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Post by Paul on May 10, 2007 17:59:34 GMT -5
I know there is already a practice thread routine, but mine is quite different and more set, just want some comments and advice to fine tune it. I'm a music major, so thats why some of these things are on here.
Non-guitar: Pitch matching/intervals/sight singing for voice Ear Training (mostly intervals and extended or inverted chords) Transcribing both rythms and melodies Notating (writing out music in standard notation porperly) Basic Piano skills
Guitar-related: Sight Reading Studies and Etudes for classical guitar by Mauro Guiliani (classical) World's Favorite Solos For Classical Guitar (solos by Sor, Carcassi, Mozart, etc.) Scales (goal around 110-115 bpm, unrealistic goal 120's which is considered professional level speed) Jazz Standards Jazz improvisation write one song a week in varied styles.
There is not much metal practice stuff on here because I am most comfortable with that and I am also in a metal band now, so I don't feel I need to practice many of those things for hours mostly because I will be learning and writing songs that will work those chops.
The most important things I feel I need to work on is the sight singing stuff for voice becuase that aspect of aural skills kicked my ass this year. Also the etudes and solos for classical guitar.
This is obviously quite a bit of stuff, but I will have somewhere between 3 and 5 or 6 hours a day to devote to it. So what do you guys thing would be a good amount of time spent on those things? I'm thinking half hour on the less important things, and an hourof sight singing and classical guitar a day.
Advice? Comments? Questions?
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Post by Stefvorcide on May 10, 2007 20:31:48 GMT -5
good stuff.. playin' both jazz and classical guitar is hard . good luck, i know i couldnt do everything in your practice..
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Post by Stefvorcide on May 10, 2007 20:40:14 GMT -5
i should practice more of the stuff you named, basicly i only practice my riffs/bands songs... not even alt pick nor sweeps
im such a lazy ass
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Post by jazziiiguy on May 11, 2007 1:23:06 GMT -5
The best/fastest way I've found for making improvement quickly is to focus on the areas in which you're weakest and least knowledgable. Just doing that will help you a lot.
Since you're a music major, you'll probably want to work most on the theory and ear training. For me, those two things have always gone hand in hand. By combining theory with ear training, instead of learning only scale, chord, and arpeggio formulas, you'll also be learning the melodies associated with different tones -- i.e., the interval sounds that make up the pitches in a given scale or chord. (Not perfect pitch -- relative pitch.) I don't know how fast people usually go through theory, but this bit of info took at least a few years off my personal learning curve.
I think the classical etudes and the jazz should be another large part of your practice. If you work hard on that stuff, it'll bring your chops up to a superhuman level! Not to mention the theoretical knowledge you'll gain if you really study the compositional, melodic, and harmonic structures.
The way I would organize this is pretty simple: split the most important material and the least important into a two to one ratio. That is, two hours on the most difficult/important material; one hour on the less difficult/important.
But I'm no guitar genius. That's just what I would do. Good luck!
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Post by entz on May 11, 2007 8:32:33 GMT -5
whilst its usefull to be able to have pitch perfect hearing, it wont help you much when it comes to technique and understanding of theory, which is where you want to focus the largest amount of your time, dude you are so dead wrong
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Post by entz on May 11, 2007 9:10:47 GMT -5
Let me speak as a musician not a guitarist.
I've played with some of the best musicians here, I've jammed with a lot of people, I've played almost every musical style there is, I've performed in front of 6000 people etc.
By far the most usefull thing is good hearing/pitch. Nothing has helped me more than my good ears.
With good pitch you can play along with any music without preparation and without knowing in wich key or mode the song is gonna be in.
Throw me the insanest jazz chord progressions, I can easily improvise over them, without thinking about scales, chords, modes etc. at all.
You know that music theory is just a bunch of terms... theory isn't music itself... it's a system wich helps to understand the musical structure.
Some of the greatest, most innovative and unique musicians (Hendrix, Nuno Bettencourt, all the greatest blues players etc.) didn't know anything about theory.... that means they didn't know what some scale or chord is called but that doesn't mean they didn't know how music works.... they knew damn well how progressions and harmonies work.... even better than the dudes in Juliard. They just knew that in their head because of their good pitch.
With good pitch it's unbeliveable how you can work out all the musical structures in your head, you know wich notes to play over specific chords without thinking about them. Everything works automatically.
Also good pitch helps you to improvise like god. It's like a hyper speed composing. You are creating good melodies in your head and applying them on your instrument.... and that happens in milliseconds.
It also helps you to play out of the box , while some theory book can say that you can't to this and that.... but your ear tells that you can play "wrong" notes there wich sound cool.
TRAINING YOUR EARS IS BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT THING BECAUSE MUSIC IS MADE FOR THE EARS (AND WELL MAYBE FOR PENIS) BUT NOT FOR EYES, HANDS OR ASS-HAIR.
Folks with good pitch can learn theory faster than the folks with shitty hearing because the folks with good ears allready understand how music works, they just need to remember the terms and shit.
Inner ear, pitch and vision are actually the only things you need to create music. You can live without the other stuff but nothing can replace these things
If you want to be a teacher, learn theory as much as possible so you can show off how well you know fanzy names and shit. If you want to be a kick ass musician, develop your ears all the time... in every possible way. Miles Davis was the greatest jazz musician because he had incredible pitch and vision, I don't recall him talking about m7-5 chords and showing off how fast he can shake his hands if fornt of 500 000 people at Isle Of Wight.
I don't really imagine how learning theory or practicing technique helps to improve your ears, I've never seen somone who has had luck this way. All are different things and must be practiced separately. For ears there's a lot of things you can do. First, destroying all the tabulatures and learning songs only by ear. Transcribing. Singing chords, melodies etc. Pitch and interval excercises so you would recognise them when you hear 'em. And the most important thing, focusing how each notes REALLY sounds, each note has a totally different character if you listen closely (I'm not talking about pitch... character is sharp, smooth, ringing, soft etc.). Remembering them and trying to recognize in different situations (music, bird singing, human talking, car horn etc.)
While only a few are born with perfect pitch and only a few can develop perfect pitch later... most folks can develop a really good relative pitch if they train their ears.
But there's 90% chance that people can't improve their pitch accuracy... wich is pretty obvious when it comes to experienced guitarists who has bad out of tune vibrato.... no matter how much they practice they still suck at it.
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schweinhund
IG Old Sk00l Badass
She's a maniac on the floor
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Post by schweinhund on May 11, 2007 17:31:16 GMT -5
i should practice more of the stuff you named, basicly i only practice my riffs/bands songs... not even alt pick nor sweeps im such a lazy ass Yeah you should you lazy drunk ;D
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schweinhund
IG Old Sk00l Badass
She's a maniac on the floor
Posts: 677
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Post by schweinhund on May 11, 2007 17:43:27 GMT -5
I'd concentrate BIG TIME on the non-guitar related stuff. It's really important stuff, excspecially ear training! Like my guitar teacher told me when I was beginning: "In time you'll learn to follow your ears." Notation will be a big part of your life if you're going pro. Sight reading will be VERY important on classical but rather a guideline in the jazz. But I'd (and will) spend alot of time on reading, writing and transcribing. Pick hard songs and you're scale technique will improve. Be vary of spending too much time on building up speed, it will come with time and for now it's more important to get down theory. Once you have that under you're belt you can make a living on guitar and spend all your time practising speed ;D And in my opinion I'd concentrate more on jazz than classical. My classical progression has suffered alot due to jazz improvisation, it's like an endless rabbit hole (and plus I don't like classical music as much altough it is also very complex). But of course if you're going for professional classical career than concentrate on classical. Metal-practising belongs in the 'freetime' area ;D
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Post by jazziiiguy on May 11, 2007 19:58:04 GMT -5
Let me speak as a musician not a guitarist. I've played with some of the best musicians here, I've jammed with a lot of people, I've played almost every musical style there is, I've performed in front of 6000 people etc. By far the most usefull thing is good hearing/pitch. Nothing has helped me more than my good ears. With good pitch you can play along with any music without preparation and without knowing in wich key or mode the song is gonna be in. Throw me the insanest jazz chord progressions, I can easily improvise over them, without thinking about scales, chords, modes etc. at all. You know that music theory is just a bunch of terms... theory isn't music itself... it's a system wich helps to understand the musical structure. Some of the greatest, most innovative and unique musicians (Hendrix, Nuno Bettencourt, all the greatest blues players etc.) didn't know anything about theory.... that means they didn't know what some scale or chord is called but that doesn't mean they didn't know how music works.... they knew damn well how progressions and harmonies work.... even better than the dudes in Juliard. They just knew that in their head because of their good pitch. With good pitch it's unbeliveable how you can work out all the musical structures in your head, you know wich notes to play over specific chords without thinking about them. Everything works automatically. Also good pitch helps you to improvise like god. It's like a hyper speed composing. You are creating good melodies in your head and applying them on your instrument.... and that happens in milliseconds. It also helps you to play out of the box , while some theory book can say that you can't to this and that.... but your ear tells that you can play "wrong" notes there wich sound cool. TRAINING YOUR EARS IS BY FAR THE MOST IMPORTANT THING BECAUSE MUSIC IS MADE FOR THE EARS (AND WELL MAYBE FOR PENIS) BUT NOT FOR EYES, HANDS OR ASS-HAIR. Folks with good pitch can learn theory faster than the folks with shitty hearing because the folks with good ears allready understand how music works, they just need to remember the terms and shit. Inner ear, pitch and vision are actually the only things you need to create music. You can live without the other stuff but nothing can replace these things If you want to be a teacher, learn theory as much as possible so you can show off how well you know fanzy names and shit. If you want to be a kick ass musician, develop your ears all the time... in every possible way. Miles Davis was the greatest jazz musician because he had incredible pitch and vision, I don't recall him talking about m7-5 chords and showing off how fast he can shake his hands if fornt of 500 000 people at Isle Of Wight. I don't really imagine how learning theory or practicing technique helps to improve your ears, I've never seen somone who has had luck this way. All are different things and must be practiced separately. For ears there's a lot of things you can do. First, destroying all the tabulatures and learning songs only by ear. Transcribing. Singing chords, melodies etc. Pitch and interval excercises so you would recognise them when you hear 'em. And the most important thing, focusing how each notes REALLY sounds, each note has a totally different character if you listen closely (I'm not talking about pitch... character is sharp, smooth, ringing, soft etc.). Remembering them and trying to recognize in different situations (music, bird singing, human talking, car horn etc.) While only a few are born with perfect pitch and only a few can develop perfect pitch later... most folks can develop a really good relative pitch if they train their ears. But there's 90% chance that people can't improve their pitch accuracy... wich is pretty obvious when it comes to experienced guitarists who has bad out of tune vibrato.... no matter how much they practice they still suck at it. Everything you said is true, but he's also going for a degree. He needs his theory.
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Post by mattjem7vwh on May 11, 2007 22:15:35 GMT -5
whilst its usefull to be able to have pitch perfect hearing, it wont help you much when it comes to technique and understanding of theory, which is where you want to focus the largest amount of your time, dude you are so dead wrong you've miss understood me endrik, i think i should have reworded that sentence but i was in a rush, i try not to ever give a one line answer. from a guitarists point of view, i can have perfect pitch... but if i never pick up a guitar and work on my technique, im not going to be a good guitarist. thats the point i was trying to make. im not saying pitch isnt important, because it is, i just believe that pitch will also come as a by-product of learning theory. I can pick any note on the guitar and sing it before i play it, because i have done the theory. I know where the notes fall on each string, because ive done the theory. you are correct also when you say that perfect pitch will make it easier to learn theory, but its not the whole picture... i just dont think paul wants to spend hours a day learning pitch when he could be working on his theory and chops.... sure spend some time learning pitch.... but it will come anyway with other practice. anyway.. my answer is guitar related, i dont think of myself as a musician, im a guitarist. so stop picking on me
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Post by entz on May 14, 2007 6:27:47 GMT -5
Everything you said is true, but he's also going for a degree. He needs his theory. I didn't say... don't learn theory... I said that developing a good pitch is more important. And if someone is studying jazz... well they give you so much theory to learn that you are going to puke ;D And with good pitch you can create music faster than ever before. I can come up with complex vocal harmonies instantly... wheter it's like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Queen, King's X or Def Leppard or I can arrange difficult jazz horns lines.
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Post by entz on May 14, 2007 6:39:41 GMT -5
dude you are so dead wrong you've miss understood me endrik, i think i should have reworded that sentence but i was in a rush, i try not to ever give a one line answer. from a guitarists point of view, i can have perfect pitch... but if i never pick up a guitar and work on my technique, im not going to be a good guitarist. thats the point i was trying to make. im not saying pitch isnt important, because it is, i just believe that pitch will also come as a by-product of learning theory. I can pick any note on the guitar and sing it before i play it, because i have done the theory. I know where the notes fall on each string, because ive done the theory. you are correct also when you say that perfect pitch will make it easier to learn theory, but its not the whole picture... i just dont think paul wants to spend hours a day learning pitch when he could be working on his theory and chops.... sure spend some time learning pitch.... but it will come anyway with other practice. anyway.. my answer is guitar related, i dont think of myself as a musician, im a guitarist. so stop picking on me well, he said he is a music major... they usually teach people to be great musicians overall not just advanced instrumentalist. It depends of the person, I find training ear more interesting while learning theory is the most booring thing ever... it's like being in a math class again. ;D they will teach shit loads theory anyway, but all the great musicians I've met who have studied in music schools... they all said that the most important thing they got from the school was good pitch and good timing(rhtyhmic skills). And he is studying jazz and classical music... it's so important having a good ear when it comes to jazz improvisation and classical composition. Also Paul said that he needs to work on his aural skills. Theory doesn't help much to solve that problem. Good ear training is a must. I trained myself almost everyday. Now I don't have to touch an instrument or hear any music at all... I can sing C anytime, anywhere, any place and compose without having an instrument. Another good thing is sight reading..... but I suck at it so... fuggit ;D
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Post by jazziiiguy on May 14, 2007 21:16:34 GMT -5
Everything you said is true, but he's also going for a degree. He needs his theory. I didn't say... don't learn theory... I said that developing a good pitch is more important. And if someone is studying jazz... well they give you so much theory to learn that you are going to puke ;D And with good pitch you can create music faster than ever before. I can come up with complex vocal harmonies instantly... wheter it's like the Beatles, Beach Boys, Queen, King's X or Def Leppard or I can arrange difficult jazz horns lines. I agree, ear training is probably the most valuable tool for making great music. The theory I've learned has helped a tremendous amount, but learning to replicate on guitar the pitches I hear in my head is far more fulfilling. Now I can play things straight from my musical imagination without wondering "How does this apply theoretically?" I can just play it, and if it sounds good, that's that.
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