What a bunch of great advice! Makes me want to practice and relax.

Phain

Bluegrass musician and teacher Jack Tuttle http://www.jacktuttle.com/ has a fine website with lots of ideas for practicing. They are relevant whether you play BG or not. He agrees with the idea that you must strive for accuracy by playing slowly and deliberately. But he also stresses trying to play fast, as a way to speed up your mind and hands. Dan

Also, check out the program Band in a Box. I have created playalongs for tunes that I would otherwise have to play unaccompanied. If you don't have a metronome, try a Sabine Zipbeat. It is a great tool. My iPod has proven to be a very useful practice tool. I use it with earbuds and play along with whatever songs interest me.

Great words of advice guys. Thanks for all the posts.

I am trying to move my music to another level as I head into year four of practice and play.

I play two hours a day and three hours on each weekend day.

I will think hard on all that has been said here. I do notice when I watch Pierre Bensusan play (spelling not checked), that his left hand seems to agressively move on the finger board. It may be that he remains relaxed however. I will try to be conscious of this.

I am also conscious of the angle my fingers strike the strings with regard to the right hand.

And though I hate scales and triads, I continue to try to work them, though in fairness, much of my time is spent working on some wonderful fingerstyle pieces. Both celtic and country blues styles.

Come to think of it, I'm working on one of Rick Slo's tunes (DC's). His version of Freight Train. Loads of fun.

Thanks again and I may come back with questions.

Stuart

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Stuart,

I'm a classically trained pianist and my mom is a piano instructor, so I absolutely know how important it is to practice scales, exercises, etc.

But I absolutely CANNOT make myself do it with guitar ... which probably is why it takes me forever to be able to play pieces that I'm working on "right".

So my practice time consists of working on pieces I want to learn to play. Period. Suboptimal? Most definitely. But any other way just makes it feel like work to me.

There ... I've admitted it.

It does feel a little like work.

I'm trying to find creative ways to achieve similar results. Take a celtic instrumental song, jot down the melody, write the fingerstyle music searching for the appropriate chords using knowledge of triads and finding creative sets of threes and fours of notes.

For scales I am trying to find and use musical patterns of notes, within the scale, that are more fun to work on while working on speed and location of note.

I am also conscious of what finger is reaching for what fret, though without any serious classical training, I am guessing that I am being lazy and should be stretching my second finger over one more fret, rather than playing the note with the third finger, stuff like that.

But what I do find very interesting is the angle of attack for the right hand, and even striking the base notes with fingers as opposed to the thumb to get a more desired tone for the song on question.

I know, probably getting a little carried away. But I hate getting stuck and I find that by diversifying my approach, I do make noticeable progress - in 3 mth increments. But it's also escalating. I forced myself to read music, and am getting stronger at it, and that is also interesting.

I do really enjoy playing songs, however. Am working on about 18 now. Can play probably about 9 or 10 through to the end. Some are much harder. Only two would be considered challenging for more intermediate to advanced players. They will take me about 3 years to master. Such is life.

Simon Fox's Kettle of fish is one of those songs. I'll post the link. Give it a listen. Great player. Percussive thuds. Cool. I think you'd appreciate that song mike.

http://www.deepnorthmusic.com/scrapbook.htm

Song number 8, left side of page 1/2 way down is access to some tunes

what a lovely song.

Stuart

Thanks Stuart. I actually REALLY like Smithy's Porridge and it sounds / looks comparatively doable.

Great link. Much obliged.

And can I just say that I would dearly love to be able to be working on 18 songs. Geez. I've got four kids (ages 5 to 15) so the only time I get to practice is when I'm taking it out of my sleep. That occurs, in a very limited way, on a more or less daily basis, but I get pretty surly until I am able to work in a couple of naps ...

I usually start with my wedges, then move to short irons, then move up through the irons . . . Oops, sorry, wrong forum . . .

One good way to practice scales and fingerboard dexterity, etc. is to sit down with an unplugged electric guitar and watch a good movie. Do brainless scales and exercises up and down the neck as you're watching the film. It's a great way to get an hour of scales in without using valuable time that could be spent on more musical things.

Yeh, sometimes I fool around in front of the tv, but only if I've got some good practice time in already. Feel a little guilty otherwise.

I love smithy's porridege too Mike. That's one of his other songs I'm working on. Its in an odd tuning though - FA#DFCD#.

Annoying, but lovely song.

I bought his music, and he did not include that song. So I emailed him, and he had not penned it down in tab. So Simon actually went out of his way to write it out, emailed it to me, and then made it available on his site.

Very kind of him.

Stuart

Stuart wrote:

quote:

Yeh, sometimes I fool around in front of the tv, but only if I've got some good practice time in already. Feel a little guilty otherwise.

Stuart, I wasn't talking about "fooling around" - I mean really doing something really useful for your playing dexterity/technique, but that doesn't take attention. There are many, many examples of these exercises . . . I feel a little guilty when I neglect them.

Perhaps I have to focus too much on scales to consider it something that I mindlessly work on. I will consider what I can do without thinking and perhaps try that re in front of TV.

thanks,

Stuart

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Stuart,

FOr me, if I am not using the metronome, I am not praticing, I am playing.
First, this keeps me starting very slow, getting it correct and then moving forward.
Second, my meter is at best so-so and this is tremendous help to internalize each songs pace. Without the metronome, I drop beats as I make mistakes (usually in the same place each time I play the song) and I don't realize that I have done so.
Just my two cents.