Make more progress on your guitar this year than YEARS prior (AND help support the channel!) by joining my course: beyondtheguitar.com/fingerstylejourney
Man, I'm glad I've been seeing new videos again based around improvement. Even I need the reminder! You've been a huge inspiration since I was a teenager, man, cheers!
This is some of the best advice ever given for how one should practice not just Guitar but any endeavor. I come from a background in martial arts, and when it comes to advanced internal marital arts like Tai Chi, moving very slowly with intention and self awareness throughout the entire movement is essential to being in touch with your body's alignment, structure, balance, etc. People that don't understand the practice mock Tai Chi practitioners for moving so slowly and question how can one use that in a fight. In Tai Chi and other internal martial arts you can't train or practice without having a teacher present at least a few times per week to make constant corrections of things you think and feel you are doing right but are actually way off. Even something as simple as weight distribution can feel correct when you are actually off balance. I also am a practitioner of non dualistic teachings from Zen and Advaita Vedanta traditions, where Awareness is key.
This guy motivated me to practice guitar so hard that I forgot my fingers got broken 3 years ago and i still can't move them that much . But yet ... much appreciated.
I'm guilty of not slowing down long enough, I get too impatient! Also guilty of playing more than practicing once I learn the piece 😅 Thank you so much for this type of content, you're an excellent communicator and I'm looking forward to more videos like this one!
@@BeyondTheGuitar Oh yeah, I'm not isolating measures as long as I think I am. I often play a few bars over and over, but only for a couple of minutes. I am also really bad for playing the parts of a song I know really well, get to the road block, and then procrastinate addressing the bit I can't play. Also, if you have tips on how to slow practice heavy barre chord sections I'd love to hear it! I always get fatigued holding down the barre at slow tempos.
Very good advice Nathan! I definitely am guilty of re-playing the same old same old because it’s like putting on an old pair of jeans for the fingers! Maybe Nathan’s covered this on other posts, but for anyone who struggles with really slowing it down (like so much that it sounds like a completely different tune) here’s a couple thoughts that have helped me in the past. 1. Adjust your location or your sound settings (if using electronics) to change things up. I like cranking the reverb up all the way. Enjoy the different sound! 2. If you get board, or lost in the new sounds (that’s me), stay focused on the primary reason or section you’re slowing down for. I had a college jazz sax professor show me one thing to mix things up to not get board and actually make you faster in the end. That’s sitting on a note (for as long as you like), but then when it’s time to make the move to the next note, do it like you’re life depends on it for speed, but be sure to stick the landing. You’ll hold that note again for as long as possible. If it doesn’t sound good, you probably didn’t stick that landing and need to slow down the transition a little. Makes for interesting sounding exercises. 3. For anyone into target practice, it’s sort of like trigger discipline (slow easy press until “click”, the as fast as humanly possible off and on to reset the trigger during recoil up to the trigger wall, and then back to slow and easy. “Eaaasyyy…” as John says on WPS for anyone that gets the reference. Cheers!
Listen to this man’s words. My problem is staying slow enough to nail it and his teachings are a constant reminder. To Nathan, we don’t need fancy edits, we need education.
I mean yes, of course. But that's a drastic oversimplification of the message here. You can't just tell yourself to focus... you need to identify what specifically you're trying to focus on - otherwise you won't be focused at all
Ive seen a video virtuso guitarist, he said that the best practice is when he mindfully be aware of every move he makes . Being aware of correct movements untill they become a habit is the way . Am glad that you confirmed this .
Great Video, thanks its time to practice. Im a selftrained guitarist 5,5 years in right now, and the slow down part is so true. Im working on some pieces that i want to play in a good speed, Bach's Invention 14 is a good example in this case. Everytime if i wanna practice the bars on the end where i still struggle with i say myself that i play the complete piece from start into this section after some slow and seperated practice on just these 5 bars. I start the practice session really slow, and it the "automatism" always build up the speed every 2 or 3 bars more and more until i reach the tempo that i want to reach on this piece someday, then i come with way too much tempo in these 5 bars and guess what happens .. I learned it the hard way that its harder to work on a 3 year bad techniquehabit then it is to learn a new technique that you have never touched. As long we are always self aware of a issue and we take a really close look on our fingers as it happens " a wrong fingering, wrong right hand habits or whatever it is" we can work on it slowely but surely.
Love this type of content ! One thing that I could relate to was how I barely slowed down in reality and it seemed in my mind as if I had slowed down A LOT....Thanks for opening ny eyes 😊
Appreciate the feedback. Yeah man, that's huge. So focus on that specifically in your practice this week and see how much of a difference it makes. You can use a metronome to hold you accountable to actually slowing down
You think you’re so smart Nathan! 🤪 But seriously, thanks for taking the time to share this! My major problem-not playing slowly for long enough. That was spot on. Also appreciate the “Hawthorne principle”, complete with your “sample pictures” 😂 Nicely done!
All great tips. I’ve wasted an insane amount of time through mindless practice. Ultimately, playing 3-4 hours a day won’t get you too far if you’re just brute forcing your way through a piece by instantly going to performance speed and just repeating over and over. I always tell my students (I need to tell it to myself more) quality is so much more important than quantity. Being aware and organized in how your practice is structured is a game changer too, scheduling what you will work on and setting time aside for breaks has changed my practice.
Valuable, helpful and encouraging… More of these would be great. Fancy editing is not needed…. tomorrow I’ll start to fix my No. 3 😆🙏🏻 Even though I really use my “Fingerstyle Journey “- journal… No. 3 got me 😅 . Btw… your pieces of music in your course are awesome and incredibly beautiful , Nathan🙏🏻🙇🏼♀️
My brother has been practicing for decades, and it breaks my heart that, to this day, he can't play a single song without constant mistakes, even when he tried switching to simpler ones. Now this may sound weird, but I have the clear conviction it's not for a lack of talent, but ingrained bad practice. For instance, I never heard him try slowing down or going section by section. To make matters worse, our mother is a piano teacher, and we grew up well exposed to music (and her teaching classes), but the attempts she had at helping him resulted in awkwardness and miscommunication. To my knowledge, the root of his issue is very simple: he's self conscious and got stuck in that beginner's trap. To be fair, he made an effort to address it and took classes with a guitar teacher. That's when I noticed a sudden improvement, but the teacher passed away (RIP), and he's back to his old practices. I suppose I'll gently suggest him to take classes again, maybe try your channel. Sorry for the long post. I want to make it clear that your video is most surely very important to many out there who struggle. And to any of you who are reading, your music is still appreciated. We who listen want you to keep at it. Onwards and upwards! Cheers!
Probably the main problem is like you said "get bored". It's just hard to sit for a long time and practise slowly few sections in a row. So if I imagine how is does it work on my side: 5 minutes of practise concentrated and slowly = 15 minutes of doing shit or playing what I already can, but not perfect (with idea behind to practise it playing faster or just training the "hand". At the end of and hour I did 20 minutes of great job and 40 minutes of almost useless shit. But maybe not as shitty as I imagine. For example I started learning "Elfen Lied" anime main themre. Right first bar needs a shape of - "1st Fret 6th string + 4th Fret 1st string, then by holding that playing 4th Fret 5th string and then 3th Fret 4th string". its really hard for my hand to do. But the more I try it, the better it is, just from "physical perspective". Stretching etc... Main problem is to play 4th string not muted from finger on 5th :D And I already had a lot of cases like that. So doing the "shit" I described above was also focused on such specific issues.
I'm definitely guilty of not doing enough reps and then playing the whole piece from the beginning even though I'm not working on the beginning parts atm
Make more progress on your guitar this year than YEARS prior (AND help support the channel!) by joining my course: beyondtheguitar.com/fingerstylejourney
Man, I'm glad I've been seeing new videos again based around improvement. Even I need the reminder! You've been a huge inspiration since I was a teenager, man, cheers!
This is some of the best advice ever given for how one should practice not just Guitar but any endeavor. I come from a background in martial arts, and when it comes to advanced internal marital arts like Tai Chi, moving very slowly with intention and self awareness throughout the entire movement is essential to being in touch with your body's alignment, structure, balance, etc. People that don't understand the practice mock Tai Chi practitioners for moving so slowly and question how can one use that in a fight. In Tai Chi and other internal martial arts you can't train or practice without having a teacher present at least a few times per week to make constant corrections of things you think and feel you are doing right but are actually way off. Even something as simple as weight distribution can feel correct when you are actually off balance. I also am a practitioner of non dualistic teachings from Zen and Advaita Vedanta traditions, where Awareness is key.
This guy motivated me to practice guitar so hard that I forgot my fingers got broken 3 years ago and i still can't move them that much . But yet ... much appreciated.
Steal all our excuses 💪
I'm guilty of not slowing down long enough, I get too impatient! Also guilty of playing more than practicing once I learn the piece 😅
Thank you so much for this type of content, you're an excellent communicator and I'm looking forward to more videos like this one!
Super valuable. I love this kind of sincere and informative content. This was exactly what I needed to straighten out my practice. Thanks!
Really glad to hear that. Did any of those self-awareness blindspots hit home for you?
@@BeyondTheGuitar Oh yeah, I'm not isolating measures as long as I think I am. I often play a few bars over and over, but only for a couple of minutes. I am also really bad for playing the parts of a song I know really well, get to the road block, and then procrastinate addressing the bit I can't play. Also, if you have tips on how to slow practice heavy barre chord sections I'd love to hear it! I always get fatigued holding down the barre at slow tempos.
Very good advice Nathan! I definitely am guilty of re-playing the same old same old because it’s like putting on an old pair of jeans for the fingers!
Maybe Nathan’s covered this on other posts, but for anyone who struggles with really slowing it down (like so much that it sounds like a completely different tune) here’s a couple thoughts that have helped me in the past.
1. Adjust your location or your sound settings (if using electronics) to change things up. I like cranking the reverb up all the way. Enjoy the different sound!
2. If you get board, or lost in the new sounds (that’s me), stay focused on the primary reason or section you’re slowing down for. I had a college jazz sax professor show me one thing to mix things up to not get board and actually make you faster in the end. That’s sitting on a note (for as long as you like), but then when it’s time to make the move to the next note, do it like you’re life depends on it for speed, but be sure to stick the landing. You’ll hold that note again for as long as possible. If it doesn’t sound good, you probably didn’t stick that landing and need to slow down the transition a little. Makes for interesting sounding exercises.
3. For anyone into target practice, it’s sort of like trigger discipline (slow easy press until “click”, the as fast as humanly possible off and on to reset the trigger during recoil up to the trigger wall, and then back to slow and easy. “Eaaasyyy…” as John says on WPS for anyone that gets the reference.
Cheers!
Listen to this man’s words. My problem is staying slow enough to nail it and his teachings are a constant reminder.
To Nathan, we don’t need fancy edits, we need education.
So, in summary, focus is key. Thanks for the advice!
I mean yes, of course. But that's a drastic oversimplification of the message here. You can't just tell yourself to focus... you need to identify what specifically you're trying to focus on - otherwise you won't be focused at all
@@BeyondTheGuitar Okay, I guess I oversimplified a bit. Thanks for the help!
Ive seen a video virtuso guitarist, he said that the best practice is when he mindfully be aware of every move he makes .
Being aware of correct movements untill they become a habit is the way .
Am glad that you confirmed this .
Excellent advice! I like having a simple format without a lot of fancy edits. I found recording myself always helps.
Great Video, thanks its time to practice.
Im a selftrained guitarist 5,5 years in right now, and the slow down part is so true. Im working on some pieces that i want to play in a good speed, Bach's Invention 14 is a good example in this case. Everytime if i wanna practice the bars on the end where i still struggle with i say myself that i play the complete piece from start into this section after some slow and seperated practice on just these 5 bars. I start the practice session really slow, and it the "automatism" always build up the speed every 2 or 3 bars more and more until i reach the tempo that i want to reach on this piece someday, then i come with way too much tempo in these 5 bars and guess what happens ..
I learned it the hard way that its harder to work on a 3 year bad techniquehabit then it is to learn a new technique that you have never touched. As long we are always self aware of a issue and we take a really close look on our fingers as it happens " a wrong fingering, wrong right hand habits or whatever it is" we can work on it slowely but surely.
Love this type of content ! One thing that I could relate to was how I barely slowed down in reality and it seemed in my mind as if I had slowed down A LOT....Thanks for opening ny eyes 😊
Appreciate the feedback. Yeah man, that's huge. So focus on that specifically in your practice this week and see how much of a difference it makes. You can use a metronome to hold you accountable to actually slowing down
You think you’re so smart Nathan! 🤪 But seriously, thanks for taking the time to share this! My major problem-not playing slowly for long enough. That was spot on. Also appreciate the “Hawthorne principle”, complete with your “sample pictures” 😂 Nicely done!
All great tips. I’ve wasted an insane amount of time through mindless practice. Ultimately, playing 3-4 hours a day won’t get you too far if you’re just brute forcing your way through a piece by instantly going to performance speed and just repeating over and over. I always tell my students (I need to tell it to myself more) quality is so much more important than quantity. Being aware and organized in how your practice is structured is a game changer too, scheduling what you will work on and setting time aside for breaks has changed my practice.
Valuable, helpful and encouraging… More of these would be great. Fancy editing is not needed…. tomorrow I’ll start to fix my No. 3 😆🙏🏻
Even though I really use my “Fingerstyle Journey “- journal… No. 3 got me 😅 .
Btw… your pieces of music in your course are awesome and incredibly beautiful , Nathan🙏🏻🙇🏼♀️
My brother has been practicing for decades, and it breaks my heart that, to this day, he can't play a single song without constant mistakes, even when he tried switching to simpler ones. Now this may sound weird, but I have the clear conviction it's not for a lack of talent, but ingrained bad practice. For instance, I never heard him try slowing down or going section by section. To make matters worse, our mother is a piano teacher, and we grew up well exposed to music (and her teaching classes), but the attempts she had at helping him resulted in awkwardness and miscommunication. To my knowledge, the root of his issue is very simple: he's self conscious and got stuck in that beginner's trap. To be fair, he made an effort to address it and took classes with a guitar teacher. That's when I noticed a sudden improvement, but the teacher passed away (RIP), and he's back to his old practices. I suppose I'll gently suggest him to take classes again, maybe try your channel.
Sorry for the long post. I want to make it clear that your video is most surely very important to many out there who struggle. And to any of you who are reading, your music is still appreciated. We who listen want you to keep at it. Onwards and upwards! Cheers!
The thumbnail is diabolical 😂
😈
Great content!
🤘
Truth
I've just got a microphone and headphones, absolute game changer, in one day I felt like I'd gained six months practice! ❤
Probably the main problem is like you said "get bored". It's just hard to sit for a long time and practise slowly few sections in a row. So if I imagine how is does it work on my side: 5 minutes of practise concentrated and slowly = 15 minutes of doing shit or playing what I already can, but not perfect (with idea behind to practise it playing faster or just training the "hand". At the end of and hour I did 20 minutes of great job and 40 minutes of almost useless shit.
But maybe not as shitty as I imagine. For example I started learning "Elfen Lied" anime main themre. Right first bar needs a shape of - "1st Fret 6th string + 4th Fret 1st string, then by holding that playing 4th Fret 5th string and then 3th Fret 4th string". its really hard for my hand to do. But the more I try it, the better it is, just from "physical perspective". Stretching etc... Main problem is to play 4th string not muted from finger on 5th :D And I already had a lot of cases like that. So doing the "shit" I described above was also focused on such specific issues.
I'm definitely guilty of not doing enough reps and then playing the whole piece from the beginning even though I'm not working on the beginning parts atm
Oh boy, I hope RR is watching this one, he actually made it into one of your videos with his totally non-creepy print-out-Nathan :D
I still enjoy play a few first song i learn 10 years ago and just add new way to enhance them, that's right? Maybe I'm lying to myself.
Is that the Nina flipping off thing in the thumbnail?