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As the years go
by in the life of a player, there are two
kinds of growth we can experience. Both are
necessary for our development as musicians
and guitarists. I call them Vertical Growth,
and Horizontal Growth.
Here is a
common scenario. A person comes in for
lessons after already playing for awhile.
Maybe they have played for a year, maybe a
few years, maybe many years. I say, "Play
something for me, something you are
comfortable with". Now a few different
things may happen. They may play nicely,
strumming and singing, maybe even throw in a
few runs. So I see that for the level they
are at, they play well. I then try to find
out what they are here for. "What do you
want to do, that you find you can’t do."
They may say
"Well, I play lots of things, but I play
them all the same way. I want to learn how
to do chord melody solos, more interesting
chords and strums, and also improve my
fingerpicking so I can try some classical.”
In other words, they want to move to a
higher level as a player. They want to make
VERTICAL GROWTH. |
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They don’t want
to continue to learn new songs and play them
the same way. That would be HORIZONTAL
GROWTH. Everyone can always make Horizontal
Growth, even on their own. You just learn
more material, but you don’t actually play
any differently, musically or technically.
Vertical
progress as a player is the tough one. It
requires what is usually considered "work",
although I have always found it enjoyable,
although challenging.
Here is
another even more common scenario. Someone
comes in for lessons after playing for
awhile, and when I ask them to play, they
make a couple of excuses, and then they play
really badly! Then I ask them to play
something else, and they play that really
badly! This is the person unable to create
Vertical Growth. The reason they cannot
raise their level as a player, is because
THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO PRACTICE TO SOLVE
PROBLEMS AND ACHIEVE RESULTS! Also, because
of this, there is no solid foundation of
technique for Vertical Growth to be built
upon. So there is only Horizontal Growth,
more things played the same way, in this
case, badly.
Do you know
how many young players I’ve seen who play
only the beginning of a hundred songs, and
play them badly? Lots.
Or
how many people playing classical who go
from piece to piece, struggling with and
mutilating pieces as they go? Lots. It is
sad, and unnecessary.
If
you love the guitar, and are dedicated to
your own development as a player, if you are
dying to play the way the guitarists you
admire play, you must know how to create
Vertical Growth. This is done through an
understanding of HOW TO PRACTICE. I am of
course talking about REAL PRACTICE, not
repetitive "run throughs" that only
re-enforce the muscle tensions causing the
problems you already have.
From my
experience as a player and as a teacher, it
is extremely difficult to create
Vertical Growth, once bad, or insufficient
practice has locked in tension and bad
habits. The good news is, it is not
impossible. In fact, the word difficult is
not the best word. I use it only because we
have such a tendency to under-estimate the
intensity of concentration it takes to undo
past damage. A better word is challenging.
And if you want to keep getting better and
better as a guitarist, you’d better learn to
love challenges! As Mark Twain said "Life is
one damn thing after another", and that is
what playing and practicing are. One damn
problem to deal with after another.
But
as we learn to actually deal with and solve
those problems, what a sweet reward we earn.
In fact, it is
not the problems we face in our playing that
are really the obstacle to our growth. It is
the growing feeling of frustration and
helplessness we experience as time continues
to go by, and we see no fundamental
improvement. We start to feel helpless. We
may not admit this feeling to ourselves, we
only notice that, for some reason, we are
beginning to lose our motivation to
practice.
When we learn
how to really practice, we start to feel
powerful. Problems and challenges don’t
frighten us, they excite us. Because
we know that we can look forward to those
problems getting smaller and smaller, weaker
and weaker, as we continue to apply The
Principles of Correct Practice.
It
is important to realize that the quality
of our Vertical Growth determines the
quality of our Horizontal Growth. Any
ability we have gained as players has been
our Vertical Growth. If our Vertical Growth
has been shaky, with weaknesses built in,
(which was true of myself, and I think, most
players), that shakiness will be in
everything we play, so our Horizontal Growth
doesn’t do us much good, it just keeps us
busy, feeling like we are making progress
because we are learning a new song or piece.
This is why so many teachers turn the
page and assign new material to a student,
even though the student can’t play the
material from this week. The teacher
doesn’t really know how to create Vertical
Growth, and so is trying to keep a feeling
of movement going. Most students, if they
are paying attention, will catch on to this.
If
Vertical Growth is strong, than all new
material learned will be strong, and will
help you grow as a musician, as you absorb
new music, and are able to play it well.
This is the kind of Horizontal Growth we
want.
If
you want to learn how to have this Vertical
Growth as a regular experience for you, I
invite you to look around my site further
for more information about "The Principles
of Correct Practice for Guitar". It is the
approach I have found to work for myself,
for my students, and anyone else who
actually understands it, and uses it..
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