Musicians Guide To

Effectively Learning a Song

The biggest problem one faces as a would be musician is a simple fact of life:

They don't know how to practice.

Now if your sitting there scratching your head consider this:

• What is Practice.
• Is it sitting there mindlessly repeating the same old mistake time and again?
• Is it playing over and over the part of the song you can play and disregarding the parts you can not?
• Is it sitting there wondering what your friends are doing right now; and it sure looks like a nice day out there; and I'm hungry, think I'll get some ice cream?

No, practice is none of theses things.

Practice is facing up to something we don't do so well, or at all, and taking baby steps until we can walk our way through it.

Practice is taking what we can do and polishing it to perfection.

Practice is a one on one confrontation with ourselves.

Rules

• Take a small part of the song in question, like one measure or even half a measure. Do not simply sit there trying to play the song from begining to end over and over. Break it down into easy to manage bites.
• Go Slow. I don't care how fast the song's suppose to go, neither should you until you've first learned it. Take your time and be sure you know what both hands as well as your mind are doing.
• Use a Metronome. If you don't own one, get one. This will not only help keep you in time, it will help you work up the speed of a piece of music as well as build your technique.
• Use your mind. Practice the art of visualization. Be able to see clearly in your mind's eye what your fingers are doing, or what you want them to be doing. Don't play, simply see yourself playing in your mind. See the correct fingers moving correctly to the correct notes. This is a very powerful memorization tool for both mind and fingers. Learn it, Live it, Love it.
• Break what your doing down into problem areas.
• If the rythyms are too hard make them easier, simplify them until you've got the hang of it. If you have a hard time playing 16th notes with a metronome pretend they're 8th notes and practice hem as 8th notes until your comfortable enough to turn them back to 16ths. It's also easier to get the feel of playing with a metronome at a midrange tempo 80 to 112 bpm as opposed to one that's too slow (like below 60 bmp) or one that's to fast (like above 150 bpm). The too fast thing isn't so much an issue with people, other than being annoyed by all the constant clicking, but at 60 bpm or below the beats are spaced so far apart if becomes harder to feel the beat, epically for inexperienced players. What to do? Double everything. If your having a hard time playing 16th notes at 60 and keeping time due to the slow tempo, double it to 120 bmp and play it as 8th notes. Work the tempo of the 8th notes up fast enough (160 bmp for example), until you can turn the metronome back down to 80 bmp and play it as written in 16th notes.
• If your having a mechanical issue isolate it and work on it. For example if we have an alternate picking issue between two strings, nail down the exact cause and work on it. Create exercises focusing on the mechanical issue. A major problem with alternate picking is not recognizing the difference between inside and outside picking. If  you have a line that forces you to use inside picking and you hve a issue with inside picking, your gonna have an issue with the line in the song. If we wish to fix the line in the song we must fix our inside picking. It's that simple. Not easy. But simple in terms of if something's broke, it's broke. Until I fix what is broke, it will remain broke, no exceptions.
• Are you aware of what your body is doing, is the issue related to tension (tensing up) or fingers landing poorly or moving to far away from the fret board. Again break it down, find the exact spot things go astray and work that exact spot going slow enough to prevent what we don't want to happen from happening.
• Be sure you technique is up to the challenge. If your working on your favorite Randy Rhoads lick and you've got a string of legato notes (hammers and pulls) and you're legato technique is virtually non-existent, you're in trouble. Work on your legato technique first until it's strong enough to play the lick. While the lick may be good legato practice, it may not be the best way to build your legato technique, epically if it's poor. Start with simple exercises and build your technique up to the challenge of the lick. This goes for any technique: Picking, Bends, Shifting, Chords etc.
• Be sure you're focused. Be sure your mind is not rambling. Be sure you're not judging yourself. Simply play, observe and make subtle corrections. If something needs work, it needs work, getting uptight about it ain't gonna fix it. Only highly focused practice will fix it.
• Be sure your expectations are realistic. I have students come to me dissapointed in themselves because they can't play a chord progression, lick, exercise, scale or whatever. While, we can understand a certain amount of wanting to do something and not yet being able to do it we must also be realistic; something take time. No one learns to play overnight, or in one week or even one month. Most accomplished players will tell you it took them a couple years and many hours a day spent practicing to get to where they felt they could play. So, be realistic as to where you are and where you want to go. As for the dissapointed students, they fall in two catagories. One being those who are into much of a hurry and expect to much to soon, that's not so bad they just need to lighten up on themselves. The second catagory is a bigger issue, it's those who may practice every now and then for  few minutes at a time and in those every now and then times they do practice they don't. That is to say: Your no going to learn to play if you don't practice. Likewise, your not gonna get much for your practice efforts if you don't pay attention to details and focus on where you need the work. Which leads me to my last point.
• Be consistent. Practicing everyday for 30-60 mins is far better than once or twice a week for a few hours. We learn by constant repletion not shear force. For those just starting or just wishing to play with no professional aspirations in mind a consistent 4-6 days a week for 30-60 will help get you where your going. Of course 4-6 days a week 60-120 mins with good practice skills will probably get you there even faster. But, even if you only have 10 mins use it. Don' not practice simply because I don't have all day, or a few hours or even a half hour. If you got 10 mins or even 5 use it.
• And most of all Listen. Listen to what you sound like. Does it sound good? Is this how you want to sound? Is it sloppy? Are your bends in tune? Is it music or just notes? And yes there is a difference, simply hitting the right notes at the right time is not music.They are simply the correct notes at the correct time. Music dosen't come from the paper. Music dosen't come from the Amp. Music dosen't even come from the Guitar. Music comes from inside us. When we play we are speaking. Do we have anything to say? The attitude behind a song like "Back in Black" is everybit as important as the notes. Are we playing with the right attitude? If we want to Rock, are we Rocking? If we want to play pretty sounding melodies are our notes pretty sounding? When we bend a note do we feel it? When we hit a Power Chord cranked through a Screaming Amp do we feel the power? When we play a sweet melodic line are we in tune with those things we consider beautiful? At the end of the day this is by far the most important aspect as what you sound like is really the only thing that matters. Everything you do, every practice stagey is nothing more than a means to an end. That end being to be as expressive as possible and sound the very best you can.

 Well, this hardly covers everything but it's a good starting place for devolving good practice habits.