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Topic: Logging In On Practice Sessions |
Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 4:05 am |
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| Should the emphasis be placed on qualitative issues during practice sessions? Learning to recognize small pockets of time wasted, while attempting to chase down a difficult series of "hot licks", from "recordings", would be helpful. Everything in life can be improved upon. At least I'm set in believing, that this much is true. |
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John Roche
From:
England
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 4:40 am
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| Just learn to take a break ,, |
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Dick Sexton
From:
Greenville, Ohio
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 4:53 am Um...
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| Yes. True. Maybe. I too, lean in that direction. |
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Andy Sandoval
From:
Bakersfield, California, USA
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 9:54 am
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| I've got a bad habit of movin on too quickly when tryin to learn new songs. I'll get to the point of learnin all the parts but not spend the extra time to really polish it up. Is this wastin time? Sometimes I believe it it. |
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Edward Meisse
From:
Santa Rosa, California, USA
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 9:55 am
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Well, I have a day job. And I'm about 3 years back into the steel after about a 10 year layoff after being kind of a casual player in the first place. I think I'm probably like most people on the forum when I say that I have so many things to work on that it doesn't much matter what I decide to work on in a particular practice session. I'm going to improve one way or another.
_________________
Amor vincit omnia |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 11:43 am
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Andy,
Practicing always includes polishing learned material at every opportunity. The part that always makes me aware of the benefits, is when I find melody lines that are new to my style of playing; after years of practice. It is then and there that the rewards of practice make it all worthwhile. |
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Bent Romnes
From:
London,Ontario, Canada
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 12:40 pm
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I will go with Edward Meisse on this one.
After a 20 year hiatus, I have more than I can handle just to re-learn stuff. Instead of learning scales and chord progressions, I rely on what little I retained, and just focus on learning stuff that is new to me: New songs, back-up runs, intros etc. Probably a bad way to practice but I am not doing it for the money...just for my own enjoyment. |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 1:12 pm
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I'm convinced that a person never knows how their mind works.
I've been learning at an amazing rate due to the change of instrument, and it's true that the brain is like muscle.
It takes probably ten minutes to get 'into' learning a new phrase, say on Nashville Skyline Rag. Until then it's just an unintelligible run. THEN it becomes a note for note OBSESSION.
How Long?
Well Nashville Skyline Rag, as played by Duke Levine, has taken about 6 months, and if you've ever listened to it, that's about the right time for most of us. Probably a half hour of my daily tele studies dedicated to it.
There are about a half dozen others that I am chipping away at, including a few heretofore "too hard" ones.
Now that I am in a regular program of hearing a lick, and then playing it note for note, and THEN going over it until it is second nature, I find that indeed my learning capacity is Increasing. Not at an alarming rate, but enough that it's satisfying.
On PSG, I often come up to roadblocks that have to do with past experiences of having a "band" "catchup" and I know that is a pitfall for me.
I do find that my learning and improvement DOES translate to PSG during the course of a week on ONLY Tele.
It seems the "learning channel" has less static in it.
It's kind of a catch 22 of FORCING yourself AT FIRST to do something that you almost automatically turn into a pleasurable obsessive pursuit.
Making it easier, like having a comfortable room, nice amp, ample reverb or compression if you like it DOES help.
BIAB has been GREAT, and I make sure the song has 5-10 repeats so it's easier to do it all over again.
SPeed building at the LOWEST level, and then Increasing it and then back again, noting where your "can't play" level is, is really fun too.
Coffee, a beer, maybe twist one up.. I dunno. WHatever makes you "feel more like playing". With me, no booze or drugs for so many years, I don't remember what they were like. I'm "using" Green Tea lately.
Just like Oprah says in her 10 times daily Emails..
Oh and having a path to the biffy is a good idea..
EJL |
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Larry Robbins
From:
Fort Edward, New York
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 1:26 pm
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I believe its all "Time Well Wasted"!! 
_________________
Twang to the bone! |
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Dale Hansen
From:
Hendersonville,Tennessee, (USA)
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Posted 16 Mar 2008 2:54 pm Re: Logging In On Practice Sessions
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| Bill Hankey wrote: |
| Should the emphasis be placed on qualitative issues during practice sessions? Learning to recognize small pockets of time wasted, while attempting to chase down a difficult series of "hot licks", from "recordings", would be helpful. Everything in life can be improved upon. At least I'm set in believing, that this much is true. |
Absolutely.
Bill, these days, I view it more like programming data into a computer. I don't even like the word "practice" anymore.
For years, throughout my pro playing career in fact, I had been practicing all wrong. Practicing, usually just reaffirmed that present level at best, and at times even degraded it, especially if I was in a bad frame of mind at the time.
It's always been very difficult for me to not be overly competetive with myself; constantly pushing myself, and getting fatigued from my own unrealistic demands.
After a 6 year sabbatical from playing steel, I redefined my goals, and approach in a few crucial areas.
About two years after getting off the road, and quitting steel entirely, I bought myself a nice keyboard. I had no pressures, or expectations associated with it. I just wanted to play for my own selfish amusement.
That piano taught me how to just enjoy something, like a little kid would, without any harsh self-judgements.
After a few of years of that, I transposed that attitude back to the steel. Last spring, I began applying some solid principles common in sports psychology. I began by taking things I knew from rodeo arena, like bullfighting, and riding bareback horses, bringing them over to playing music. (It's really not that big of a stretch)
The dividends have been tremendous.
Now, if I'm sitting at the guitar, I have two basic modes. A), Programming, which is usually geared towards a specific task, or goal, and it's like "downloading" an unfamiliar fingering pattern, or knee, pedal combo. This process always starts as slow as needs to be, and continues until I can perform the action with no concious thought. That's the programming process, in a nutshell, that actually wires the brain up to the fingers, feet, etc.
B) Just playing. A lot of learning, and fresh ideas come while just playing.
It creates its own endless cycle.
To explain just a couple of important mental elements of this approach, #1) I don't bend to my own will, whenever I start getting a case of the "hafta's". I truly believe that a better quality of learning environment is created when I eliminate any pressures, or time restraints.
#2) When I decide to sit and play, thats all I do. In other words, I've had to learn to cultivate, and maintain the habit of being mentally present, while playing, and not thinking about something else I could be doing, or even taking mental journeys into the past, or future.
If I am not succesful at reaching goal #1 on a particular day, goal #2 is going to be out of the question, so I'll just go fishing instead.
I've kinda run on here a bit, overextending my welcome, but I'm always willing to share more of my own mental processes, and experiences later.
(with whoever gives a crap.)
(sidebar)
Bill,
It's nice to see you back again.
I've been having some weird recurring visions about you lately. (always foggy, and in a sepia tone) In them, you're being chased by an angry mob down a long poorly lit corridor, like the Elephant man.
Over the past few months, I have acquired a good deal of respect for you Bill.
Every day, it seems that you tear out the page of the previous day, burn it, and begin anew.
You are a better man than me, about burying the hatchet, and not leaving the handle sticking up out of the ground. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 17 Mar 2008 3:40 am
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Dale,
Thanks for the great effort to inform. I had puposely opened this thread to emphasize the carefree manner so commonly associated with routine practice sessions. Thousands of thinking processes materialize through different situations, depending solely on various lifestyles. It's the orderly routine of the scoring and disciplined steel guitarist who wisely pushes aside anything that comes between designated musical goals. A determination to set one's sights above tradiional motivations to practice, could result in favorable rewards. The need to exert whatever means necessary, to exclude any sidetracking elements, that have become more commonplace in recent times, is essential as a product of trial and error. Taking out the trash, is always the first line of business, in paving the way to systematic disciplined practice sessions, that allows for steady gains in understanding the complexities of the steel guitar. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 17 Mar 2008 5:51 am
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Eric,
Thanks for the input... past and present. There seems to be an estrangement concerning applied interest and motivation to pursue the steel guitar. I hope to hear that every difficult objective that you've achieved, will always be in easy reach of your talented hands. |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 17 Mar 2008 6:11 am
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repetition.
Playing the same thing over and over again until it is conquered is what WE should be doing I believe.
If you take a small phrase or physical movement and practice it every day for 5 min/day over 30 days, odds are you will be GREAT at that phrase at the end of the 30 days.
Now, does this mean we should not have some fun while murdering ourselves with repetition ? No Of course not.
I think the biggest problem we all have, or many of us anyway, is that we wander in our thought process regardless of where we are or what we are doing. We start something with great intentions but 5 min into it we are off on some Beach somewhere or just plain playing another song or lick we are trying to learn.
So many licks, so little time 
This morning I sat down to play over a new project I am kinda working on, I turned on the 16 tracker , saw another project I worked on a few months ago , loaded that one and played that instead ! Then got bored with it all and shut it all down without even getting to the project I planned on working on .
I think I'm normal  |
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Scott Hiestand
From:
MA, U.S.A
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Posted 17 Mar 2008 6:57 am
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| Tony Prior wrote: |
So many licks, so little time
This morning I sat down to play over a new project I am kinda working on, I turned on the 16 tracker , saw another project I worked on a few months ago , loaded that one and played that instead ! Then got bored with it all and shut it all down without even getting to the project I planned on working on .
I think I'm normal |
Tony you are so right. If I learn a lick, once I've basically "gotten it down", I'll move on to the next one. It's my nature to be restless and impatient (a BAD trait for concentrated practice) and that only adds fuel to the fire. Sometimes I think "My God, I could be dead in 5 year so I better get these licks down now"!
And then there is recording. When I switch gears to one of my projects, I get a case of the "guilts" for actually picking up and playing an instrument other than steel....or recording something "easy" when I "should" be practicing. It's all so ridiculous - I don't get paid for this!!!! But I think it's the nature of the instrument. No, on second thought, all instruments can take a lifetime to master. It is our intense love for the steel that makes us want to master it so badly, I think. |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2008 2:36 am
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Tony Prior,
Just when you think that everything musically is falling into place, you discover there is much more ground to cover by the nature of advancements made by others. New "stuff" and some "old" material, programmed instrumentally, will assail the patience of the most ardent searchers. Perhaps the enigma can be better addressed, if at first one realizes how profound the constituencies have become in separate categories of musical interpretations. If this should be a case of attempting to experiment with any rendition, by various steel guitarists, it is literally impossible to cover that many bases. Furthermore, if the searches for a better way to play, entails the process of emulating others, originality will gradually become a thing of the past. Many hours have been spent by individuals tracking note for note, arrangements, that have become prerequisites to actually getting hired in a country band. Notably, this puffy sophistication has affected the latest recorded country music material. Compare recordings of the past, with those produced today. Zeroing in on specific goals will help to restore the great sounds once heard, through artistic presentations. Artists such as EMMONS, MOONEY, and MYRICK, for example have opened the gates to the upper limits of entertainment. |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 18 Mar 2008 3:59 am
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I am currently on my "GOING IN REVERSE TOUR"
Which isn't actually a world tour with a Bus and a Band but rather it is going backwards and revisiting "stuff" from years back and re-addressing it with NEW stuff, if that makes any sense.
You wanna find out if you are improving or playing differently ? easy...
Take a track you recorded a year back or perhaps a few years back, don't listen to what you played back then, RE do the Steel track today...one take...
now listen to both
here's my take, if you are playing totally different phrases , stumbling and hitting bad notes..
you are improving !
good topic Bill...but I would just add that those artists mentioned (plus Loyd) opened the FLOOD GATES, if we go back and actually pay attention (listen) to what they were playing we will learn in a NY minute that they have influenced the World and for the most part we still haven't caught up to them, even 4 decades later!
but we can still practice and have fun...which is the point of it all I think... |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2008 5:28 am
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Tony,
Premises that do not allow for emergences of proficiencies that are thus far uncharted, are the first of steps taken to hinder the growth of originality. Full or semitones of diatonic or chromatic scales, provide the workplace for creative melodic arrangements. I feel a need for new explorations through routine practice sessions. There is a beckoning to meet the challenges of blockbuster concerts that phase out the steel guitar, in favor of images that project singer/guitar performances. Competing with the incredible fascination of current stage settings, would be possible should an added attraction be included in promotions of the steel guitar. Do expectations go beyond reach? If finding this out requires further inquiries, I'm all for it.
Last edited by Bill Hankey on 18 Mar 2008 6:11 pm; edited 1 time in total |
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Tony Prior
From:
Charlotte NC
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Posted 18 Mar 2008 6:03 am
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| yes, get a FUZZ TONE ! |
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Bill Hankey
From:
Pittsfield, MA, USA
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Posted 18 Mar 2008 7:08 am
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Tony,
In deference to LLOYD GREEN, he is the HARRY HOUDINI of steel guitar expertise. I haven't heard his equal in tonality and creative musical arrangements. |
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