To learn guitar seems a mysterious issue… some times, others it remains a mystery forever…
Tips & advices on guitar practice
I would like to share with you my personal experience with guitar students, some time ago, one guy came to the Royal Conservatory of Toronto and said:
“I see your video lessons on your YouTube channel for months http://www.youtube.com/user/rdiazflamencojazz
http://www.rdiaz.org/rdwebcam.html
more that 100 lessons there, and I love them all, its just that… I don’t know HOW to really harness all this information to really assimilate and digest all these different styles rasgueos etc that you explain in your videos, so I came to you because I want to learn:
1) How to practice, that is, with what precisely I have to start.
2) What is that I need to improve, I mean what I need for the repertory that I desire to play.
3) I also want to learn to notice if I am practicing right because, look… I went tired of no one checking what I am doing, and now I don’t feel like growing in my guitar playing at all, I feel I know many disconnected stuff about wide variety of subjects, too many things, but I ignore how to really use & organize all this and put it into practice, I need you to give me a structure way to practice guitar, you know what I mean?...”
Immediately came to my mind Paco saying to me “Ruben…one does not play guitar with the hands…one plays with the brain if he has one…,and then after one should play with the heart forgetting all about the brain.” precious advise…this guy had a brain, was very smart and enthusiastic, I feel so inspired.(this is imo the ideal way to approach the learning process.)
I was very impressed by this guy (nowadays he is making a lot of progress on the guitar, sometimes he accompany me in my band, and even played in one track of my new record “Andalusian Flavor” you can listen 2 tracks of this album here in HQ
(take one minute to load): http://www.rdiaz.org/recordsincanada.html
I was awestruck because until then very few persons have asked me something like this…,I realized thanks to this student inquiries that, the teacher is like a doctor who diagnoses the patient and gives a prescription for the medicines that the patient will take and, also indicates how much pills ,and when to take them, how many times a day etc.
We can not go to the drugstore and say “Ok, I think this medicine will be good for me, and…I also like that one with the green bottle…give me two of this, three of that etc…”
just imagine that, Its creasy, can actually be of fatal consequences…,so with all the information that is available online, with hundreds of different video lessons, books etc, in other words encouragement tools & agents of the “Do it yourself philosophy” that as you know…, does not always work smoothly or nicely, there is a big confusion when the public have more information that what they can really assimilate and bring to practice, I see many friends and new students wandering “should I do this?, or…rather should I try that?” they generally go on like this for years, and then maybe they realized all the time they have lost, so to administer the proper “dosage” so that we get the desired results on guitar playing, its essential that we have the proper PERSONAL and expert guidance ,because everyone is different, and need a different speed to work with the metronome for example if he/she wants to improve in scales etc, we can not follow or settle general parameters, because what applies to some may not apply to others etc.
So the thing is that:
I) How much of the information I have available can I really apply to my guitar playing to build something significant in my musical career?
II) How can I end once for all with this going around wandering and loosing time like anything in guitar learning finally getting nowhere, after trying many different “medicines” by self prescription without getting any noticeable result?
III) Regarding the “do it yourself philosophy”
How far I can go with that?...
So as you see, there are many details to become aware of, of course I clarify that I am not saying that this is the absolute truth and that’s all, rather I am talking about my own personal experience with the guitar, so perhaps it’s only valid for me, but if any of these advices can help you to become a better player somehow or other, then I will be happy that I helped in some way to your guitarristic progress. In guitar learning I don’t believe in the “do it yourself philosophy” (I mean to reach excellence with the instrument)because I have seen friends and guitar students for 25 years wandering, following a mixture of 2 million different views, opinions, speculations and advices, as if everyone would have the same authority or knowledge, and, of course, they end up reaching nowhere on the guitar themselves,that’s why I don’t believe on this “do it yourself philosophy”… at least on guitar I don’t think you can reach very far through this.
Even Paco says here in this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ofn3Y5GyPKs
minute:1:36,that he inquired from John Mc Laughlin & Al Di Meola on how to improvise, and thereafter when he discover that he enjoy it etc, and that they laugh and could not believe he (Paco)did not know!...so from Paco’s own personal example, we can learn that:
When he wanted to know about something, he did not thought that “Oh,I am the genius Paco De Lucia, and I don’t need any teacher…, I can find out myself”(even if paradoxically he end it up learning that by “himself”!) -opposite to the “Do it yourself” philosophy- he did addressed the musical authorities on improvisation, namely John Mc Laughlin & Al Di Meola and straightforwardly ask them to teach him how to improvise.
In fact he always discourages this philosophy of “Do it yourself”, and rather promote, and advise me and others to go for the method of acquiring knowledge from the proper source, and being therefore guided and supervised by an EXPERT, then and, only then one can achieve success on the otherwise fathomless mysteries of the guitar as an instrument, and keep things simple like that.
In fact if you think… there is no knowledge which we have not acquire from an external source (besides some instinctive assets which we share with the animal kingdom) everything we know, from the languish to the way we think we have learned (consciously or unconsciously)from someone.
For me, learning guitar is like flying and airplane. Imagine what would happened if I try to learn to pilot and airplane on my own, or by getting some data I read in the internet as well as opinions of people that are not a pilots themselves but people that offer their cheap advices, and pose themselves as an experienced pilots; what would happen if I do not learn to pilot the airplane from a person that really is a teacher-pilot himself and knows how to fly?... Later on in time hopefully, when one masters the guitar really, when I will know how to pilot, then I can fly on my own, not otherwise.
I invite everyone to convey his/her opinion on this subject, for I enjoy from listening & learning from different angles and perspectives, so please feel free to share your experience & wisdom on the topic.
Thanks
your friend
Ruben Diaz
info@rdiaz.org
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