My practice tips for music: the most recent tips are first:

Record Yourself and play it back. You can learn so much from doing this. You get to hear how you actually sound. What I noticed is that some bits sound way better than others when you listen back to the recording, where as at the time of recording most of what I played sounded of similar quality. See what YOU discover... :-)

When you are playing your songs, start thinking about the chords in term of their chord number, more than the name. We use roman numerals to describe them. Eg. If you are playing C then F chords, and the song is in C, think I and IV chords instead. This is good because you can change to any other key, and you don't need to change your thinking about how the song goes if you know your keys OK. In C Major your I, IV, V chords are C, F, and G. In D Major it's D, G, A.

As a start to getting good at this, learn the I, IV, V chords in all the keys.

I IV V C F G D G A E A B F Bb C G C D A D E B E F# Bb Eb F Eb Ab Bb Ab Db Eb Db Gb Ab Gb Cb Db

It would be good for you to find some other people who you can play with, and learn from. It's all about getting in with other people once you've got some basics.

Try and write songs, and make sure you record them. It doesn't matter what the quality is. You just get a snapshot of how you were feeling at the time and that's enough to capture it's essence. If you don't they are usually gone forever.

Keep your practice fun, but keep constantly pushing yourself in new directions. It's all about balance. You need to refresh the old songs you know, but also keep learning new songs. Even better, get into writing songs.

Get the best instrument you can afford. Some people may confuse a bad sound with with a lack of talent or potential. It may be a terrible quality instrument, so even Eric Clapton couldn't make that one sound good. With stringed instruments, there is the added variable of tuning the strings. With a normal guitar you have 6 strings. Thats a lot of possibility to be out of tune! The best way around this is to use an electric tuner BUT! - Don't become dependent on it to tune. Still tune by ear also. All skills are like muscles, and need to be exercised regularly.

If you play guitar, try some different tunings. The easiest one is to drop the low E string down to D. Then Play in D on the guitar, using the D as a bass or drone note.

Have a bit of fun with an instrument you like, but don't play often. Also, explore your mistakes. Maybe they weren't really mistakes in the first place, just a new direction? Mistakes have lead me into many new rhythm ideas on the drum kit, but other instruments are no different! :)

If you don't already know them, learn some blues scales. All modern music came from the blues, so it makes real sense to start there to get good at rock or pop. A chordal backing from a keyboard or recording is excellent for learning scales against. Just put it on repeat, and don't stop until you have made real progress!!

Get together a practice tape of 10 songs in a row. Learn to play all the songs without stopping. This is about how many songs you might need for a set. You might need 4 tapes worth for a gig.

Play with other musicians as much as you can. This is a major way to improve your knowledge and skills. It's good to play with musicians who are better than you, but investing in other, less advanced musicians is of great benefit as well. You solidify and increase your knowledge by explaining it to others.

Learn to play everything in both "swing" and "straight-8" feels.

Seek out new musicians to play with. People who are better than you. Another thing to try is practicing in different places. You might remember somewhere that had a big echo, for instance. Even better, a hall or outdoor theater. The key is to try things that are DIFFERENT. Enjoy.

If you have a keyboard that generates chordal backing, put that on, tune up to it and improvise against the chord progressions. I recommend that you start with the blues. It may be in swing feel, or in straight 8. After the blues, explore all the other styles. Most modern learning-type keyboards have at least 100 different styles, each with its own chordal backing!

Do some work with two people, only on percussion. It doesn't take much, just some stuff to hit, and get some different sounds. If you can't get a person to play with, work with your metronome. Focus on making whatever you do fun. Then you will get in some good practice, because you will play for a long time!

Try playing in some different time signatures, like 3/4, 5/4, 7/4. There are lots of other ones. Keep it interesting by not staying on the same one too long.

Don't sit here on the computer - go forth and play your instrument! Practice something you really feel is worth learning. ;-)

Learn some new scales or modes, and learn to compose using them. Record what you make, and listen back to pick out the best parts. I sometimes use a motif that I like from one composition as the start for another composition. This could lead to some really interesting progression over a series of compositions.

I often get asked by my guitar students how to get really good. The main answer is, as you might think, practice, practice practice. But that's not all; You have to have all the right things in place to create the motor skills involved, and that, to me, includes DIET.

I feel you have to eat the right things in order to create the connections in your brain to play well. Look at it this way perhaps: you can't make a chocolate cake unless you've got the right ingredients.

Start off and end your playing with something you find easy and enjoy. Perhaps a piece you know well. It's important to feel good about practicing.

Practice slowly at first. Don't repeat any mistakes over and over. Go even slower if you are making mistakes. Speed will come as a by-product of doing it right!

Practice as much as you can while still enjoying it.

It's better to do a little bit every day, or almost, than a lot the day before your lesson. Even 1 minutes practice is infinitely more than nothing!

Cover several skills in your practice routine. Choose a set of exercises that strengthen up your weakest skills on your instrument. Focus your time and energy where it will do the most good. You want to be a well rounded player.

Buy a metronome, and do all your practice to the metronome. At first playing to a metronome will feel more constrained, and less free, even less fun. But keep working with it every day and eventually you will learn to FIND FREEDOM WITHIN THOSE BOUNDS. You will know what this means when you hit it.

Learn things really slowly at first. As slowly as you need to do it correctly.(Yes thats repetition!)







© Copyright 2010 - All Rights Reserved By Michael Yewen.


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