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p i m, Giuliani RH study no. 2. One of the most basic arpeggios, and easy to master.

original

Here’s two ways to make it more exciting.

1. Start with different fingers. This shifts the accent and completely changes the feel of the arpeggio. It’s strangely challenging even though it seems very basic.





2. Put fingers on the same string. This requires more precise sequential planting to get a good sound. In some cases (the last one), it’s very awkward, and one of those instances where you take something further than needed to the original feels easier.

These two methods of varying p i m can be applied to any arpeggio.

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• Right Hand Movement (Good Vibrations part 2)

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1. A lot of what a good teacher does is tell the student to do the things written on the page. All those dynamic and tempo and expression markings are important. Do them.
2. Exaggerate everything. Play Forte crazy loud and Piano very soft. Play staccato very short and legato as connected as possible. Your audience will thank you.
3. In practice, fix one thing at a time. Never try to fix a whole piece at once.
4. Practice perfect. Find the way that you can play a passage perfectly and do it. It does no good to screw something up 9 times, get it right once and quit.
5. Think small. Virtuosity is in the little things.
6. Technique practice is important, and should be done daily.
7. That said, no one comes to a concert to hear technique exercises. Don’t forget that playing any instrument is about playing music. Technical exercises are a means to an end.
8. Just thinking of a group of notes as a unit changes the way you play them. Find the groups.
9. A phrase is a group of notes. Phrases crescendo slightly towards their climax, and diminuendo away from it — phrases have a shape. Sometimes the phrases are written in for you with phrasing slurs, play them as such (see number one).
10. The most expressive thing in music is silence. Start and end a piece with a moment of poise, and be sure to “play” the rests. For guitarists that means we have to mute strings.
11. Not all phrases are created equal. Not all phrases need a huge ritard. The end of a phrase shouldn’t sound the same as the end of a section; the end of a section shouldn’t sound the same as the end of a piece. There’s always a hierarchy.
12. The most important technical aspect you can work on is relaxation. Guitar playing should feel easy.
13. The big knuckles (the one connecting your fingers to your palm) on your left hand do not absolutely have to be parallel to the guitar neck. Sometimes an angled position makes things easier. Pay attention to what works, and do whatever is easiest.
14. If you don’t notice what you’re hands do during a difficult passage, there’s no hope of fixing it. Pay attention. Analyze the movements. Break it down, and figure out what gives you trouble. Practice that. (see number five)
15. Scales get all credit for making great guitar players, but we spend most of our time playing arpeggio textures. It only makes sense to give arpeggios a fair amount of practice as well.
16. Keep a practice log. If you can’t remember what you practiced a week ago, how do you know you’ve gone anywhere at all?
17. Record yourself. It’s enlightening to hear what you really sound like.
18. Melody gets all the attention, but the bass line matters too. Pay attention to the note values and the bass line’s shape. Changing the way the bass is played can change an entire piece.
19. Play lines separately. Get a melody or bass line to sound perfect on its own, then put it back in the complete texture an try to make it sound the same.
20. Left hand fingers can be sequenced. Before plopping fingers down, ask yourself when they really need to be added. Waiting to add a left hand finger can make a hard passage easier.
21. File your nails the night before or at the start of a practice day. Never in the middle. It’s too much work to get used to the “new” nails.

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• Quick Tip: Have a few pieces…

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Matthew Slotkin is a New York City based performer and teacher. He teaches at Mansfield University, and uses his teaching gig as a base for his other creative activities.

I had the chance to catch Matt in concert with one of his very interesting chamber music ensembles, Duo Montagnard, a guitar and saxophone duo. It’s a very unique ensemble with some interesting repertoire. He also performs with a double bass player in Dez Cordas.

Part 1

-How he started playing guitar
-Playing jazz guitar
-Studying at Eastman with Paul O’Dette

Part 2

-The very interesting chamber music groups in which Matthew performs
-Amplifying for chamber music
-About his Dammann guitar

Part 3

-Commissioning new works for guitar solo, guitar + saxophone, or guitar + double bass
-Matthew’s CD, Twentieth Century Music for Guitar

Part 4

-The guitar program at Mansfield College
-Tips for guitarists
-Upcoming projects

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• An Interview with James Piorkowski, part 2

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Guitarist Sharon Isbin, violinist Joshua Bell, and other musicians will perform live at the White House tonight at 7:15pm (eastern standard time).

The best part? You can watch it! Just go to http://www.whitehouse.gov/live at 7pm EST tonight. Here’s the story about what’s going on tonight; it includes some videos of rehearsal.

I won’t be able to watch tonight, but hopefully they release the concert footage.

Let me know in the comments if you watch it and what you thought!

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• Linkage: 3/21/09

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Whether we go on stage to play a full hour program or for just one piece, performing is an intense (and mildly terrifying) experience. This article is about dealing with the time immediately before a performance. I assume you’ve already selected repertoire and learned it.

1.) Practice Performance

Practicing is different from practicing performance.

Practicing performance is playing a piece straight through. No stopping, and no loss of rhythmic flow. This is a test of performance outside of the nervousness inspired by playing for an audience.

The big thing, when practicing performance, is to get your head right. Mistakes suck. They’re frustrating. Get in the mindset of a performer. Observe mistakes happening, then file them away or disregard them completely. Work towards not dwelling on mistakes. This is something that has to be done during performance, so it might as well be practiced.

2.) Warm-up

About a month before the recital is a good time to start doing warm-up performances. Keep mind that you should probably plan these well in advance if you’re planning on performing an entire recital.

A warm-up performance is just playing for a few friends or your significant other or a video camera¹. In short, it’s just a way to get some experience in real performance situations before the big event happens.

The greatest indicator of how preparing a piece is is a performance. Did all the thing you practiced come out in performance? How did that hard passage go? Did your hands get tired? Asking these questions can help provide the new goals for practicing should be.

3.) Visualization

Most of us know about mental practice. Visualization is a powerful tool, and it can be used to help prepare for your performance.

Imagine yourself on stage, see yourself from the perspective of an audience member. Hear the music you’re playing. Then switch points of view. Imagine the feeling being on stage (confidence!), and image yourself playing perfectly.

More important, I think, is visualizing the time after the performance. How will it feel to be over? Capture that feeling of success before it happens. Then use that energy when you walk out on stage for real.

4.) The Day Of

Some performers have little rituals. I think there’s a lot of value in that if you perform very frequently. For those of us who perform less frequently, doing some ritual can often freak us out more.

Here’s a different approach: do whatever you normally do. Whatever your technical or warm up routine usually is, do it. Then spend a few minutes starting each piece. If you feel like playing more, stick to practicing performance (see above). My preference would be to do these things either early in the day or a few hours before the performance.

Right before would be a good time just to noodle around or start pieces to get your hands warmed up.

I would not, under any circumstance, work on drilling a difficult passage or change a fingering or do any sort of real practice the day of a performance. Doing so might lead to a loss of confidence that carries over on stage.

___________
¹ Other warm up performance ideas: playing for a elementary school class, giving a short performance a local library, performing in a retirement home, playing the prelude music at your religious institution, visiting a local college with a guitar program for a lesson with the teacher (more intense), performing for a local guitar society meeting. There’s a lot of opportunities for warm-up performances. Just think outside the box.

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• Active Listening

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Luthier Dave Schramm put a camera inside a Greg Smallman guitar. Very cool.

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• Daily Links

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“Virtuosos believe in making things as easy as possible.”
-Philip Hii

Today we feature lutenist Paul O’Dette performing A Fancy by John Dowland. This recording is from O’Dette’s recording of Dowlands Complete Lute Works.

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• Monday Motivation: 2/16/09

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A practice technique is a method for practicing short sections. Some of the most difficult passages in pieces we play require us to practice them in all sort of ways. Aside from the usual, “go really slow,” here’s a few other ways to work on that difficult section.

Slow/Fast Alternation is just what you would thing: play it slow, then play it fast. Why play fast? After a movement is programmed in (the slow portion), it’s essential to try it at concert tempo. Contrary to popular belief, it doesn’t take months of work to play at concert tempo. Anyone can do it for a short time after very little practice. Sometimes those movements that work slow don’t work at tempo. This method will let you know if that’s the case right away.

Changing the Rhythm is a good way to step outside the usual. Playing something a, “swing,” rhythm automatically building in speed bursts, and is a great way to work on a passage. It doesn’t stop there, however. Try arranging passages into many different rhythms for a lot variety.

Practicing with a variety of Dynamics is a great way to nail down right hand patterns. Playing loudly feels different from playing softly. We can harness those differences to make a passage more secure and fluent.

Thunk Practice is when the left hand is just held over the strings muting all of them. This is a great way to hear evenness in right hand patterns. However, thunk practice can also be done where the left hand is used as normal, but never actually presses down — the fingers just lightly touch the string at the fret. The result of practicing this second way is a very light feeling left hand. Worth a try!

Are you away from a guitar on a regular basis? Try Mental Practice. Just as the name suggests, this form of practice does not involve the instrument. It’s all about visualizing and analyzing.

Stop/Go Practice is best utilized on difficult left hand shifts or events. Play up until the shift, STOP, move, hover, then place and play and go. This give you time to think and analyze the movement; it allows you practice it the same way each time, speeding up learning through correct repetition.

Not every difficult passage will require all of these techniques. Pick and choose what works best. I use a lot of stop/go and slow/fast practice. However, with big scales, I tend to change the rhythm. Try a few for each passage, and see if it works. Write it down in your practice log and go from there.

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• Practice Techniques: “Thunk” Practice

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Since the Classical Guitar Blog started, I’ve written a lot on practicing. With good reason: musicians spend a lot of time practicing. And everyone is looking for the secret. The real secret is that learning an instrument it’s not about the time between lessons with a great teacher. There’s only so much a teacher can do in one hour/week. The rest of it is on us, the students.

Here’s some reading on practicing.

1. Finding Time to Practice. Everyone is busy, but finding to practice does not have to be difficult. Set aside a time every day that’s always for practicing.




2. Micro-Practice for Big Results. Who says a fifteen minute practice session is a waste of time? This post explains how to make most of short practice sessions.




3. Deconstructing a Mistake. A technical or music event is something that gives you trouble. Breaking down that event and finding the elements with in it is the key to fixing problems. That’s what practicing should be about. It’s not just pure repetition.




4. Five Reasons to Start a Practice Log (today). Practice logs make you a better guitarist. I’ve written on this multiple times. Still need convincing? Read this article.




5. Goal Oriented Guitar Practice. How to use various goals to give your practicing focus and direction.




6. Refined Laziness. Everyone is lazy sometimes. That doesn’t mean laziness is bad for practicing.




7. Guitar Practice Schedules. Figuring out exactly how to spend your time practicing is difficult. This article contains some thoughts on how to set up practice schedules. Just remember: not everything can be fixed in one day.

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• Exploring Campanella Fingering