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It’s TIME 2 practice

The most successful musicians understand that practice is the way to the top. It’s important to be aware that practice is not the same with wasting time. Many guitarists are wasting their time, thinking they actually practice and therefore there is no visible improvement of their playing skills.
 
Playing guitar can be a mess when you don’t know how, what and when to practice. You most probably know very well that moment when you are practicing a lot without getting any results (or invisible improvements, if any) or when you are just bored practicing the same stuff over and over again, with the same mediocre results.
 
When this happens it is very clear that you are doing it WRONG. This means that you cannot practice by yourself yet. 
A good practice session is only possible when you are very good at TIME MANAGEMENT.
 
You may have heard a lot of guitar players complaining that they only have 30 minutes per day for guitar practice. Well, if you have a well-structured study schedule and the will to hold on to it, then 30 minutes per day will not only work to your advantage, but will actually boost your guitar playing technique and allow you to reach your goals FASTER, with LESS effort.
 
People think that learning some new ‘hot licks’ from youtube or simply learning new songs will somehow replace the enormous benefit of a proper practice session. And this is not how things actually are. Because if that piece is chosen unwisely, it will harm you more than it will help you.
 
Here’s a few reasons why:
 

  • a *new thing* might miss out on some of the techniques YOU need in order to reach your goals
  • some of the *new stuff* might be too advanced for your current skills => you will most probably become unmotivated to continue with musicianship, after a few sessions like this
  • the mandatory skills for learning this *new thing* are not pushing your guitar playing one step further with each practice session, like they should => lots of wasted time
  • if you don’t know how to approach particular techniques, you will definitely hurt your guitar playing (i.e. sweep picking or legato
 but it’s applicable to any other technique as well) => regress instead of progress

These new things have to be wisely integrated in your current playing step-by-step, in order to keep you on the right track.
Of course that having a big repertoire is a good card to play when needed, but it will not help YOU solve your problem.
 
It has to be clear for us that Practice is not the same with Rehearsal.
 
A good example is a violinist’s study program:
 

  • his learning process is filled with different disciplines to rehearse, in various contexts like: orchestra, chamber music, quartet, quartet and piano, strings quartet, orchestra plus choir and, of course, violin solo sessions, among many other classes
  • all these areas of study are constantly supplemented with practice
  • moreover, every little aspect of his musicianship is isolated and wisely guided, through practice sessions, towards violin shredding
  • usually, the teacher that is responsible for the solo meetings is the one that shapes the young musician (by recommending the RIGHT THINGS TO PRACTICE, WITH NO WASTED TIME) and helps him to master each aspect of his playing, considering his PERSONAL NEEDS AND GOALS

A practice session is the one that prepares you for the rehearsal room. There are indeed things that can be practiced together with your band
 but for this you already need to be at your band’s expectations level. That means that you have to practice alone first, in order to be able to practice with your band.
 
Things are getting better when you can overcome those troubling moments by having a rigorous program that:
 

  1. breaks down all the areas of your current skills
  2. provides efficient approaches to improve those skills
  3. wisely prepares you for the next level
  4. efficiently integrates the new-level-skills into your guitar playing…

    5.  
    so that you can start again from the top.

Personalized lessons, with a twist

I chose to write this article in order to explain some of the insights that I use in my methodology.
Mainly this article’s target is to give you an idea about the lessons @GuitarProf’s studio, and is a replacement for a FAQ on this specific topic. (the Prof)

 

✓ Guitar Lessons @GuitarProf are extremely focused on the amps output. So the practical aspect is the most important of them all. PLAYING GUITAR is the priority here! But because Music Theory acts a key role in this process, we make sure you don’t miss out on it.

 

Depending on your skills’ level, your knowledge and the program/s you will attend, you will benefit of both theoretical and practical meetings. For example: if your theoretical knowledge is at an intermediate level, but your practical skills are lower than that, then we will obviously increase your skills in order to create a balance between the two aspects – because only together these aspects will eventually form the whole: the musician.

 

✓ At a glance, all our programs provide at least 1 weekly session where some theoretical subjects will be approached – and that is to make sure your theoretical knowledge meets (at least) your guitar playing skills.

 

Aside from the weekly meetings, the prof will organise Music Theory classes, that are also part of each program’s curriculum.
All the administrative questions about those classes will be cleared at the right time with the Prof.

Please note that WORKSHOPS on very specific theoretical subjects are also available @GuitarProf.

 

The lessons’ flexibility is defined by our policy, but also depends on your personal approach. So I need you to be sure you want to make improvements in your guitar playing, before having to decide what curriculum fits you best. (the Prof)

 

✓ As you may notice from our Lessons page, the teaching and training programs are designed in such a manner that you will attend at least 2 practical sessions per week. Normaly, these 2 sessions are divided into 1 solo and 1 ensemble meeting.

 

We prefer this teaching approach as it is very important for us to INTEGRATE all your skills and knowledge into your playing.
If the integration process is very poor (for example, you only attend solo meetings and we just wait for the moment when you become a pro :), then your chances to succeed in the process are also very poor.
The same thing happens when you only attend ensemble meetings: without the solo sessions, your very personal specific problems will not go away by themselves, as many people use to mistakenly think.

 

✓ @GuitarProf we make sure YOU CAN PLAY AWESOME!
So the ensemble meetings are not only recommended, but are also integrated into our methodology.

 

The ensemble and solo sessions are designed in such a manner, that only together will deliver an obvious outstanding progress for our students. Please note that both session types can vary in terms of length and pattern, taking into account the different personal goals, stage of development and target for each session. It is important to understand that each session has a very particular purpose and it is a crucial link for the whole program.

 

✓ All programs can be upgraded to an INTENSIVE model, which basically increases the length or the number of sessions, depending on your choices and particularity of each session. Therefore, this program version can deliver great results in a shorter amount of time.

 

Due to its characteristics, the intensive version is also designed for students that cannot practice much at home.
Students that have upgraded their program to INTENSIVE get bonus Music Theory classes and the Scales & Modes workshops.

 

✓ Our most special offer is the ELITE Pack – with an exquisite structure and a huge amount of benefits.

 

Its efficiency is at extremely top levels, giving you the opportunity to freely attend any of the GuitarProf’s high-end WORKSHOPS in combination with the INTENSIVE version characteristics.
Feel free to contact us if you need more details on our upgraded programs.

 

I’m a BEGINNER: is that a BAD thing?!

The very first thing we imagine, when we hear about beginner guitar playing, is some sloppy & unbalanced sound output – especially if you’re @ intermediate or advanced level in music. And it is something we cannot control, due to the fact that we often forget we were once beginners too

 

WHY IS THIS A MISTAKE?

  • First of all, nobody wants to hear a beginner play guitar, because they want to “protect” themselves from bad music
 or worse: good music in the wrong hands.
  • Secondly, no beginner wants to perform for anybody else than their very familiar environment, because
 well, see the first bullet

This is how you get a loophole, based on a seriously damaged image about reality. 
And with this primitive way of thinking, we wouldn’t have any professional musicians on the planet.
 
The truth is that being a beginner doesn’t mean that you have to sound all sloppy and out of tempo; it rather means that you can play simple tunes.
 
As you may notice I didn’t say easy. A tune or a lick can be easy for me, but difficult for you. When we say that something is easy or not, we are always considering our experience, our perspective about a musical piece (in this case) and, mostly, our personal skills.
 
For example, you might be tented to state that a tune is easy or not being very influenced by your personal taste in music. Very often the jazz musician says: ‘Blues is easy (cause I don’t like it)’ and, in the same way, a rock musician states: ‘Jazz is difficult (cause it’s freaking me out and I’ve never tried it)’ and so on.
 
So EASY (or difficult) defines a more subjective approach and it’s a term we cannot use as a standard in a well-built methodology.
 
In the learning process we normally follow the arrow that goes from SIMPLE to COMPLEX.
And SIMPLE is not the same with BAD or SLOPPY; nor with EASY.
 
Now SIMPLE can be both easy and hard, depending on where you’re standing on your way from SIMPLE to COMPLEX.
 
Of course, SIMPLE can sound sloppy or bad if:
 

  • you are not properly guided in your learning process
  • you don’t practice the way you should or
  • you don’t practice AT ALL

As you can see, if you are fitting any of the 4 bullets above, you most probably are that beginner that we were talking about at the top of this page. So why not DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT TODAY?

GuitarProf briefs PENTATONICS

You have most probably heard about the pentatonic scale. It is the most popular approach when it comes to electric guitar solo-ing. Most of guitarists present it as the simplest scale, the easiest way to create good music. I totally agree. The pentatonic scale is just awesome. Except that one particular question bothers me a little: WHICH ONE?
 
To answer this question we need to take some time to understand what pentatonic means and then to have a quick look on how the pentatonic is actually a very wide variety of Scales and Modes.
 
At first, let’s see what *The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians* has to say in order to clarify the term:
 

A term applied to a scale, or, by implication, a musical style or system characterized by the use of five pitches or pitch-classes. The term is used more strictly to describe the so-called Anhemitonic (meaning ‘without semitones’, used mainly in conjunction with ‘pentatonic’ to distinguish music in which the Mode or Scale consists of combinations of major 2nds and minor 3rds) pentatonic collection, typified by the set C–D–E–G–A; of the five modes arising from the collection, the major (i.e. with tonic C) is generally regarded as ‘the (common) pentatonic scale’. The notion of pentatonic can be refined by recognizing the distinctiveness of the scale’s minor third ‘steps’, therefore the motif G–A–C is more characteristically pentatonic than C–D–E, even though both belong to the same pentatonic scale.

 
That’s just beautiful, isn’t it? A very precise and well-shaped definition of what pentatonic means.
 
First described by Westerners variously as the “Chinese” or the “Scottish” scale, the pentatonic scale figures prominently in such diverse musical cultures as those of the British Isles, West Africa, Southeast Asia, and aboriginal America, among many others.
 
Anyhow, the pentatonic usage varies widely and, in some cases (like the Chinese System, Japanese gagaku tradition or the slĂ©ndro tuning of Javanese gamelans), the very property of the term ‘pentatonic’ has been questioned. Whether explained in terms of mono- or polygenesis, this ‘king’ of scales warrants further research.
 
Returning to our point of interest, this scale is the most famous and desirable when it comes to electric guitar, especially in Rhythmic Music genres. And it is probably the most tolerated scale when it comes to improvisation – maybe more than (or at least the same as) the classical modes (aka The Church Modes). The pentatonic scale is extremely easy to fit into any musical context.
 
Jerry Bergonzi (contemporary jazz tenor saxophonist, composer, and educator) shows how altering one or two notes of the pentatonic scale will eventually lead the musical discourse into any of the modal contexts, including melodic and harmonic modes, fitting any chord or any functional progression. Frank Gambale (contemporary jazz fusion guitarist), in his ’Spicing up the Blues’ lesson, has showed how major and minor pentatonic scales can be used together (having the same root) on the same chord or progression, in order to sound authentic, spontaneous and original, by adding loads of flavour to your solos.
 
It’s the scale that we mostly use when approaching string bending, which, in my opinion, is one of electric guitar’s prime signatures. There is no other instrument on EARTH that allows you to bend in the same way the electric guitar does and to deliver similar results. Some of the greatest guitarists & music coaches out there state that if you are not able to execute a perfect bend, it is almost like you don’t exist as a guitarist. This technique is a characteristic of electric guitar without question.
 
As disputed above, the pentatonic scale (and the resulting modes) can be easily extended and manipulated in order to match any tonal or modal context, due to the fact that it contains within itself most of human kind’s creativity.
 
Being extremely polished and explored by giants of all rhythmic music genres (and many others), the pentatonic scale easily became a standard requirement for electric guitar playing.
 
If you want to extend your knowledge about this topic, you are very welcome to attend our Scales & Modes workshop. We will go through each of the five modes of the pentatonic scale, analyze them & play them. I will then show you how to use & modify these modes, in order to better fit your needs, so that you sound awesome in every possible way. Pentatonics might look easy and might sound simple, but the truth is that this amazing pattern is just another ‘musiverse’ that’s waiting for you to dig in.