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As the years go by in the life of a player,
there are two kinds of growth we can experience. Both are necessary for
our development as musicians and guitarists. I call them Vertical Growth,
and Horizontal Growth.
Here is a common scenario. A person comes in for lessons after
already playing for a while. Maybe they have played for a year,
maybe a few years, maybe many years. I say, "Play something
for me, something you are comfortable with". Now a few
different things may happen. They may play nicely, strumming
and singing, maybe even throw in a few runs. So I see that for
the level they are at, they play well. I then try to find out
what they are here for. "What do you want to do, that you
find you can’t do."
They may say "Well, I play lots of things, but I play them all the
same way. I want to learn how to do chord melody solos, more interesting
chords and strums, and also improve my fingerpicking so I can try some
classical.” In other words, they want to move to a higher level
as a player. They want to make VERTICAL GROWTH.
They don’t want to continue to learn new songs and play them the
same way. That would be HORIZONTAL GROWTH. Everyone can always make Horizontal
Growth, even on their own. You just learn more material, but you don’t
actually play any differently, musically or technically.
Vertical progress as a player is the tough one. It requires what is usually
considered "work", although I have always found it enjoyable,
although challenging.
Here is another even more common scenario. Someone comes in for lessons
after playing for awhile, and when I ask them to play, they make a couple
of excuses, and then they play really badly! Then I ask them to play something
else, and they play that really badly! This is the person unable to create
Vertical Growth. The reason they cannot raise their level as a player,
is because THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO PRACTICE TO SOLVE PROBLEMS AND
ACHIEVE RESULTS! Also, because of this, there is no solid foundation of
technique for Vertical Growth to be built upon. So there is only Horizontal
Growth, more things played the same way, in this case, badly.
Do you know how many young players I’ve seen who play only the beginning
of a hundred songs, and play them badly? Lots.
Or how many people playing classical who go from piece to piece, struggling
with and mutilating pieces as they go? Lots. It is sad, and unnecessary.
If you love the guitar, and are dedicated to your own development as a
player, if you are dying to play the way the guitarists you admire play,
you must know how to create Vertical Growth. This is done through an understanding
of HOW TO PRACTICE. I am of course talking about REAL PRACTICE, not repetitive
"run throughs" that only re-enforce the muscle tensions causing
the problems you already have.
From my experience as a player and as a teacher, it is extremely difficult
to create Vertical Growth, once bad, or insufficient practice has locked
in tension and bad habits. The good news is, it is not impossible. In
fact, the word difficult is not the best word. I use it only because we
have such a tendency to under-estimate the intensity of concentration
it takes to undo past damage. A better word is challenging. And if you
want to keep getting better and better as a guitarist, you’d better
learn to love challenges! As Mark Twain said "Life is one damn thing
after another", and that is what playing and practicing are. One
damn problem to deal with after another.
But as we learn to actually deal with and solve those problems, what a
sweet reward we earn.
In fact, it is not the problems we face in our playing that are really
the obstacle to our growth. It is the growing feeling of frustration and
helplessness we experience as time continues to go by, and we see no fundamental
improvement. We start to feel helpless. We may not admit this feeling
to ourselves, we only notice that, for some reason, we are beginning to
lose our motivation to practice.
When we learn how to really practice, we start to feel powerful. Problems
and challenges don’t frighten us, they excite us. Because we know
that we can look forward to those problems getting smaller and smaller,
weaker and weaker, as we continue to apply The Principles of Correct Practice.
It is important to realize that the quality of our Vertical Growth determines
the quality of our Horizontal Growth. Any ability we have gained as players
has been our Vertical Growth. If our Vertical Growth has been shaky, with
weaknesses built in, (which was true of myself, and I think, most players),
that shakiness will be in everything we play, so our Horizontal Growth
doesn’t do us much good, it just keeps us busy, feeling like we
are making progress because we are learning a new song or piece. This
is why so many teachers turn the page and assign new material to a student,
even though the student can’t play the material from this week.
The teacher doesn’t really know how to create Vertical Growth, and
so is trying to keep a feeling of movement going. Most students, if they
are paying attention, will catch on to this.
If Vertical Growth is strong, than all new material learned will be strong,
and will help you grow as a musician, as you absorb new music, and are
able to play it well. This is the kind of Horizontal Growth we want.
If you want to learn how to have this Vertical Growth as a regular experience
for you, I invite you to look around my site further for more information
about "The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar". It is
the approach I have found to work for myself, for my students, and anyone
else who actually understands it, and uses it.
Copyright 1999 Jamie
Andreas. All rights reserved. Used With Permission.
Free! 10 Things You Can Do Right Now to Become a Better Guitarist!
“The Principles of Correct Practice
for Guitar,” the Perfect Start for Beginners, the Answer to the
Problems of Players. Start to play the guitar without getting bad habits,
or get rid of the bad habits you already have, by knowing how to do "perfect
practice" with the Principles of Correct
Practice for Guitar
Visit: www.guitarprinciples.com
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