How Should I Practice? (part one)

   Practicing Guitar has never been an issue for me. I've always loved it and while trying to get better at Guitar has been frustrating at times, I've always practiced. In fact, for my first 10 - 15 years of playing, the idea of missing a day of practice was an anathema. However, even though I used to practice 3 - 6 hours a day, now that I look back on those years, I can say that the way I practiced wasn't always optimal. These days, I think I have a better method for getting things done in the "wood shed".

  At some point early in my playing career, my teacher at the time Paul Wingo, made a list of about 8 things that all players needed to do in order to get better at Guitar. The list involved repertoire, transcription, listing to others, composing, etc. What I took away from that beyond the specifics of the list, is that practice isn't only about learning tunes. While playing songs is usually the fun part of playing a musical instrument, doing other things in addition to that can actually help you play those songs even better! For beginners, I've come up with 3 areas of focus to help structure a students practice routine :

• Technique: Even working some basic scales with the correct down and up picking can sharpen your skills way beyond what you might realize. And if you don't know about things like arching your fingers, making the C chord sound clean is going to be very difficult!

• Theory: While some think it's boring, just remember, if you can't keep a beat, you'll never be able to play with anyone else or jam out with your favorite song. Remember, anyone can play a song badly; we wan't to sound good when we play, right?

• Songs / Fun Stuff: All work and no play is no fun - and playing Guitar is supposed to be fun! Not to mention that there's a lot of good, practical knowledge you can pick up from learning songs.

This list is by no means the end all of practice routines, but I think it can really help students who are just starting out or who don't have any structure to their daily practice. When in doubt, ask your Teacher to give you some pointers. Give it a try!


Tune in next week for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.

What Age to Start Music Lessons

  I've been Teaching Guitar for over ten years now and for six of those year have owned / operated my own studio, The School of Music. Every day, we get calls from parents wanting to set up music lessons for their children. And a least once a week, the parent of a very young child will ask, "At what age do most kids start playing an intrument?". "Well...", we'll say, "......6 years old is a good starting point, but it really depends on the kid.....". Let me explain.

  The biggest issue I've noticed with teaching very young children (3-5 years old) an instrument like Guitar, is that most of them have a hard time focusing for more than a few minutes. Since most Music Lessons are 30-60 minutes long, it can be a real challenge for a 4 year old to sit still for a half hour and focus on their instrument. The same problem often continues when they get home and have to practice every night (which is really important).

  The other big stumbling block for teaching young kids an instrument, is communication. While the schools are teaching  kids to read and write at a younger age these days, many preschoolers cannot reasonably understand much of what needs to be taught in a music lesson. Things such as note/letter names and counting are crucial to understanding any musical instrument. So, if the child hasn't learned his or her ABC's yet, learning a G chord won't have a lot of significance.

  So, with that in mind,  it does really come down to each individual child. What I usually do at my studio, is try a single lesson so that the teacher and parents can evaluate how things look in terms of potential progress. If we think the child can sit still for 20-30 minutes and understand some of the basic concepts, than it's a safe bet that things can progress very nicely. If not, it's no big deal. There's nothing wrong with waiting a year and trying it again later on.

  In conclusion, Music Lessons for young children are wonderful (ok, yes I know I am biased). And while the idea of having one's 3 year old blazing through a Bach Invention on the Piano sounds thrilling to most parents, it's not very realistic. Actually, that's difficult teens and adults! I think a better, more optimal approach is to introduce children to an instrument around the age of 6 and really have the parents involved. There's nothing better than sitting in on the lesson and really finding out what your child needs to practice each night and how to do it. In many cases, you may learn just as much about music as your kid!

 Tune in next week for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.

Pentatonic Scales (part three)

   As we've seen over the past few weeks, the Major and Minor Pentatonic Scales are pretty important to know. They're like a certain credit card company says, never leave home without them. However, like I said in the previous weeks, a Pentatonic Scale is simply a five note scale. Therefore, any scale made up of five notes would be classified as Pentatonic. And since in Western Music we have a total of 12 notes (A A# B C C# D D# E F F# G G#), that leaves us with quite a few possibilities. Actually,there are many more Pentatonic Scales used throughout the World which have nothing to do with Western Music......

From the end of September through October 2001, I traveled through Indonesia with nothing but a Guitar and a Backpack. It was there, on the island of Bali, that I was able to participate in a cool, musical, cultural exchange. While sitting at the local Warung having a meal, I met up with some local guys that happened to have a Guitar with them. After chatting for a few minutes, we began to talk about music which led to me scribbling an E minor Pentatonic Scale on a napkin for them. In return, one of the guys showed me the Balinese Scale.

The example below is the G Balinese Scale. While it's usually played on pitched percussion instruments associated with the Gamelan, it can be played on any pitched instrument. It's made up of the notes G B C D and F# (or Root, 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th) - kind of like an abbreviated G major scale. Play the scale slowly up and down and experiment with your own fingerings. Then close your eyes while you listen to the notes resonate and imagine you're in sitting above the rice terraces, sipping a strong cup of coffee.

Tune in next week for the next installment of Have Guitar Will Travel.