching, and are truly “with” the student, your own insight and growth will be accelerated! You will come to an awareness and understanding of your own areas of confusion, and you will be shown the light by your honest attempts to show it to someone else. And again, I have found this to be true as a teacher of guitar, and as a parent, which is another name for “Teacher”.

In the movie The Crow, (starring the son of the great Master Bruce Lee) the main character says something I have always remembered. He is talking to a drug addict mother who is abusing her child. He says “Mother is the name of God on the lips of children”. He is trying to make her see her real responsibility and position. To the child, the Parent IS God. The parent can, and will create a wonderful empowered being, or a partially or completely crippled person. I know this from personal experience as both a parent and a child.

I am also a student and a teacher. When it comes to music, “Teacher is the name of God on the lips of the student”. The teacher has the power, especially in the beginning. The True Teachers job is to strive to transfer and share that power with the student. The True Teachers fondest desire should be that the deserving student takes everything, uses it, and surpasses the Teacher. Let us all be the best we can be.

For more information, and to get answers to your questions, visit my site.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

The cornerstone of his philosophy was embodied in one word. This word was hanging on every wall in the IBM office, and, along with boxes of punchcards, this word was in my house all the time, because it was the title of the official IBM magazine that came to our house.

The word is THINK. Thomas Watson realized that “most of the trouble people get into begins with the phrase “I didn’t think before I acted”. It is a major step forward in our growth when we realize this truth. The next major step is when we become aware of how little thinking we actually do, especially at the times we need it most, which is when we have “problems”, a word which Principled Players immediately translate into “challenges”.

I got a real insight into this one time when I couldn’t find my wallet, (an almost daily occurrence, because I’m usually “thinking” about something else!). I caught myself mindlessly roaming around the room, looking in all the same places I had already looked, over and over as if it were going to magically materialize! It gave me the feeling of “doing something”, and allowed me to avoid the hard work of sitting down and thinking where I might have left it. But it didn’t give me my wallet! In the same way, guitar players will mindlessly repeat the same ineffective actions over and over again, as if the notes are going to somehow magically appear! We will do anything but put that guitar down a second and really think about what we are doing, and why it isn’t working, and what we can do about it.

I have experienced, literally, struggling with some passage of music for years, and one day solving it because I put the guitar down, started thinking about everything I was doing (fingerings, arm./hand/finger positions, etc), and began to “think of”, or “create”, new possibilities to experiment with. And because of doing that “thinking process”, I would often “solve” those problems on the spot, or get pointed in the right direction.

If we are really honest and insightful, we may realize that, in fact, we NEVER think! We just mindlessly adopt the ideas and attitudes of what is around us, and we never actually examine, inspect, juggle, calculate these ideas and attitudes with our minds, or, just as important, “feel” these ideas and attitudes with our emotions (intuition), If we are equally honest, observant and insightful about ourselves as guitar players, we will likewise see that when confronted with problems, with things we are having trouble doing on the guitar, we don’t actually THINK. Instead we mindlessly DO what we have already been doing, even though it is producing no result. We keep doing the same fingering or picking, we keep approaching it with the same hand position. We don’t stop, re-examine, observe, draw conclusions, plan a new approach, and then observe and draw conclusions again.

To be a guitar player who considers continual growth to be the cornerstone of their day to day activities, practicing and playing, is to be a person who is going to be constantly confronted by one thing: PROBLEMS! Practicing is nothing but the confrontation of problems, one after another. If you are one of the gazillions of players who are NOT experiencing improvement in your playing, then please realize that you do not know how to solve problems. Don’t be depressed! Be like me. I love finding out what a jerk I am, because then I can start getting better!

For more insight into how “thinking” dramatically improves the rate of our growth as guitarists, read these essays:

• Aggressive Practicing
• Practice Organization

When it comes to my growth as a player, I have always been more interested in how a great player practices, than in how they play. When I watch them play, I am seeing the result of their practice. But I want to know how they GOT that result. So I want to know how they PRACTICE.

And when I want to understand how they practice, I look for one thing: how do they THINK about what they are doing? How do they think about this thing called “playing the guitar”? Whenever I discover something about how a great player THINKS, I immediately start experimenting with thinking that way, and understanding where that way of thinking is coming from. I recommend it to all of you.

I can remember various times when I would hear or read a comment from a great player, and that comment would give me great insight into how that person THINKS, the ATTITUDES that he or she uses to look at the world through. I would then follow that thought process, I would adopt that “view point”, and look at things in the same way. That would lead to new discoveries. I would “see” things they had seen, because I was using the same thought process, looking out from the same “point of view”.

Some examples: I read of Pepe Romero advising a student who was having trouble with shifts to “focus mentally on the muscles that make the shift”. Now, this said worlds about how a great player, known for his great technique, thinks about the technical aspect of playing the guitar. I immediately began to study anatomy, and think along the same lines. The results were incredible.

I read of Carlos Santana talking about how when he plays, it’s only good if it makes him cry. This said so much about the state of emotional intensity and involvement that a great player experiences internally while playing. It means there is no room for mediocrity in the emotional content of our music, and our relationship. It means that WE must be moved by our own playing, or composing, or no one else will!

Julian Bream has talked about getting the correct “flow” and “feeling” into his arpeggios. This told me that this great player works very much from a kinesthetic sense of the connection between how his body feels while playing, and the sound that he hears. It also said that he achieves his musical goal while playing by an intense focus on the desired outcome.

So, I recommend to you that you become very interested in how great players THINK (and feel) about what they do. What and how a great player thinks about what they do determines what they do. And what they do, day by day, determines what they become. That is true for all of us. For non-players, simply enjoying a great players playing is enough. But for us players, we need to dig deeper than that.

Many, and I may even say most, guitar students do not really, truly, and constantly THINK when they practice. They are more like a fighter in the ring who keeps swinging blindly, with his head down, so he doesn’t even see what is going on around him. He’s blindly hoping he will be effective and successful, but most of the time, he’s in for a bruising! How do we get to be “thinking guitar students”?

Thinking is a “turning of the wheels” mentally. However, you must make sure the wheels have some “grist” to churn while they are turning! In other words, a large part of the thinking process is the taking in of new information, so that it can be processed, combined and re-configured with existing knowledge, and thereby lead to new insights and discoveries. There are two ways of taking in new information: the people we meet, and the books we read. Make sure you make full use of these resources as they are available to you. Not all of us get to hang around great players, but all of us have access to books written by and about great musicians, and great people in general. You should ALWAYS be taking in new information, processing it, and using it. Understand that READING and THINKING are intimately connected. The person who wants to grow to their full potential READS, and also makes sure they find and recognize who and what is most worth reading!

In my teaching, I have one central overarching goal: teach the student how to teach themselves, and that means teaching them how to think. That is why my book deals with the “Principles” of practice. A “principle” is an “avenue of thought”. When we have a problem to solve, we need to look at that problem from the viewpoint of the appropriate Principle, and let our thinking process be guided by that principle, and see where it leads. This is walking down the “avenue of thought”.

One of the Principles of Practice says “if a mistake is being made in playing, it is always because the finger needed to play the note is not relaxed and ready in the right position BEFORE it is required to move to the note”. This is an “avenue of thought” I often walk down when I have a problem. By contemplating this principle, I am led to discover the answer to my problem, or at least a part of the answer.

The “answer” to our problem is contained within the problem itself. Thinking is the process by which we truly define, and then penetrate the problem, and bring it into focus, so that the answer, which often appears as a new direction to move in, begins to materialize. The Principles we use to guide our actions will determine where we travel, and how well and how far.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

Well, if Stage Fright is something we DO, I think we can all agree we would rather NOT do it. But how do we not do it? The answer may surprise you.

There is no way to not do it. Or more correctly, there is no way for “you” to not do it. There is no way for the “you” who does it to not do it.

There is, however, a way to go THROUGH it. There is a way to give birth to a new “you” who does something else instead.

The answer to our problem is to discover what it is we SHOULD be doing when we play music for other people, and then do THAT. And what we will find when we DO that, is that the Stage Fright thing STOPS.

In order to find out what it is we should be doing when we play music for other people, instead of doing Stage Fright, we need to look at a couple of things first. We need to consider a couple of questions.

One, what is music? Two, why does anyone want music in their life? Three, what are we really doing (or trying to do) when we listen to music, or play music for ourselves or for other people?

What is Music?

There are 3 kinds of people. First, the people that have no feeling for music at all, and whose lives would not be affected if there were no such thing as music in the world. I believe these kinds of people are very rare, and that they are similar to the kind of people who don’t like dogs or little children, and the ones I have met always gave me the shivers. Personally, I don’t think I have met many at all, in fact, only one or two, so I have to account for them here. I’m sure there must be more, I have just been lucky so far. Second, there are the people to whom music makes a pleasant background to their daily activities. It’s nice to have around, like a basket of plastic fruit on the kitchen table. I do know a number of people like this, but I try not to spend much time with them.

Thirdly, there are the people who recognize what music REALLY is. They recognize that music is the most potent form of MAGIC a human being is capable of making. They recognize that music not only expresses emotion, music is a tangible form OF emotion. Music IS emotion, it IS energy in motion, human energy, human FEELING emotional energy. That is why this third type of person not only likes music, not only loves music, they NEED music. Thankfully, I know lots of these people. You will find this type of person as what we call a professional musician, or as an amateur, it makes no difference.

There are many among this third group of people who recognize that music is DIVINE. If you are one of the people who like to use the word GOD to express your feelings about the ULTIMATE REALITY (as I do), then you may think of it, like me, as the voice of God. When I was a teenager, listening one time to Beethoven’s 9th symphony, I was at once converted and baptized. I didn’t need any scriptures to tell me what God was like, whether there was a God, or any of that nonsense. The “Meaningfulness of Existence” had been revealed to me through a higher Revelation, one that doesn’t need human words. It was revealed in a different language, the one we call music, the one that never needs a translator or interpreter, because it speaks “in tongues”, directly to every human heart. And it had been spoken by one of Music’s greatest Prophets, Ludwig van Beethoven.

There are many musicians throughout history who have recognized the divine nature of music, and because they recognize it, they have the proper reverence for it. Beethoven, of course, felt this way. Antonio Vivaldi, the great Baroque composer of the seventeenth century, was, in addition to being a great musician, also a priest. One time he ran off the altar in the middle of saying Mass, because he had just at that moment received an inspiration for a new piece of music which he had to immediately write down, lest he forget. “I was called by a higher authority”, he later explained.

In our own time, musicians like Carlos Santana exemplify this highest type of artist. Santana’s relationship to his music has always been intensely spiritual, and you can certainly hear it in the notes! There is an intense quality of ennobled human emotion in his playing, as there is in the music of all such artists. “When I play, it’s no good unless I cry” he has said.

I have always noticed that the greatest musicians came to see that what they had dedicated their lives to was of a Divine, or Ultimate origin. In addition to being irresistibly compelled to be music makers and creators, they knew they were answering a supremely high calling. It is not without meaning that Franz Liszt’s students were not called students, but disciples. The same with Francisco Tarraga, (who Segovia called “the patron saint of the classical guitar”)

Why Do People Want Music?

Now, human beings have argued endlessly over their confused ideas of “God”, and made hundreds of versions of “God” each in their own image, and each with a different name which they know is the “true” one. But the beautiful thing about the language of music is that there is no confusion. There is no doubt. It is a direct communication of the Divine to the human heart, and it speaks to each heart that recognizes it. And it speaks in the native language of every heart it touches. When we are moved by the music we love, transported and taken to that place which is above this world, we don’t need someone to explain it to us, or tell us whether it’s “true” or not. We know.

And if you are a music lover, it doesn’t matter whether you have ever thought about it in this way or not, whether you have ever used the words I am using. The Reality we are talking about is beyond words, by definition! That’s the whole point! That’s why we need music to touch it! Music puts us in touch with our INTUITION, our “inward knowing” of the Spiritual Reality that stands behind this physical one we normally touch.

A thirteen year old listening to their favorite rock band or rap artist, the 30 year old listening to their favorite pop artist or folkie type singer/songwriter, the person sitting down to meditate upon the mysteries of a Bach fugue or late Beethoven string quartet, all are feeding upon this most necessary food of the human spirit, and are drawn to it as naturally as a baby to it’s mothers milk.

Now, here is the whole point.

What I am essentially saying is that music is a basic human need, it is not a luxury. If we do not feed upon this spiritual food, we will pay a price, we will suffer. If you have put yourself in the position of being one who MAKES this magic called music, if you have decided to become one who speaks this potent, universal, wordless language, than you have just joined a special community.

What Should We Be Doing When We Play Music?

If you have decided to be the provider of this spiritual food for others, then you have taken on a very special job, a very special function. And you must have the proper relationship to it, as those you are providing it for must also.

A priest, minister, or rabbi, is also one who serves the function of providing, or leading people to, spiritual food. He or she leads the congregation to commune with a higher, spiritual reality. I assume that such a spiritual figure, when they are conducting services, are wholly focused on what they are doing. I assume they are not up there thinking “gee, how am I doing? Hope the congregation is liking this! Likewise, I assume the congregation is focused on the reason they are there, to participate in a mutual “spiritual” experience, which the leader is providing. I assume they are not sitting there waiting for the guy to trip up a couple of words! I assume that if the leader misses or mumbles a few words here and there it is not going to make the participants lose their entire focus, and miss the spirit of the experience.

Many performers create terrible strictures for themselves by being so afraid of missing a few notes here and there. They play as if their primary focus was to not miss a note, instead of playing with feeling and expression. That would be like giving a speech, and focusing more on your articulation than on the meaning of what you had to say. Of course, it is not like the technical aspects are not important, but they are of SECONDARY importance. Music began because something needed to be expressed that couldn’t be expressed in words. Technique is the servant of expression, and should never be the master. Anyway, technical matters will take care of themselves when we know how to practice correctly.

Being “In Concert”: Your Responsibility

The dictionary defines “concert” as “agreement in action, feeling, or purpose”. It is a union, a meeting of mind, emotion and spirit. And the meeting takes place in a world of higher vibrations. If I am giving a concert, I am supposed to have MADE that agreement, to meet YOU there, the audience member, in the sound. That is my commitment, and I am supposed to be living up to it, not be thinking about myself, and whether I am looking good or not, and whether you like me or not! It’s a concert, not a contest!

And you are supposed to be living up to the agreement also, you are supposed to be “in concert” with me, meeting me in the sound, and not thinking about something else,

As I said in the beginning of this three-part essay, when a guitar player plays for another person, they are not only sharing the music, they are sharing their relationship to the guitar as well. If your relationship to the guitar, your relationship to your role as a guitarist and musician, is a mediocre one, a lukewarm one, you will not have much to share. First of all, it is your responsibility to make your relationship to music and the guitar (as your chosen instrument) a passionate one, an emotional one, because that is what we are dealing with here, that is why we bother to be musicians, because it is an inherently EMOTIONAL affair.

Don’t Fight Fear, Ignore Fear

Many people make a big mistake by trying to “fight” their stage fright, or to trick by performing little mental maneuvers, like imagining the audience naked or in their underwear. Well, I do believe in doing whatever gets you through the night, but don’t confuse it with getting to the heart of the matter. When Fear, when Stage Fright arises, it is because deep inside yourself, you are devoting a large part of your attention on YOURSELF, and not the music. In fact, here is something very interesting to ponder. It can be just as detrimental to your performance to be sitting there performing and be feeling really good about yourself as it is to be feeling bad about yourself. Most of us performers have experienced playing really well, and then sitting there patting ourselves on the back (in our heads), when we should be busy playing. Guess what happens? Bam, there goes that passage! Either it gets messed up, or just suffers from a lack of feeling or involvement, because we were to busy thinking about ourselves, this time in a “positive” sense.

There must be no “self” when you play. There must be only the music.

When we do make that inner error of putting self before music, whether “positive” or “negative”, the thing to do is to become aware of what you are doing. Take hold of your attention, and place it on the music, and feel your passion for it (which is what you are supposed to be doing, it’s what the people came for).

Fear (which is the result of your inner error) is like an unwelcome visitor who just popped in to see how miserable they can make your life. He stands there and starts saying nasty things to you to see if he can get your goat. Like any bully, if he sees he starts to get a reaction from you, he gets more power, he gets bolder. Pretty soon, he’ll have you on your knees. However, if he sees you are ignoring him and playing your guitar instead, he gets all deflated. It’s no fun, he hangs around a little bit, gets bored, and leaves.

The way THROUGH stage fright is to stay centered in that passion, to be with it, to lose the sense of DOING the music, and stay with the sense of BEING the music. This is the responsibility of the performer, just as it is the responsibility of the audience member. When this is done, there is no stage fright, because there is no one there to be afraid. When Attention is where it should be, on the music, instead of on the self, you cannot be “self-conscious”, you can only be “music conscious”. Then, the magic can really take place.

To Be With, or Not to Be With

As in all relationships in life, it comes down to this: to be with, or not to be with. Love, is to be with. Fear, the opposite of Love, is to refuse to be with. When it comes to this matter of playing our instrument for others, Stage Fright is what happens when we refuse to be with. Stage Fright is what happens when we refuse to be with the music, the audience, and ourselves.

Also check out… Stage Fright Part 1: What It Is And What It Isn’t and Stage Fright Part 2: How It Works, And Why It Works

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

Andres Segovia, for instance, who is the most famous classical guitarist of the 20th century, and undeniably one of it’s greatest musical performers, was, throughout his very long performing career of some 70 years, plagued with incredible stage fright, often shaking visibly before going on stage, and having the beginnings of concerts seriously impaired because of it. He is one example of many world famous performers who NEVER got to the root of it, and never overcame it.

Segovia did do something however, which to me is ridiculous and deluding. He did what I call “making a virtue out of a vice”, something people commonly do when they don’t want to or can’t change a weakness. They start to “re-shape” their thinking about it and turn it into something that makes them look good! Segovia told himself (and others) that suffering from stage fright was a sign of talent, and not feeling stage fright was a sign of not having talent! While it may be true that artists tend to be highly sensitive individuals who are more prone to certain “imbalances” in their make-up, it certainly doesn’t mean that that same sensitivity/talent MUST lead to the undeniably unpleasant (to say the least) effects of stage fright.

Interestingly enough, Segovia would, during the course of the concert, overcome the feelings and start to enjoy playing for the audience, as many players do. He would say, “before a concert, I want to cancel it. After I am done playing, I want to start again”. This was certainly a good thing, but why have to repeat the endless cycle of agony each time a concert comes up?

I have told you this story about Segovia, because I want you to realize the enormity of this problem of stage fright. I consider coming to understand ourselves in the context of how we feel about walking out on stage, or any kind of playing for other people, to be an ongoing, life long process, that is in many ways as rewarding and interesting as being a musician itself. And also understand that I am not talking about a certain kind of “excitement” we may naturally feel at the prospect and the experience of performing on our instrument for other people. Even by it’s very rarity, it carries a certain kind of excitement to it. I am talking about the absolutely debilitating effects, you know, like hearing about how John Lennon would throw up before a concert! I am talking about the “scared to death” kind of feelings. I am talking about things that makes us play worse, not better.

Before we talk about “why” we are so afraid of sharing our artistic selves with other people, and why we are so afraid of other people in so many areas of life, let’s talk about “how” we are afraid of other people. Let’s start real simple, with common experiences everyone has, but I don’t think everyone notices, or appreciates what is really going on when they are happening.

How Stage Fright

Think of it this way. When you are sitting on a public seat somewhere in a public place, maybe a bus, or a park bench, and someone sits next to you, why do you tense different parts of your body as they get closer to you? Why do you make an (ineffective) attempt to “withdraw” from that other person? Everyone does, you know.

Imagine you are walking down the street, all by yourself, and you are lost in thought, or the scenery perhaps. Why is it, if someone begins to approach you, walking in the opposite direction, you not only tense different parts of your body as they approach, but you will notice, if you pay attention, that even your awareness of your own self, your own body, changes. You will, for instance, become very aware of your face, as the person approaches. You will also notice it is not a pleasant feeling. Observe yourself in this situation. You will notice yourself doing these things.

If you were walking down the street by yourself, and then saw up ahead that you had to walk past a group of strangers, you would really start to react, or rather “contract”. You would tense your body, and “harden” your “body armor” for the experience of walking past them. I caught myself doing something very interesting a while ago. I noticed that whenever I walked into a public place, a store for instance, I would (unconsciously) anticipate and prepare for encountering the people there by tensing and or biting on my lower lip, very slightly, but still tensing. I had probably been doing this my whole life and never noticed. I experimented with not doing it (you have the power to experiment once you observe it, not before). I found a very interesting thing. I found that I felt somehow “unprotected” to walk into a group of people without tensing and biting my lower lip!

I could only conclude that the reason I was doing this WAS to protect myself. In my case, knowing my own neurosis so well, I believe it comes from a childhood of being told to shut up, and being punished for speaking my mind. So I would do what is meant by the common phrase people use when they want to say something but are afraid to for some reason, I would “bite my lip”. Most of us have some similar hidden obstacles. This is an example of what I mean when I say you must go deep to make real headway with this situation. It is through a long process of such experimentation and observation that I began to notice changes in ALL my dealings with people, including the experience of walking out on stage in front of hundreds of them.

We have all learned to do these things so completely and automatically that we don’t even notice them. In fact, it’s like when you are in a room, and there is a background noise going on for a long time, but you didn’t notice it until it stopped! Then you are struck by the “quiet:” that replaces it, but before that, you just included the sound in your awareness as a natural part of the “background”.

That is how these inner reactions we perform in our contact with other people are. They are so natural we don’t notice them. But you must realize that becoming aware of yourself in this way IS the beginning of actually being able to change this “stage fright” thing we are talking about, that so many people are never able to change.

When you do begin to notice these things, notice how fear of other people operates in your daily life in the simplest affairs (being in the supermarket, waiting on line, etc.) it will be a new sensitivity. It will grow over time. You will realize that the reason you experience fear of people on the stage, is because you have fear of people ALL the time.

But exposing such a vulnerable part of yourself as the part that strives for artistic expression, and requires special abilities, special TALENTS (my god, what if I don’t have any!), now that is pushing it. Our fear of other people comes bursting out of our seams by then!

In all the above mentioned situations, you will also notice, as your sensitivity increases, that the feelings occurring are not pleasant, not in the body, or the mind, just like stage fright. It is not a pleasant feeling because what you are really doing in all these situations is, in fact, trying to avoid the other person. You are trying to avoid the fact that the other person is there, that they exist. You are doing this by “hardening” yourself, and shutting down your awareness by withdrawing your attention from what is around you, focusing it into your own body, thoughts and feelings. This is what the word “self-conscious” means. You are being conscious only of yourself, not others and your relationship to them.

You see, when you step out onto a stage, or even just go to play for some friends, you are simply demonstrating the same fear, except that it is now too big too hide! Normally, we do hide it. It’s easy, since everyone else is hiding their fear in the same ways, and hardening themselves against us. They are just as afraid of us as we are of them, as we go about our day to day routines meeting people in the usual situations, as in the examples above.

Why Stage Fright

Knowing HOW we do the People Fright thing is actually more important then knowing WHY we do it. You can endlessly contemplate the WHY and still never change it. But by working with the how, you will discover the WHY anyway, and notice it changes by itself, over time. But as far as the reason for all the protecting, all the fear of other people, the root of it is simply the inability, the refusal, to love and accept ourselves as we are, with all our “faults” and imperfections. We do it to ourselves, and then we go around being afraid everyone else is going to do it too. We condemn ourselves for the mistakes we make as players, we compare ourselves to those “great and perfect players who everyone loves and accepts”, the ones we want to be like. Then we reject ourselves for NOT being so great and perfect.

Also, it can be a vicious cycle, because often guitarists DO have many imperfections in their playing ability, and the guitar is an incredibly difficult instrument by it’s nature, anyway. So being a guitarist, especially a soloist, can be risky business. On top of that, the teaching systems that have been developed over the years are always incomplete, and largely ineffective for many students. Don’t forget that compared to piano and violin, the guitar is a newcomer. Add to all that the guitar being a solo instrument, and guitarists being a bit “quirky” by nature (my opinion), and you have all the ingredients for a lifetime of mal-adjustment!

But it is our duty to always be trying to find the paths of growth, and work to improve ourselves, no matter what stage of development we are at. Without being engaged in that process, and yet still displaying ourselves before other people while being conscious of our stagnant faults, is to invite the paralyzing effects of performance anxiety as a permanent companion on stage.

The greatest players are always working on improving themselves. They are always aware of the things that can be improved, new territory that can be explored. But we all must understand that performing is a matter of offering what you have at the moment, to other people.

So, on a practical level, one of the most potent ways to begin to loosen the grip of stage fright is to couple an acceptance of ourselves at the moment, with the process of on-going development. These conditions themselves provide a sturdy foundation for the wobbly knees of the anxiety stricken performer.

Also check out… Stage Fright Part 1: What It Is And What It Isn’t and Stage Fright Part 3: It’s a Concert, not a Contest

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

Jamie

If I may call you that..how does one overcome StageFright?..I can play very well(I don’t mean to brag) and I’m sorry if it sounds like I’m doing it and alone I can come up with some real good licks but in public I freeze..please help me if you can

Larry

Now that is certainly the million-dollar question! If I could give you the prescription for that one in a few sentences, I think I could sell it for a million dollars! You see Larry, your question is very deep, very fundamental. It strikes at the very core of not only what being a performing musician is about, it also has everything to do with what being a PERSON is all about.

Fortunately for you and for anyone else who reads this, and is also suffering from the same thing (which I think includes everybody) I have vast experience with this one. In my many years of performing, I have suffered every degree of what is called “stage fright”. I have gone from someone who used to look out on the stage before a concert, and feel like there was a rope hanging out there, waiting for my neck, to someone who could play before an audience feeling as comfortable as if I were in my own living room all by myself. I have also dealt with, experimented with, and thought about this subject from many different angles, and believe I have come to certain truths concerning it.

What Stage Fright Isn’t

First, let me tell you some thoughts concerning a lot of the ideas that are commonly tossed around when one hears advice on this phenomenon from the many people who comment on it (and I have read many). One of the most prevalent bits of wisdom concerning stage fright is to regard it as some kind of potentially helpful thing. I have heard people say things like “oh, it’s really a good thing. You should connect with that energy and use it in your performance.”

Well, I always think whoever says that is definitely not feeling the same thing I’m feeling when I feel that FEAR, that “stage fright”. Because for me, there is nothing useful, pleasant or fun about it. The first thing I ever noticed about it was that it did nothing but prevent me from playing well, or even having any fun and enjoying myself. The second thing I noticed, was that it robbed these same things from the audience as well, most of whom are there (I assume) to hear what I sound like when I AM having a good time, doing this thing called “playing” music.

I once heard a concert performer giving advice to a young player on this subject, and his answer to the students professed problem with stage fright was “that’s because you care”, I guess he was implying “don’t worry about it, it is a sign you care about what you are doing.” I doubt it helped this guy very much. Probably left him feeling rather perplexed. Now he not only had to feel his stage fright, he had to conclude that it was the inevitable result of caring about what he was doing. I guess the message is “to care hurts”. Does that mean if you don’t feel stage fright you don’t care about your performance? To me, that explanation is absurd. True, I agree the “fright” has it’s origin in a certain kind of caring, but what I hope to make clear, is that it is caring about all the WRONG THINGS!. In a nutshell, it is the result of caring about how you, the player are appearing in other’s eyes, (or your own eyes, as we shall see) than you do about the music you are making, or sharing it with anyone else.

No, stage fright is not your friend, at least it has never been my friend. We all get to choose our friends, and for me, a friend is someone I can have fun with. This guy’s no fun.

What It Does

Before delving into the reasons for stage fright, and what to do about it, let’s bring into focus a few of the undeniable effects of it. For the audience, it is nothing but robbing them of their reason for being there. If I go out on stage to share my music with an audience (and I am really sharing not only the music, I am also sharing with them my whole relationship to music and the guitar), the audience is not there to watch me display my fear of them! They did not take a slice of their precious time to come and watch me get caught in the grip of my psychological problem about being up there in front of them, they came to hear music! They came to hear someone play, not freak out! So if nothing else, it is an extreme discourtesy to the audience members, and I believe it is the responsibility of every performer to get his or her head straight on this subject, (or at least try) and make sure they can deliver the product they are supposed to be delivering.

For me, the performer, the effects of stage fright are equally devastating. How ridiculous, how cruel, that I have spent perhaps hundreds of hours practicing, studying, working and sweating to learn these pieces and prepare this concert, and I go out on stage and have a severe traumatic experience! If I want to torture myself that badly, there are lots of easier ways to do it that don’t entail wasted practice time. I could race down the highway in the wrong lane at 100 miles an hour if I want to scare the be-jesus out of myself the way I have at times in my life by doing the “stage fright” thing.

How disheartening to have worked for hours to discover and shape the nuances of a particular passage, and not even be able to get the notes out when it comes time to share with another human being the fruits of my labor. It is truly nothing but it’s own special form of “musical impotence”. And it is all a completely self-created and self-imposed experience. It is one of the many ways human beings turn what could be beautiful into something ugly in their lives.

It’s not happening to you, you are doing it!

Having brought these points into focus, the next thing to realize is this. Stage fright is not something that happens to us, it is something we do. It is not something “coming over us”, it is something we are deliberately doing, from the inside, deep within ourselves. We are just not aware that we are doing it, because we never look that deep. So it appears to be out of our control, it appears to be something that is “happening” to us, not something we are doing.

I had a dramatic illustration of this truth one time when I was a young player, just beginning to face some of my fears about my own playing. I was just beginning to experiment with recording myself. I was shocked as I turned on the tape recorder and began to feel terribly afraid, and in fact experienced all the same symptoms of stage fright I had before that time had the displeasure of experiencing on an actual stage. There I was, sitting alone in my bedroom, with my heart pounding as I began to play for A TAPE RECORDER! What should we call that “Recorder Fright”?

People Fright!

This brings us to the crux of the matter. There is no such thing as Stage Fright. People are not afraid of stages.

There is only People Fright. People are afraid of people.

When I was sitting there, unable to play for my tape recorder, I was experiencing People Fright. The person I was afraid of was me! Or more properly speaking, I was afraid of all the voices in my head that I knew would start yelling at me when I listened back and heard that my playing wasn’t quite what all those voices demanded it be.

The reason you, me, and everybody else does this thing called stage fright, is because there is one thing that all people fear the most, more even, then they fear death itself. And that thing is OTHER PEOPLE!

I have read of studies where people are asked “what is your greatest fear”. Well, the winner is not fear of death, or auto accident. It is fear of public speaking. That says a lot. That is another way of saying “the thing I fear most is other people, especially if they are looking at me, paying attention just to me and what I am doing.”

Now isn’t that an interesting paradox. Psychiatrist’s offices the world over are full of people talking about how they didn’t get enough love or attention growing up. Nobody was interested in them or what they said, did, or thought. They are full of people willing to pay a high hourly rate just so SOMEONE will listen to them for an hour (make that fifty minutes).

And yet, put somebody up on stage, where they can get every iota of everybody’s attention, (no competition like having that pesky brother or sister around) and they fall apart! Isn’t that strange? Life is full of little practical jokes like that. I guess it what they always say about too much of a good thing…

Also check out… Stage Fright Part 2: How It Works, and Why It Works and Stage Fright Part 3: It’s a Concert, not a Contest

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

You should first understand that often the term “simple chords” is very misleading. Most “simple chords” for guitar require quite complex movements of the fingers, in order for them to get into the final “form” of the chord. In the following essay, I am going to analyze one of the most common chord changes, and one of the most misunderstood in terms of it’s actual difficulty. I am referring to the chords G and C.

Let’s look at this chord change from the viewpoint of the ideas outlined in ” The Principles of Correct Practice For Guitar”. And I am also going to use a real life example of a student of mine named Kathy. You will see many things in her story that will be true for you also, and the principles will apply to all chord changes, not just G and C.

Kathy’s Situation

When Kathy came for lessons with me, she had already been trying to learn the guitar for about 2 years, with a few different teachers, and with no success. She could struggle her way into a few chords, but watching her try to change them fast enough to do a song was an exercise in agony, for me and for her. Her case is a good example of how bad things can get when there is no understanding of the mechanics of playing and practicing, right from the beginning.

First of all, I needed to make her aware of how tensed up her left shoulder was as soon as she began to raise her left hand to the neck. This made her whole arm tense, right down to the fingers. As she tried to get in to the first chord, the fingers tensed up even more, and started leaning and pressing against one another, instead of having the proper space between them.

This tension of the fingers immediately began to cause a reaction in the rest of the arm, tensing up the large muscles of the arm and shoulder. All of this created a great feeling of discomfort, that Kathy had assumed is “just the way it feels to do a G chord.”

How To Avoid “Lockup”

This is a situation that happens all the time to beginners, and even to advanced players to varying degrees. I call this buildup of tension as the arm is raised and the fingers about to move lockup. That is, the fingers, hand and arm “lockup” with tension, and usually the unfortunate player continues to try to get them in position by working through the tension, trying to make the fingers perform while they are “locked up”.

The thing to do is stop, go back into the position you were coming from, and begin to move very slowly, examining the fingers closely as soon as they release the first chord, and focus on staying relaxed from the shoulder down to the fingers, and staying that way as the fingers move to their new positions.

Now, you have to look at the whole situation the hand is in. For Kathy, her thumb was wrapped around the neck in such a way that there was no space between her hand and the guitar, so her fingers had a difficult time, not being free and relaxed, or having the room to move. By the time she got in to the G chord, she was holding on to it for dear life! Not exactly in a position to easily change to the C chord, which is even harder.

Then, as she began to pry her fingers off the G chord and go for the C, she did what many people do, she led with the strong finger, the first finger, that is, and smashed it down on it’s note, on the second string, first fret. Now, she was holding on to that for dear life, with the whole arm, from finger tip to shoulder, knotted up with tension.

Next came the attempt to get fingers 2 and 3 into position, which was very difficult for her to do, and me to watch, as those poor, stressed out fingers did their best to do her will. By the time she got them in to position, somewhat, they weren’t standing straight enough to allow the adjacent strings to ring clearly, one of the difficulties of the C chord.

So the net result of all this effort was the inability to change chords smoothly, and the inability to get the notes of the C chord out clearly once she got there.

My Solution for Kathy

Here are the steps I used to undo the knots of tension that Kathy had unknowingly created and allowed, that were preventing her from performing actions on the guitar which anyone should be able to do, if they approach them properly.

1. I explained the concepts of muscle memory, and how disastrous muscle tension is, and how difficult it can be to become aware of it.
2. I explained the practice tools outlined in my book, Posing, and No Tempo Practice, used for becoming aware of, and eliminating, excessive muscle tension.
3. I explained how to bring the left hand to the neck, with the fingers in a relaxed curl as she approached the strings.
4. I had her begin practice of Left Hand Exercise #1, using Posing, No Tempo Practice, and the Basic Practice Approach.
5. As a few weeks went by, she developed the ability to have relaxed fingers come to the neck and strings, and also to have them stretch out from one another in a relaxed way, while the arm and shoulder stayed relatively relaxed.
6. Then we applied this way of moving to the chord changes, G to C. She learned how to keep everything relaxed, and how to keep a good space between the hand and the guitar as the hand turned, as it must in going from a G to a C.
7. I had her place the 2nd finger down lightly on the 4th string, for the C chord first, not the first finger. As she placed the 3rd finger next, she kept the hand out, and the 1st finger poised over the 2nd string, first fret.
8. Finally, she placed the first finger down, still keeping it curled, and going down on the tip, but with the fingertip leaning slightly toward the headstock, and the hand still out, so that there was enough space between the hand and the guitar at the index finger that you could stick your finger in between the hand and guitar.
9. I had her stop and Pose at random times, when the tension would build, so she could learn to be relaxed in these positions.
10. After repeated No Tempo Practice of this, we began to work up speed using the Basic Practice Approach. And she started to be able to do it faster and faster. Now, I am happy to say, she is playing many songs well, using these and other chords.

I really believe that without this approach, she would never have unlocked the tensions that were preventing her from being able to do these chord changes. This approach will work for anybody, and any chords. Try it, with these chords, or any other changes that give you trouble, or that you would like to improve.

All of the above can be seen as an illustration of the first two Principles of Correct Practice, stated in my essay, “The Secret of Speed”. I will now add the 3rd Principle of Correct Practice:

Principle of Correct Practice #3:

“The fingers are energized by Attention, and moved by Intention.”

I will elaborate on this later, but you should read and re-read the previous essays in light of these 3 Principles stated so far, and your understanding of them will increase, and so will recognition of their relevance to your own playing situation. And so will their usefulness. That is, by thinking about these things, when you practice, your practice will be more powerful, resulting in faster progress.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

So don’t worry, you’re in safe hands here. In fact, there have been times in my teaching career that I have actually told a student not to take lessons anymore, or to go to another teacher. So I don’t make any blanket statements about taking guitar lessons. The way that lessons, or the process of educating yourself as a musician, fit into your life will be a decision you make based on your unique circumstances, and your unique goals.

One general statement I will make is that for beginners, lessons are ALWAYS a good idea. This doesn’t mean that you should make no efforts to perhaps teach yourself, using books, videos and the Internet. But along with all of that, especially in the beginning, and especially if you have no previous experience with music, you should seek out a teacher.

If you are teaching yourself, and coming along well, then lessons will increase your progress, usually greatly increase your progress. I started by teaching myself for about three months. I was learning and could play lots of songs, and was teaching myself to read notes from a method book. But when I started lessons, I really started to make progress, simply because of the guidance of someone who knew the route to take a lot better then I did. Also, and most importantly, a great number of misunderstandings and wrong steps were corrected by someone who had two things I didn’t have: knowledge and experience.

Re-Inventing the Wheel

Let’s get a few things straight right at the beginning. Let’s really look at this question “should I take guitar lessons”. I have to tell you, whenever I hear a beginning player ask that question it makes me laugh. It’s like a five-year-old saying they want to be a doctor or lawyer when they grow up, and asking if it would be a good idea if they went to elementary school! The mere asking of the question shows how much the person asking doesn’t have a clue about what they are getting into, and how best to get into it.

When I hear this question, I think “why on earth would it ever be a bad idea to learn a very complicated subject from someone who knows a whole lot more that you do, and has years of experience with the subject.” Why on earth would it ever be a bad idea, before beginning a journey to an unknown place, to ask for help from a guide, who has traveled the route many times? The very fact that someone is asking the question shows they don’t understand how the whole process of the development of talent works.

They don’t understand, for instance, that playing the guitar is a very sophisticated mental/physical process. Like many activities, such as various sports (tennis, golf, basketball) it has evolved over many years, and continues to evolve, becoming increasingly complex, and new standards of excellence being set all the time. Would anyone seriously ask the question “would it be a good idea for me to go to baseball camp”, or would it be a good idea to take tennis lessons with a tennis pro”, or “I’d like to improve my golf game, do you think I should take lessons with Tiger Woods”. We all know the answer would be “Duh!!?!!”

Yet, when it comes to learning the guitar, people somehow think that perhaps it might be a good idea if they shut themselves up in a room and spent their time re-inventing the wheel!

Why do so many people adopt this attitude as they begin guitar (and many people do, bear with me if you are not one of them)? Here are the reasons:

Ignorance: Plain ignorance about the entire subject of education, that is, of learning anything. They don’t understand that ALL resources, such as books, videos, watching players, talking to players, as well as sitting with players who make a regular habit of transferring their knowledge and abilities to others (teachers) should be used if at all possible, ESPECIALLY in the beginning.

Intimidation: They imagine they would be just plain embarrassed fumbling around with something new and looking and feeling like an idiot in front of a stranger.

Illusion: they look around and see people who just “pick it up” on their own (or at least say they do!). They don’t understand that some people have “natural talent”, which is the tendency to do the right thing, but that even those people would go much further with lessons, and may very possibly never get as far as someone with less talent who does take lessons. Sometimes people see other people who just “pick it up” and say “I should be able to do that”, and doggedly keep trying to learn on their own, even though nothing is happening, they aren’t learning! Just like men who won’t stop and ask for directions, it begins to become an ego thing, and leads to the in-ability to recognize that we need help, and to put ourselves in the vulnerable position of asking for it.

Ego: They want to feel like they HAVE re-invented the wheel. This one especially gets people who do have talent, and can get relatively far on their own. They really like the idea of being able to brag to people that they are “self-taught”. The psychology of this one is very similar to the syndrome I expounded in my essay Why Should I Learn to Read Music.

Money: Well, we can’t argue with this one! Sometimes people just don’t have the bucks for lessons. Personally, at one point in my life I worked 20 hours a week in a factory for minimum wage and spent it all on my lesson with a top teacher in New York City. I put off having a car and used to hitchhike to get around so I wouldn’t have to support a vehicle. We all decide the price we will pay for what we want.

So, if you are one of those people with a bad attitude about taking lessons, decide which of the above reasons applies to you, and whether you want to deal with it or not.

You, The Teacher

It is very important to realize that even if you are not taking lessons you already have a teacher. YOU! Understand that especially if you are not going to someone else for guidance that leaves YOU in charge of your own growth, and responsible for your progress. It leaves YOU as the ONLY teacher on the scene. And you better make sure this teacher is a good one! You better make sure this teacher is honestly working their best to make sure the student is learning how to play, and play well, and building the foundation for continuous growth.

The job of the teacher is two-fold: to present new material to the student and to make sure the student is actually learning it. If you are your own teacher, these jobs fall to you. Just like buying yourself a book to present yourself with new material, buying yourself some lessons is fulfilling the same teaching function.

And besides, if you are your own teacher, and doing a good job, sooner or later you will arrive at the conclusion that it would be a good idea to get some assistance from someone who has already given some, or many, years to playing the guitar and being a musician.

True, you never know if you are going to find a great, or even good teacher, at least right away. However, a teacher would have to be pretty lousy to not be of SOME benefit, at least for a while. You can always leave and look for another, and knowing WHEN to leave a teacher is an art in itself!

No One is Self Taught, Everyone is Self Taught!

The fact is, in one sense none of us are “self-taught”, and in another sense, we are all “self-taught”.

None of us are self-taught, really. We are all influenced by what we see and hear around us, whether we are aware of it or not. A baby learns to walk by watching others walk. It doesn’t take “walking lessons”, but without watching others it would never learn to walk, (or talk, for that matter). So, the baby doesn’t take lessons, but would they be justified in going around when they’re about 10, bragging to their friends “Yeah, walkin’, taught myself!”

I don’t think so.

Segovia went through his very long life telling people he was “self-taught”. It was great PR, and the press loves that kind of stuff. He liked to give the impression that he started the classical guitar from scratch. Of course, he did add immeasurably to the domain and reach of the classical guitar, but only by thoroughly learning what came before him. There is a great picture of him sitting at the knee of Miguel Llobet, (the main student of Francisco Tarrega, who was the greatest guitarist of the 19th century, right before Segovia began his career.) Segovia is watching intently as Llobet plays, and you better believe he is absorbing every detail of what and how it is being done. He is “taking a lesson”.

If you play electric guitar, or folk guitar, or any style for that matter, one of the best things you can do is watch (and listen to, of course) other players. If your inner teacher is functioning, you will pick up something every time. You may not know it, it might just appear, show itself in some way, the next time you play.

The great players are doing this all the time. They were doing it when they first picked up a guitar. They MADE everything be their teacher, whatever happened to come their way, other players, recordings, and teachers. This kind of aggressive attitude is essential, and this kind of aggressive attitude would never even ask the question “should I take lessons”. It knows the answer would be, “Yes, if you can”.

The real teacher is the “inner teacher” we all have inside of us. If that teacher is not on the job, no learning gets done, no matter who is standing in front of us playing the role of teacher. That is the sense in which, ultimately, we are all “self-taught”.

It is this “inner teacher” that recognizes and makes use of all the “outer teachers”: people, books, etc.. So, in the sense that we will, and must, be absorbing knowledge and influences from what is around us, none of us is “self-taught”.

Lessons at different times, and for different styles

I have said lessons are always a good idea in the beginning. As you move along, there may be times when it is best to stop lessons, at least for a while. Sometimes, we simply need to be alone with our playing and our development for a while in order to reach new ground, the place that is right for us to grow into.

Especially for players of improvised styles, where the activity of playing with others is so essential to the growth process, this can become an important consideration. And often the student doesn’t recognize this. There have been many times when I had a student who was happily spending all his time learning scales and doing exercises, but couldn’t jam a simple blues solo with another player! If someone like this tells me they have aspirations of being in a band, I will tell them “stop lessons and join a band! It is more important for your development to play with other people with what you already know, than it is to stay in lessons and learn more scales or exercises”!

And this leads to the understanding that the need for lessons is not only different at different stages of our growth, but it is also different depending on the style we wish to play. As time goes on, lessons are less important for the blues/rock player. Actual playing experience is more important. The same is true for the folk player. Only when Vertical Growth is desired are lessons necessary. A great blues player becomes great because they are steeped in the language of blues, and speak it all the time as they converse with other players. You cannot become a great blues or rock player by staying in your room or taking lessons for the rest of you life.

If you are going to pursue the classical guitar, you’d better get some lessons right away, and work hard to make sure it is with the best teacher possible. Also, you should expect to be in lessons for at least ten years, if not the rest of your life, depending on how professional and developed you desire to be.

Summing up, understand that even if you are not taking “formal” lessons, you still have a teacher, and that teacher is you, and you have the same responsibility that your teacher would have if you WERE going to formal lessons: you must make sure the student is learning, and if not, you must do something about it.

If you are taking “formal lessons” understand that even though there is someone sitting there who has the title “teacher”, YOU are really the teacher, you are really the one who decides whether anything is really going to be learned, and who actually does the learning. You are going to decide how effective the lessons really are by how well you apply yourself.

If you are in lessons and not learning, than your “inner teacher” must tell you it is time to leave, and time to begin the active search for another teacher. Many people don’t do this, and that is why they can be in lessons for a long time, and not be learning.

Teaching and learning are in reality two sides of the same coin. You cannot become a great teacher unless you have already been a great student. Realize that you must play both roles in the process of your own growth as a guitarist.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

I want to examine what some of this confused thinking is, and how people get this confused thinking into their heads, and why it stays there.Why do some people think they shouldn’t learn to read music, when they should? Why do some people think they should, when they shouldn’t (at least not right away)?

Every Strength is a Potential Weakness

Some people are very “natural” guitar players, they learn to play by watching and listening to other players. And that is fine, in fact, that is great. The ability to just watch someone do something like play the guitar, and somehow “learn” how to do it yourself, is a great ability. However, every strength can also be a weakness, and that is true here.

Often, the person who is able to learn this way starts to get an “attitude” about the more formal aspects of learning music and the guitar, things like taking lessons, or learning to read music. They begin to form certain belief systems about the subject. And these belief systems can be dangerous, because they prevent the person holding them from growing and developing as they otherwise could.

Even if you are a “natural” guitar player, there will come the day when you will run up against certain musical concepts which you will be locked out of understanding because you don’t know how to read music. Learning how to read music is one way to increase your chances of being the best musician you can be.

Let’s examine some of the reasons why a person might adopt a belief system that says “it is a bad thing to learn to read music, at least for me”.

I’m a Genius, and God Whispers Directly in My Ear

Unfortunately, most people have an ego, an “idea” or “image” of who they are, and whatever that image is, it carries along with it certain limitations. Whatever our particular image is, it also becomes our act. We have to live up to it. We have to keep a mental list of all the things that support our act, and also a list of the things we have to avoid because they don’t fit our act. In some professions, keeping up your image is essential to survival. Politics is one, probably the first “I must, at all costs maintain my image and my act” profession. Being an entertainer/artist is probably second.

So, it is very common, especially in the beginning stages of being a musician, to decide to play the “I am a natural genius who just picked up a guitar and played like Jimi Hendrix” routine. The musician playing this role has decided they are the “romantic, inspired artist”. This is the image of the artist who gets his inspiration from some divine source. He or she likes to believe (and likes others to believe), that God, or perhaps one of his angels, whispers directly in their ear, and they best not tamper with the process. If they interfere with the process by getting some “education”, then, God might get mad, and stop whispering in their ear. God will stop directly inspiring them with all those great musical ideas and they will just be another jerk playing the guitar.

Underneath this feeling is the feeling that they are, in fact, just another jerk playing the guitar. That is why this particular routine is common with beginners, because most of us do feel like we are just another jerk playing the guitar when we first begin to play. And we usually have a little outside help in the matter, in the form of parents or “special friends”, ready to tell us to get real when we dare disclose our secret dreams of actually being professional guitar players.

It is very important to grow past this little game. If you do decide to make this image a part of your professional career (as many artists do) you must at least stop believing your own hype. If you don’t, you will not move yourself into contact with the resources and situations that exist to help you grow and develop. Beethoven comes to mind. There was never a musician who was more “divinely inspired” than Beethoven. Music flowed into him and as it came out when he played, people were left sobbing with intense emotion, or moved to feelings of awe. When he was young, he would tell people, “I never listen to other composers music, it would interfere with my originality”. He would say that, but he was full of “you know what”, and he knew it. He was really busy studying with all the greatest composers and music theory teachers of his day. So he was not only listening to their music, he was studying it note by note. But he was smart. He knew he had a good thing going with all these people worshiping him. He was young, and knew he had to struggle to build a career as an artist, so he would use this image of the “divinely inspired artist” to his advantage, and help foster and maintain it in people’s minds. But he wasn’t dumb enough to believe it himself, or let it get in the way of the development of his creative powers.

Another artist, and a supremely great one, who typified this attitude was Louie Armstrong. When asked if he read music, he said “not enough to hurt my playing”. I believe he was being a bit tongue in cheek here, and probably also was promoting the “look, I’m just a genius” image, but there is some truth to what he was trying to get across.

He was trying to get across the fact that reading music, like reading words, does not give you talent. Being able to read doesn’t mean you will actually have something to say, and when you are a musician, having something to say (in a musical sense) is what it is all about. However, if you have talent, if you have something to say, learning to read music will not make you less of a musician, but more of a musician.

Having Talent/Nurturing Talent

If you are an artist, if you feel you want to be a guitarist, then, you would really be much better off eliminating the word “talent” from your vocabulary. You should not even be concerned with whether you have any or not. You should only be concerned with how much you love music and the guitar. You should only be concerned with how much you need to do it. Whether you have talent or not is for other people to waste their time wondering about.

When you stay focused on your love for what you are doing, the path of your development will become clear to you. If you love blues guitar, if you want to play like Jimi or Stevie Ray, and that is all you want to do, then it will become clear to you over time that learning to read music is not high on the list of priorities. Playing constantly with other people who play that style is high on the list. Learning and copying the solos of a hundred other players is high on the list. Of course, along the way, maybe you WILL feel the desire to learn to read.

When I was starting out, my friends would show me blues scales and licks. I wasn’t much interested in just learning finger patterns, I wanted to understand in a mental way, what I was doing. I wanted to know the note names and so forth. That was just my personality. I didn’t know then that a few years later I would be captivated by the classical guitar, which is a style that absolutely requires note reading and musical understanding in a technical sense, in order to develop. I was just following my nature. So, being in touch with yourself, your true nature and needs for musical statement, is the first thing. But don’t interfere with that awareness by clinging to some dumb “self-image” that says you “shouldn’t” read music.

Should YOU learn to read music?

What I say now should be understood and used in the context of what I have already said. There are many players for whom this question never even comes up. They know already, intuitively, the right answer to this question as it applies to them. But many people do have questions about this issue, so I will try to provide the clarity they need.

IN GENERAL, everyone can only benefit by learning to read music. Believe me, if you DO have talent, if you have something to say as an artist, you are not going to lose it by developing your mental understanding of the “theoretical” aspect of music. The only people who will lose their artistic ability by education in music are the ones who didn’t have any artistic ability to begin with.

If you DON’T have much natural ability for music, or much experience in playing music, then learning to read can open up a whole world of understanding for you. It can give you the keys to understand the “mysteries of music”. I love to teach students to read, because then I can teach them music theory. In fact, for the guitar student, learning to read is like an insurance policy against future confusion. So many guitar students, as time goes by, start bumping up against concepts that they can’t understand, and it is a source of great frustration for them, because understanding these concepts is the doorway to new and more sophisticated playing abilities.

I often get questions from students (other peoples students) like “can you explain secondary dominants”, or “how do I use a harmonic minor scale in improvising”. Unfortunately, I can’t answer these people. They don’t realize that in order to understand the answer, a knowledge of music theory is required. And in order to learn music theory, you must know how to read music. In other words, I have to use a particular language to answer these questions, and they don’t know the language. So we can’t communicate. They are stuck with their question.

It’s like trying to learn grammar without being able to read words. You may be able to get some understanding if you find a creative teacher, but you will never achieve a complete or satisfying understanding of grammar in the way you would if you could read.

So, in general, I always recommend learning to read music.

Who Should Learn to Read

Specifically speaking, the following are the types of people who definitely should learn to read music.

• Anyone who really wants to.
• Anyone planning on someday having a complete and sophisticated understanding of music and music theory.
• Anyone planning on a career in music, unless it will be a career as a rock/blues musician, or folk musician. Even then, of course, it won’t hurt, it is just not as necessary.
• Anyone who wants to play the classical guitar.

Who shouldn’t Learn to Read Music

• Anyone who really doesn’t want to.
• Anyone who is planning on being only a blues/rock musician or a folk musician.
• Most people who are just starting to learn to play the guitar.

When to Begin to Read Music

There is a common belief that students should learn to read music right from the beginning. I don’t think so. I rarely do that with students. Usually, it is just a way of throwing water on a fire that is just beginning to burn. With guitar, it is very easy to teach music in the beginning without learning how to read. By doing so, the student is connected right away to music in an emotional way, and it is the emotional aspect of playing music that made them begin lessons.

Learning to read music is a very complex, mental affair, dealing with many abstract concepts. Doing it in the beginning is kind of like reading your girlfriend an essay on the philosophy of love on your first date, instead of just being romantic with a box of candy and flowers.

So I believe in fanning that fire first. I find a song they love that has easy chords, I teach them how to practice, and we’re off and running. After a few months, I bring the subject of reading music up, and by then there is no problem in doing so. Also, by then they are more able to understand why it is important.

Teaching children to learn to read is very tricky, and requires great skill. It is often done badly. Suppose, for instance, that you are trying to teach a third grader to read, and you have to teach the concept of dotted notes. In order to understand dotted notes, you have to understand fractions, you have to understand the concept of “one half of something”. They most likely DON’T understand that. So, you have to be a math teacher for a bit. It can take six months to really have a 10-year-old understand this one musical concept.

In fact, I believe many adults who have had trouble learning to read music are the victims of bad teaching. There are often a lot of unexplained, and under-explained vital concepts along the way, which are the real culprits, not a lack of ability to “get it”.

And finally, it should be understood that learning to read music can be a long process, in the same way that learning to read words can be. It takes enough work, over a long enough period of time. You can learn to read enough to go slowly through music, as you can learn to read slowly, or you can become a “speed reader” and read music you haven’t’ seen and still play it up to performance level.

Whether or not to learn to read, and how far to take it is up to you. But it is certainly a subject you should make an informed choice about, based on careful consideration.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles.

You must understand that your ability to effectively change bad habits is going to depend completely upon how deeply and truly you understand the fundamental mechanics of the process of playing the guitar, and the process of “practicing” the guitar, meaning the actual process of how we teach the mind and body new things. If you do not have a sufficiently deep understanding of these things, you will not be able to change bad habits.

I hope you realize the importance of what I just said! I suggest you read it over a few times, and think about it. I suggest you take some serious time right now, and in the next days and weeks to size yourself up, and answer this question “Do I feel like I have a sufficient understanding of the mechanics of playing the guitar so that I know how to practice in a way that will “change bad habits”, which means “solve problems” which really means “fix bad things about my playing”.

And the reason I am saying this is because so many people write to me and ask me the simple, basic question “how do I change this bad habit of mine”? Or, they may be asking the question in reverse. They may ask a question like “how can I play faster”, which is really saying “how can I get rid of the elements of my present playing technique (a bad habit) that are preventing me from playing as fast as other people play”, so it is really the same question.

So my point is this: if you do not have sufficient understanding of how things work, of what really happens when you sit down to practice, then you will not be able to change bad habits. So if this is the case, there is no answer to such a question. The answer to this question, for a person without the sufficient understanding is “you can’t change that bad habit”.

Then, of course, the real answer, the necessary next step, is to go and GET that understanding, and learn how to do the kind of practice that is based on that understanding. THEN, we can talk.

So, the real answer to the question is ” the way you get to be able to change bad habits is by understanding how you got them in the first place”. If you can understand that Muscle Memory put that bad habit there, while you were busy spending hours practicing with your shoulder tense, or your wrist and hand tensed up, then you will see that Muscle Memory will also change, or rather, allow you to REPLACE the bad habit with a new, and better one. If, that is, you know how to summon the mental focus necessary to make that happen, if you know how to become aware of, and stay aware of, what you were not aware of before.

Now understand this. It is often extremely difficult for me to get results from a person sitting in front of me, to get them to REALLY have this mental intensity, pay that much attention, and keep doing that in their daily practice at home. It can be extremely difficult to get someone to REALLY be aware of what they are actually doing when they play, even what they actually sound like! And I have no hope of getting results with someone if I cannot move them to that level of intensity.

That is why I am always so happy when someone writes and tells me of progress they are making using my methods. It proves to me that people CAN be moved to that intensity long-distance, as it were.

But I am going through all this to really drive a point home to all the people with one of the “how can I change bad habits” type questions. You can’t, unless the level of your understanding of all aspects of the process is sufficiently deep! So make sure it is, and continue to deepen it. The way to do that is to educate yourself, by reading my writings, and any other sources you discover that are out there, and also to constantly THINK for yourself, experiment, observe, draw conclusions, and re-experiment in your practice.

It just happens ( the devil made me do it) !!!

There is a statement that students will often exclaim, and it is a big tip-off that they DO NOT HAVE the sufficiently deep understanding that I am referring to. That statement is, when referring to some bad behavior a finger may be exhibiting, “I can’t help it, it just happens by itself”.

This statement shows that the person is the unfortunate victim of the dynamics of the practice process, such as Muscle Memory, instead of being the master of those dynamics, so that Muscle Memory is put to work for us, instead of against us. The person who has the necessary understanding MAKES the right thing happen because they can do two things: they can summon the strong Intention and Attention (mental focus) necessary to make the correct thing happen, and they can have the stillness of mind and body required to do real No Tempo Practice and Posing, which will erase old muscle memory and replace it with new, improved muscle memory.

A strong mental focus, and the stillness of mind and body I am talking about, make your practice sufficiently deep, sufficiently powerful to change bad habits, or in fact, acquire good ones. I call this “the bottom of your practice”. If the bottom of your practice is not deep enough, your practice will have no effect. Essentially, most of what I do with students is simply to deepen the bottom of their practice for them, and try to get them to be able to keep it that deep for themselves.

So, if you have that “it just happens” feeling, well, now you know what it really means, and what to do about it.

Take Things In The Proper Order

Once you have begun to get this deep understanding, you will be able to take certain aspects of playing the guitar in their proper order. You are not going to address the issue of how your hands and fingers function until you have addressed the issue of something more fundamental, like how you sit with the instrument, and how aware you are of your body in general while playing. If you don’t know that the way you are sitting and positioning your arms is forcing you to tense muscles needed to play, you will always be working with a handicap that limits your progress. Unfortunately, I have found this to be the case MOST of the time with players.

The remedy here is to CONSTANTLY EXAMINE the fundamentals of your playing. Your sitting, hand positions, finger action, pick action, etc. Observe, think, analyze, experiment, repeat the process in every practice session. DO NOT TAKE THE FUNDAMENTALS FOR GRANTED.

Once your understanding of the mechanics of playing and practicing are sufficiently deep to allow you to see things in the right order of importance, and you have addressed the necessary fundamentals, begin to get specific about the other elements of playing technique. Whatever level of player you are, begin to get a clear focus on your weak areas, and BE SPECIFIC!

Always Set The Proper Next Goal

Once you are able to get this specific, see into the heart of some flaw in your technique, and are able to approach it in a fundamental and effective manner, it is now just a matter of continuing that process, and setting one goal after another.

When you work on a fundamental, such as the one described above, you make it a project that may last anywhere from a month, to several months, or even a year. You hammer at that aspect of your technique relentlessly. You do whatever exercises you know that will help, if properly practiced. You make up exercises that will help, if properly practiced. You use the actual passage that gave rise to the whole “investigation”. You take note of and measure your progress and results.

Once you see that bad habit begin to weaken, and new habits come through in your playing, you ask yourself, “ok, what is the next worst thing about my playing, what is the next fundamental aspect of playing that is underlying various trouble spots in my repertoire”. Find it, and go after it.

Get and Keep the Correct Attitude

The final point I want to make in considering the subject of changing bad habits, which is another way of saying creating Vertical Growth as players, is the adoption and full acceptance of the CORRECT ATTITUDE of someone desiring to achieve their full potential. And that is the attitude of ABSOLUTE OPENNESS about yourself, about you as a guitar player, and about the endless possibilities of things you have yet to learn. Here are the attributes of someone who has this correct attitude:

They don’t get upset when they discover some major flaw in their playing, they become curious and interested.

They don’t feel sorry for themselves when they begin to clearly see the source of some problem in playing, and realize that it could have been avoided if someone pointed it out, or they had noticed it themselves (that tensed up shoulder they have been playing with for years). They are thankful that they finally see it, and resolve to set about integrating the new awareness into all their playing, right away. They are in fact, happy, every time they begin to become aware of how wrong they have been about some aspect of their playing and practicing approach.

Whenever I have one of my “wow, what an idiot I’ve been” moments, I am always very happy. Now I know I am on the verge of becoming an even better player than I am now. How could that upset me.

And this is something all of you can say at such times. Make sure you do. Make sure you keep the feeling of excitement and gratitude if you read something, by me or someone else, and it makes you realize that you have been missing something in your understanding and approach to the guitar. Do not get whinny and negative because something has come along to upset the nice opinion you have managed to create and maintain about yourself as a guitarist!

And make sure you maintain that attitude of excitement, discovery and gratitude every day on your path of development as a guitarist, musician and artist. It is an endless journey, and those who have gone farthest know that best.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles. Don’t miss the article Changing Bad Habits (Part 1).

They start to feel like that song by Al Yankovich, Everything You Know Is Wrong. They realize that even though they may have been playing for 25 years, there are certain really fundamental things they have never known, and if they did know them from the beginning, everything would have gone differently for them in their growth as guitarists.

Well, that IS the truth. That is the message I am always trying to get across. I am always trying to convey to people that if you have tried to learn the guitar and failed, it is not you, it is the approach to it all that is at fault. If you are stuck at a certain level of development, it is not you, it is your approach that is keeping you there. Change the approach, and you will create different results. I know this is a fact, because I do it every day, for myself, and for others.

Knowing the fact that the approach you use to learn the guitar is THE key-determining factor in your success or failure to actually learn, these three conclusions follow:

1. Playing the guitar well is NOT reserved for just some special people. It is available and possible for everyone.
2. You are never too old to learn to play the guitar well. 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, you are still young in guitar playing years. In fact, as soon as you touch the guitar in the right spirit, you will begin to become younger.
3. You can undo bad habits you have learned along the way. You can begin the process of undoing bad habits right away, when you begin to acquire the correct understandings, and use the approaches based on them.

So, even though it is a shock to find out that you have had a bad or insufficient approach for years, you must get over that shock right away. In fact, get used to it, it’s only the beginning! Get used to feeling like an idiot, get used to feeling like a beginner. Staying with that feeling positions you in the best possible way for being able to see what YOUR obstacles to growth really are. As soon as you think you are “complete” in some way as a guitarist, you will be unable to see your own weak spots.

Now that we have the proper attitude in focus, let’s talk about how to go about “managing” the process of changing bad playing habits. How do we actually conduct ourselves, and our practicing and playing? As I have said, some people become paralyzed, afraid to play, afraid of undoing work done in practice sessions by what they do when they play. And for those who play professionally, it is of course, absolutely necessary that they continue to play, even if they are doing “remedial” work on their technique.

People ask, “should I stop playing everything I am used to playing, until I get rid of all my bad habits”? Well, if you have a lot more discipline than I have, go ahead and do that! If you can stand not making music for months, go ahead, but I don’t recommend it.

An extreme example of this would be to entirely stop playing any of our usual music, where all the bad habits show themselves, and buckle down to things like the Foundation Exercises in my book, or the ones I have written about in my essays. You could work on those for months and months until you felt you had overcome your bad habits, and then go back to playing music. I’d have to love self-punishment a whole lot more than I do (which is not at all!) to take that route. I need fun and enjoyment in my life on a daily basis, so I can’t go with that one!

Take the Middle Path

I prefer to be wise like the Buddha, and take the Middle Path. This is the one I have chosen, and I will describe it for you.

First, if you are using my book, begin to do all the Foundation Exercises, because they will start to undo the foundation of ALL your bad habits. Do them every day for perhaps ten minutes. If you are not using my book, get all you can from my essays, and apply those approaches, experiment with them, and elaborate upon them, and adapt them to new situations.

Second, after coming to an awareness of the existence of a “bad habit”, develop an understanding of HOW it got there. What WEREN’T you doing that allowed that situation to develop. Of course, it always reduces down to something you weren’t aware of that you should have been paying attention to, been more INTENSE about during your practice.

Third, absolutely spend a good amount of time in practicing REVERSING that habit. Practice in a new way, where you make sure you DO what you weren’t doing before. Analyze the essence of that bad habit, extract it from it’s musical context, and perhaps make up “auxiliary exercises” based on the essence of it. Use all the practice techniques that I teach to effectively begin this process of reversal.

Fourth, make sure the reversal of the habit is actually beginning to take place. This means we make sure that our practice is effective. If it’s not, go back to steps One and Two and Three!

Fifth, take up one of your usual pieces of music where that habit has been showing itself by producing UNWANTED RESULTS, and we begin to practice IT in the same careful way that you did the exercises you were using to change the essence of the bad habit.

As weeks and months go by, your old “bad habit” will begin to weaken, it will change. It will be replaced by the new finger action you are training into the fingers. The important point to realize is that the new habit WILL take over, if you are doing the proper proportion of CORRECT PRACTICE on the bad habit. Merely playing the music where the bad habit displays itself will not disturb the changes you are building into the fingers by your powerful, correct practice. As time goes by, the new habit will begin to show itself IN your playing, and become stronger and stronger.

For instance, the process may go like this:

I notice I have trouble with a fast scale passage in a piece I am playing.

I notice a particular note starts disappearing when I reach a certain speed. The note is being missed.

I notice the finger responsible for playing that note is the third finger. It is not getting to the note because it is going up in the air in reaction to the second finger being used right before it in that particular scale passage. In other words, it is tensing in reaction to the movement of it’s neighboring finger, and I have not been paying attention to it. I realize this is a bad habit that pervades my playing, a third finger that tenses up in reaction to the use of the second finger.

Now I know I have to work on something very fundamental. I have to work on the behavior of my third finger, and change the way it reacts to it’s neighbor being used, the second finger. If I can get down to the matter with that degree of specificity, that degree of clarity and focus, I am in a position to cause major Vertical Growth. If I can change the way that finger is behaving in that situation, I will see many playing problems I am having in other pieces of music begin to “melt”, and eventually disappear.

I must find a way of practicing that movement that DOES NOT ALLOW the bad action to occur. Principled Players know that means using Posing, No Tempo Practice, and the Basic Practice Approach, all done with the proper intense focus.

Here is a simpler scenario for beginning players. Perhaps you suffer from the common complaint of not being able to change chords smoothly so you can sing that old favorite of yours without feeling like a new driver learning to drive a stick shift (go, stall, go, stall, etc.)

Well, that is very simple. You are simply suffering from shoulder tension while making the moves (also, tension in the muscles of the upper back and chest, they all move the arm). Because of this, you must address the fundamental aspects mentioned before. You cannot control your fingers, or even train them, because control is being choked off higher up, in the larger muscles.

Now, the challenge will be to be able to use the practice approaches that CAN actually change something like that. Users of The Principles know that this means Posing, and No Tempo practice, and the use of The Basic Practice Approach. Again, unfortunately, too often I meet readers of my book who are NOT really using these practice approaches. They bought the tool, but they don’t use it! Those that do, see the results.

Copyright Jamie Andreas, Guitar Principles. Don’t miss the article Changing Bad Habits (Part 2).