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Dirty-South Blues Harp forum: wail on! >
Please tell me about your best practice sessions..
Please tell me about your best practice sessions..
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Arcadiandj
4 posts
Dec 15, 2011
6:36 PM
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I guess my broader question is what makes the best kind of practice session for you? Do you have a formula, or did your session happen accidentally? If you were mentoring a newbie, based on your best session, how would you encourage them to practice? Thank you in advance:)
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FMWoodeye
129 posts
Dec 15, 2011
8:00 PM
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Frequency of practice sessions is more important than the length of the sessions. You will accomplish more in daily albeit shorter sessions than you will in marathon sessions once or twice a week. It's important to have goals. The goals will be dependent upon your level of expertise. That's all I've got to say about that.
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JInx
148 posts
Dec 15, 2011
10:52 PM
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play along with the radio is the best way to practicing
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Tommy the Hat
504 posts
Dec 16, 2011
4:29 AM
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For me, practice just happens, much like work. I never set out to do exactly what I end up doing.
Once I was building a deck/porch on my house and it was half done. I wasn't planning on working on it one particular day but decided I wanted to measure something. I went out with the tape measure and next thing I knew hours had passed and I had almost the whole deck finished.
My harp practice pretty much goes the same way.
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Tommy
My Videos
Last Edited by on Dec 16, 2011 4:29 AM
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Littoral
451 posts
Dec 16, 2011
6:15 AM
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Ah, how can I say this, for tone, meaning serious emotional expression with pure voicing, the kind that really communicates, I practiced the same song over and over and over and over.
I focused on 4-5 note phrases repeatedly.
I had to get pissed off at myself when I knew it wasn't enough. This is different than the muscle memory of learning scales etc. That requires repetition but also space between effort(s).
I found tone to be different.
The tune was Amazing Grace. Try to give that one justice.
Still trying...
Last Edited by on Dec 16, 2011 6:15 AM
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kudzurunner
2887 posts
Dec 16, 2011
7:36 AM
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I've found it extremely helpful to get a kitchen timer or Casio watch and set it, at the beginning of your practice session, to go off after a specfic period of time--15 minutes or half an hour, generally. Even 15 minutes a day of working out on scales, keeping the beat and bringing all your reflexes up to snuff, pays off dividends for me.
When I was getting ready to record KICK AND STOMP, I headed up to the intramural practice fields at Ole Miss. There are a few picnic tables under an open pavilion there. I'd bring my watch, a metronome, and my case of harps. I'd spend a solid half hour working through patterns and songs, and I worked particularly hard on fast 16th note patterns, because I was trying to build speed and expand my stylistic range. The sort of stuff that resulted--which is all over "Crossroads Blues"--is a style that I simply wasn't playing four and a half years ago when I started on my YouTube jag. I couldn't do that stuff. So regular practice sessions helped me move forward--even after 30 years of playing.
I'd start with the metronome at 112 or so, and then push up to 116 and then 120. 120 felt pretty fast, and if I haven't been practicing, it still feels fast! But at a certain point I could comfortably nail a number of patterns at that speed, and my chops got strong enough to sustain solos at that tempo. When you back it down to 116 and 112, I found, I was able not just to execute patterns, but to think music [sic], think of new things, and execute them.
Some times I'd push the tempo up above 120. I remember that Jason's blistering solo on "Mellow Down Easy" was done at a tempo in the mid-130s, so I'd try that.
I realize that the metronome thing seems pretty mechanical, but the truth is, you're building your reflexes, building your technique, solidifying everything. As long as you vary tempos and become conscious of the way in which slower tempos AFTER faster tempos allow you to "breathe," musically, you'll do OK.
Then when you're actually at the gig or in the studio, playing hard in the moment, you suddenly throw down stuff that you never, ever did in practice. That's how this works. You place yourself in a position, essentially, to be ABLE to play something fast and original.
There are many kinds of practicing, for many different purposes. This particular form of practice enabled me to improve technically AND to grow musically.
Last Edited by on Dec 16, 2011 7:37 AM
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K_Hungus
40 posts
Dec 16, 2011
6:54 PM
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I’m quite a lousy one when it comes to routines. But I do have one thing I regularly practice, and is even fun too. Maybe Gussow mentioned it in it’s lessons, or I heard it somewhere else. I can’t remember.
Play with a beat first of all, metronome foot whatever. Now play every combination with just the 2 draw and the blue third, when you played every combo you can imagine add another one in, etc. The more you practice the longer you can go on improvising this way.
This is good for several reasons. For me, it really helps as a basis of stringing all licks I know together without being repetitive. That’s a problem I had for a long time.
The combinations/variations phrases whatever you call them, you do with just 2 draw and the third can off course be done with every 2 notes. But it’s something (how obvious it maybe) I kinda overlooked. Especially on the 4 and 5 draw, and in third position. The possibilities are endless, see how long you can play just two notes without repeating yourself.
I think it’s good to have it as a sort of fundament you can always fall back on, and you’ll discover a lot!
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Pistolcat
69 posts
Dec 17, 2011
2:54 PM
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Well, I, for one, need something to focus on. I have started posting youtube videos. Some embedded here for feedback. This not only make me really want to nail stuff, it also give me ideas for what to work on next. I realise that I need to work on everything but that's hardly possible, so I whittle away small chips at a time in my wood-shed depending on comments from folks here.
Next video I try to do better at those points.
You needn't post on youtube either, you can just record yourself, for yourself. Or get a friend to practise the same stuff as you, then comparing with (healthy) competition. Or just play to folks on the street or gigs or whatever level your at.
Try some of Gussow's lessons. Get a friend (or five) to do same. Compare soundfiles or videos or whatever. Discuss. Explore. You know: a study-circle.
Oh, and have fun :)
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Pistolkatt - Pistolkatts youtube
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garry
158 posts
Dec 17, 2011
7:01 PM
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one thing that works for me is to pick a few songs i want to work on, ones that exercise (and challenge) specific aspects of my playing. currently, that includes the Grateful Dead's "Slipknot", which taxes my dexterity, Hot Tuna's "I Wish You Would", for its heavy rhythmic sound, etc. then work on them until i can nail them. play the guitar parts, play the keyboard parts, play the bass lines, whatever. it's very helpful to slow things down at first. i use audacity to slow them down to 75% speed.
note that i'm not talking about just jamming along, playing whatever suits me. i'm working specifically on playing exactly what i hear. it's the discipline of making myself work on each part until i can do it justice that matters. when just jamming, it's too easy to simplify or avoid the hard parts.
i'm also working on the Allmans' "In Memory Of Elizabeth Reed". i'll listen a bit, hear a lick i like, then work on just that, repeatedly, until i have it down. find another, repeat. there's a gold mine of amazing ideas in that song (i'm using the classic Fillmore East version). find a song with lots of jamming that moves you the same way, and work on that.
a band i've been sitting in with does this song. i figure it'll be months of work before i'll be able to play it with them.
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