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Thanks to everyone that came out last Saturday for our workshop. It was a light turnout, thanks to the HAWGS beating the DOGS down in Georgia!!! WOO PIG!

If you didn't come out, I have one word for you ... Priorities ... You should have DVR'd the game, hit the workshop and then watched the HAWGS win it at the last second from the DOGS!!!! WOO PIG! Beat Alabama next week!

But I digress...

Here are the main points from Saturday.

Consistency

To continuously improve, or as I mentioned Saturday, to "suck less" after every practice, you must be consistent with your practice. This means practicing nearly every day of the week and having a set routine of when, where and what you practice.

First, you need to be totaly honest with yourself as to how much time you can practice every day. What I mean by this is don't say, "I'm going to practice every waking minute" or "I am going to get 5 hours in today" if you know that in reality you will not. The main reason is that you are setting yourself up for failure by setting unreasonable practice times. Not only that, but when you don't practice every waking minute or let's say only practice 2 hours instead of 5, you also will beat yourself up for not doing what you said you would do.

Now, let's say that in reality, you can practice for 30 minutes every single day. This means that even on the days you would rather shoot your toe off than practice, you can still force your self to practice and get it done. By setting this time correctly, you are less likely to talk yourself out of practicing and most likely, will put in more time than you set. Think of it as a little gravy for your potatoes.

Focus

Build your practice session around your attention span.  

My attention span is about 20-25 minutes. If I'm practicing for an hour, i will hit something for 20 minutes and then stand up, get something to drink, talk to the family, hit the bathroom, something / anything, to get away for a few minutes and reset my attention span. Then I come back ready to go for the second half of my practice.

When practicing, you have to focus on what you are doing, physically, aurally and intellectually. Putting these three together will ensure that you can put your fingers in the right spots, that the notes sound like they should and that you know what you are playing.

As you lose focus, that is where mistakes happen. And if you continue to practice mistakes, you will play mistakes - simple as that.

The good news is that you can work on improving your attention span and ability to focus. As your mind drifts, start recognizing this and try to get your mind back on task. Sometimes, your mind will continue to wander off. Other times, you may be able to get another 5-10 minutes in before taking a break.

Structure

Those who fail to plan, plan to fail...

Heard that before? It holds true with practicing. When you sit down, you need a plan of what you are going to work on and how much time you will spend on those tasks.

For musicians, this normally means working on your chops or technique, learning tunes and improving your musicianship (scales, chord voicings, rhythm).

Here is a scenario...

You have determined that you can practice one hour every day. Today, in that hour you have to work on the harmonic minor scale, using it over a minor II-Valt-i chord progression and then work on a song for band rehearsal.
 
Well, scale work is monotonous at times, so let's combine scale work with technical exercises for 15 minutes. The first 10 minutes, with a metronome, run the scale pattern at a slow tempo over and over with now mistakes. Bump up the tempo every two minutes until you start nearing your maximum speed.  For the last 5 minutes, run the scale in thirds. By playing the pattern in thirds, you develop the ability to play the pattern in ways other than "up the scale and down the scale".

Ok, 15 minutes are up. If your mind is still in the game, get a backing track or sequencer to put in a chord progression to use the scale with. For the next 15-20 minutes, focus again on playing all the right notes. However, also focus on the notes that sound good and those that sound "not so good" when you are playing over the progression. Eventually, you will start playing the right notes over the right chords. As you find these notes, think about why they work. Are they chords tone or extensions? Can a chord tone from one chord move a half step up to a chord tone of the next chords? Which notes clash and why?

Finally, take the last 25-30 minutes to work on your song for band rehearsal. If you are just starting the song, chunk it into manageable pieces - Intro, Verse, Chorus, Solo Section, etc. Rather than spinning your wheels and trying to tackle a whole song at once, learn that basic form first, section by section. Then put those together as a whole. Finally, tackle the specifics like the solos, breaks, etc.

Setting up what you need to work on is as simple as getting a notebook, write down your weak areas or things you have to do, like learning songs and then putting a set amount of time to each item for your next routine.

Part II Teaser

Ok, that covers the first part of the workshop. We also talked about practice space and tools, both must have and those that really help but aren't essential to have. I'll cover those in another post. Until then, takes this discussion and start incorporating it into your own practice routine starting today!