The Score Magazine - Archive June 2015 issue! | Page 30

(continued from last issue)
THINGS TO ADD TO YOUR
GUITAR PRACTICE ROUTINE
Aditya Balani
Practicing is something every musician inevitably has to
tackle with, some hardly get to it and some spend
hours in the woodshed.
A lot of guitarists just noodle on the guitar
for hours and feel like they are not making
much progress. I personally feel that quality
of practice is far more valuable than quantity
in terms of hours. So don’t count the hours in your
work, count the work in your hours! A good way to ensure
productivity is to list out the things you’d like to work on
and allot a specific percentage of time to each item. I’d
like to share with you some important areas to focus on to
better your guitar playing skills.
Ear Training/Transcribing
A good ear is a valuable asset for any musician. There are simple
things that can go a long way in developing your ear.
Sing everything you play and play everything you sing. This will
help you connect more to what you’re hearing rather than the muscle
memory your fingers have developed. Also you will inevitably breathe
in between phrases and that will lend a more natural arc to your
phrasing and help your lines ‘breathe'. Leaving space between lines is
an essential part of good phrasing.
Transcribing is the most valuable learning tool in my opinion. Great
guitarists have mastered their art by listening to and copying the
players who have inspired them. You don’t need to notate it on paper.
Play along with your favourite recordings and focus on getting the
exact articulation, time feel, expression and phrasing.
play it through the cycle of keys 12 times, once on each key; G, D, A, E
so on and so forth. This applies to chords as well and will help you get
more familiar with the entire guitar neck.
Concept of Limitation
A great way to get of out of your comfort zone is to place limitations
while you practice. You can explore ideas like limiting the area of the
fretboard or position. Play all twelve keys in that area. Or play a solo
on just one or two strings. Play only specific rhythmic ideas or play
phrases of a specific length only. This will help you think out of the
box and you won’t end up playing the same licks and chord shapes you
always do.
Practice Improvisation
Learning Tunes/Songs This is quite enjoyable to most of us, but be careful of just running
scales up and down instead of creating musical phrases.
Sometimes you feel bored while practicing because you might be
playing the same tunes, songs or licks over and over. A great way to
find inspiration is learning a new song. Maybe pick something that is
technically more challenging to you, or perhaps a tune that has chords
which you aren’t very familiar with. Also try to expand your repertoire
stylistically. If you are strictly a blues guitarists, try learning some
funk, jazz and rock tunes and it will surely help your blues playing.
Working with different styles not only is a great learning tool it will
also help you get more gigs! During my initial years of learning the instrument I would make a
backing track for a key/scale I was unfamiliar with and then play that
on loop for about 40 minutes to an hour. First run the scale up and
down to get more familiar with the pattern and then improvise lines.
Soon enough your will run out of familiar l