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Don P
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practice technique or songs

I'm at a crossroads here and just need a few opinions.

Now that I teach I actually have limited time that I'm able to practice so I need to be carful with my time. For the longest time I've concentrated on working on my technique and different things I need to work on. I actually started an online guitar course that really emphasises working on your technique.

This is all great but the problem here is I havn't been really working lately on any songs. Either original or cover material besides a few songs that I figure out for my students which are usually pretty easy songs.

If I had the time I would work on both but I'm lucky to be able to get in an hour to 2 hours a day.

Now what I've been thinking about is taking one of my most pressing technique issues and working on that along with improv,original song and cover song.
I'm thinking that I'll be actually working on different technique problems as I come across difficult parts in songs or I challenge myself with my own material.

I get pretty caught up in all the different area's I need to work on and I never get around to working on actual music. I'm going to post the same issue in this other forum but I know they will tell me to make sure I work on my technique along with also working on songs.

Again, this sounds great but I don't have time to invest in both. If I'm working on a original song I don't want to have just a small section of time to work on it.

Does my plan of working on one main technique problem and really consentrating on creating music make sense? Any suggestions?

4/6/2009, 2:56 pm

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jlg1
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Re: practice technique or songs

Ok Don,

I don't have any real suggestions for you but can empathise with you - I am lucky to get even 2 hours practice a week at the minute because of teaching and its really getting me down. I'm even thinking of pulling a night because I am so fed up with looking at people and not having time for other things.

When i do play I don't even know where to start and what to be playing I want to get away from anything "work" related which for me at the minute has been jazz as no-one is doing anything jazz related in lessons.

I'd be interested to hear what others think too about this as your dilemma is something I feel at the minute too and am trying to sort out.

James

4/6/2009, 5:51 pm

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jlg1
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Re: practice technique or songs

4/6/2009, 8:27 pm

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J72
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Re: practice technique or songs

Wow, I totally hear you guys on this.
I teach 5 days a week in schools (full time) and 5 days a week at home in the evenings. I get totally bummed out with electric guitar, I'm totally bored of it! So about 5 years ago I decided to do nothing but classical guitar in my own practice time. It's great because, since I don't play in a band anymore, there are all these great pieces that don't need accompaniment and it's a whole different ball game to what I have to talk about all day.
I'm trying to do my grade 8 now and am just managing to get in around an hour a day, although sometimes I have a month or so where it gets really ropey trying to even get that much (Family commitments on top of work etc, you know the score). I hear you on feeling jealous of the kids, they've got HOURS to do nothing all day and they don't practice while I'd kill for that time.
I think as an electric player when you're not in a band, I found that it is REALLY hard to direct your practice. I think it was Steve Morse who said that your gigs determine your practice schedule. No gigs? Then work on something to play on your own, that's what I thought!
If you're not into classical, maybe check out some steel string alternate tuning stuff. It's great to keep the guitar fresh for yourself, and have something that is different from what you have to talk about all day.
Further to that, it doesn't mean you have to abandon your electric playing, use your lessons to play as much as possible, get the kids to the point (and oh man, is that hard) where they can actually play rhythm for you, then you can trade solos etc. The lessons become your electric practice time (you playing inspires the kids and gets them used to concentrating and playing well enough to play with another person) and your own time can be to develop something totally separate!

Great thread!

4/14/2009, 12:27 pm

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NickMinnion
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Re: practice technique or songs

I think you've hit on a problem commonly experienced by most guitar teachers.

Personally I try to integrate the practice I do to develop my own playing with preparing ideas for teaching more advanced students.

Like James, I am mostly working at pushing back the boundaries in the realms of Jazz guitar for myself, but I am lucky enough to have quite a few Jazz guitar students (some who learnt blues and rock styles with me first and have agreed to push on into Jazz guitar). So I work by myself, in a fairly exploratory way and then, once I feel I have consolidated my understanding and ability in a certain area, I develop ways of teaching those ideas. That way, I constantly manage to practice new Jazz ideas in lessons emoticon

But to address the original post on this thread: I think the problem lies in the fact that there are never enough hours in the day to practice enough technique or to learn enough new songs. As far as I am concerned, these are both never-ending tasks!

I would warn against an imbalance of teaching too much technique or indeed, too little. I think it is important to assess with each individual student, how much of each is needed.

If a student is basically capable of learning songs by themselves, then I make an agreement with them that we'll do nothing but technique and theory in lessons, but if they're ever stuck trying to learn a specific song then they can always bring it into the lesson.

But with beginners, I almost always concentrate on builing a repertoire of songs first, as then they have something to apply technique and theory to.

Cheers,

Nick emoticon

4/14/2009, 6:03 pm

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Swing feel
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Re: practice technique or songs

quote:
Don P wrote:

I'm at a crossroads here and just need a few opinions.

Now that I teach I actually have limited time that I'm able to practice so I need to be carful with my time. For the longest time I've concentrated on working on my technique and different things I need to work on. I actually started an online guitar course that really emphasises working on your technique.

This is all great but the problem here is I havn't been really working lately on any songs. Either original or cover material besides a few songs that I figure out for my students which are usually pretty easy songs.

If I had the time I would work on both but I'm lucky to be able to get in an hour to 2 hours a day.

Now what I've been thinking about is taking one of my most pressing technique issues and working on that along with improv,original song and cover song.
I'm thinking that I'll be actually working on different technique problems as I come across difficult parts in songs or I challenge myself with my own material.

I get pretty caught up in all the different area's I need to work on and I never get around to working on actual music. I'm going to post the same issue in this other forum but I know they will tell me to make sure I work on my technique along with also working on songs.

Again, this sounds great but I don't have time to invest in both. If I'm working on a original song I don't want to have just a small section of time to work on it.

Does my plan of working on one main technique problem and really consentrating on creating music make sense? Any suggestions?

I think what I would do is alternate my practice schedule every-other day, so that one day you practice technique, the next day you practice and/or write songs. Base your selection of technical exercises on trouble spots you are encountering in the songs you are doing. A balance between practicing technique and practicing real music is pretty important, and leaving out one of the two would probably cause your playing to suffer in some way.

4/15/2009, 8:34 pm

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Don P
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Re: practice technique or songs

What I have ended up doing is taking a couple of my most needed technique problems and working on them daily along with some improv and working on my own material. One day is totally on lead parts to my songs and the other is composing songs.

I also have, as suggested, used my improv practice to work on both stuff for myself and also creating things that my more advanced students can also work on. Great idea! Thanks!

I definatly don't want to sacrifice one or the other so yes I agree I need to do a little of both. Thanks!

4/16/2009, 1:48 am

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jlg1
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Re: practice technique or songs

Ok Don,

Since I last posted on this I have been actually getting a bit of time in to practice myself mostly on jazz stuff (again) but also doing a bit of reading up on tensions etc.. and experimenting with various sounds I too have been working on my weaker points namely a bit of ear training to "hear" the altered tones i.e, when using an Ab maj scale with G7 for example I was thinking this will increase my knowledge of jazz in general which in turn will help with future lessons (though I don't get too many into jazz - well not so far).

I was thinking of doing the grade 8 acoustic exam too in June and have put that off til the winter to focus on my own skills and more advanced stuff, as I'd mentioned in other posts tapping, sweeping etc.. as it will be coming up (and is) in lessons at the minute. I too was writing stuff but its been a while now - might try and get back into it too - the replies here have given me good ideas to

My lead too needs a bit of work as even now I am still finding the "pentatonic rut" hard to get out of and am trying everything to make some changes to the "same old riffs".

James

Last edited by jlg1, 4/16/2009, 11:01 am

4/16/2009, 10:53 am

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Don P
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Re: practice technique or songs

I'm on vacation this week but I havn't really played much. I have a bunch of non music related projects I've been messing with. It's good to take a break every now and then though. I'm ready to get back to it though.

4/18/2009, 1:43 am

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Willybomb
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Re: practice technique or songs

I'm currently spending my lunchbreak with a vox amp-plug, headphones, mp3 player and a couple of tabs (satriani, ACDC).

---
Originals = http://lazygenetheory.com
Covers = http://halfcutlive.com
Song Charts = http://users.ncable.net.au/~bakka/songs/
Student Videos = http://www.viddyou.com/rockstarguita

4/22/2009, 1:34 pm

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