Guitar Lessons in Bed Stuy Brooklyn

Tag: Tone

Guitarists, Rather Than Going for What’s ‘Right’…

Music is so much more fluid than we often treat it. When we get caught up in whether we are playing it “right”, we run the risk of not hearing what we are doing well. If you’re caught in the trap of “WRONGNESS” try this:

For now, rather than going for what’s ‘right’, go for what you think sounds good. Learning music is a process and you are somewhere in the middle of it so, for now, go for your good tempo, your best rhythm, your best note choices.

Listen for what you are playing that is good and build from there. Perfection is the result, not the method.

September 11, 2014
Guitar Pull-offs Were Named Wrong

They should have been called “pop-offs”.

I don’t mean any disrespect to the great Pete Seeger who brought us modern tablature and named the pull-off, it’s just that if you only pull your finger off of the string, it may not ring. If you pop the string with the edge of your fingertip, you’ll hear it ring out.

Try it.

Play a note on the first string (bottom) and instead of lifting your finger up and away from the string, pop the string by pulling down and away, sort of plucking it with your fingertip.

July 23, 2014
We Don’t Really Play Guitar With Our Fingers

We play with our finger TIPS.
I know that seems obvious, but we often don’t do it. If we spend some time getting used to this weird use of our hand, playing guitar becomes easier. The reason is this:

The bone does 70% of the work.

When the finger gradually curves to come straight down onto the string, much less energy is needed. The bones of your finger form an arch, which taps down onto the string like a C-clamp with half the effort than if we use the padded bottom of our finger.

July 17, 2014
Why Practice Guitar Slow?

Well, you may have heard several reasons, but this is my favorite:

To witness what you actually do instead of what you think you should be doing.

We are usually so caught up in trying to match some ideal in our head that we can’t hear what we actually sound like.
Play slowly so you can notice what you notice. Then you can fix things.

June 17, 2014
Mistakes in Guitar Practice Are Good News

They show you where you can improve. If you try to avoid them you won’t know where where to focus your practice. The trick is to be open to mistakes.

If you’re open, you’ll find your trouble spots while you’re in the practice room. But if you try to avoid mistakes, you’ll find those blind spots on stage. Not cool.

If you listen to a mistake without judgement you may find a solution to a problem, a development of your melody, or a whole new style. Be like Hendrix & others who really listened, leading them to deliberately crank their amps to get that “bad” distorted sound.

May 20, 2014
Interview on Talk Music Talk

A few weeks ago I sat down with boice from the weekly podcast Talk Music Talk and chatted about how receptive listening can benefit musicians facing difficulties onstage or in practice. Sitting down with musicians, music journalists, artists, music industry folks and more, boice discusses what they love about the world of music and how they got into it. We had a great time and you can listen in.

Follow this link to listen and download podcast interview TMT 043. And, yes, it’s free!

Bryan Wade from The Connected Musician on TALK MUSIC TALK

At the top of TALK MUSIC TALK are links to subscribe to iTunes, Stitcher Radio and TuneIn Radio.
There is a lot of emerging artists and seasoned pros over there so check it out.

Much More on this topic on my new site theconnectedmusician.com

January 10, 2014