Getting Inspiration for practicing/motivation

[rorygfan]

I have studied many things over the years. Spent the last 3 years on necessary things like Spanish and a deep dive into lots of different technical level internet stuff and mostly dropped guitar. So, a few weeks back decided to play more consistently. Mostly reviewing arpeggios and scales, some vibrato and technique. That stuff gets rather boring quick. Noodling too, bad discipline. Its easy to stop playing after 20 minutes, little motivation for exercises. But for me to play an entire weekend like this past one, its all about the song, and really difficult for maintaining interest unless its about practicing old songs I always wanted to learn. Day to day, since I dont need to drive anymore nor use headphone walking on the street, I dont listen to any radio and rarely my CD’s. The best inspiration for me is listening, then saying- hey I can play that (now). Picked up 2112, which as a kid we hacked our way through it. Now, today just started playing along and just about remembered all the parts and easily figured out those I forgot. It was sloppy, but it was fun. When your ear is in the zone it helps too. Watched the Rush documentary a week or so ago about them recording it, so that reminded me about revisting it.

I also found a youtube video on playing REO’s “Back on the road again” as its a memorable tune. Simple, but catchy. Easy now to play the main parts. The solo sorta meanders abit.

Then Billion Dollar Babies, picked that up from a video from the same guy. Saves lots of time doing that. Then watched Nita play it to confirm.

Back to REO, played along with it some more. So reading noticed the youtube comments below, and really got great laugh as someone wrote:

God, PLEASE give us back Gary Richracht, we will send you Kanye West and Justin Beiber. Lol!

[rightonthemark]

i just learned back on the road again for my band.
great tune. a lot of fun.
for the solo i just improvise the hell out of Gm pentatonic.
gary richrath was/is severely underrated.
he’s like some other guitarists (mick ralphs and paul kossoff both come to mind) whose genius is found in their simplicity.
these guys are proof that you don’t need speed licks, sweeping arpeggios and tapping to sound awesome.

rock and roll ain't pretty; that's why they picked us to play it.

[superblonde]

rorygfan wrote:

its all about the song, and really difficult for maintaining interest unless its about practicing old songs I always wanted to learn.

This is really important advice. Somewhere in the older lessons Doug mentions that some people have the “talent of practicing” and they “treat the guitar like a puzzle which needs to be solved”. It does seem to be a talent in itself, to be able to essentially run drills for hours. MAB has his story about practicing a lick 1,000 times in a single day and I’m sure he did that 6-7 days a week, probably still to this day is running hours of drills. Although age isnt mentioned much on the forum, there’s obvious anatomical age related problems with old players trying to drill for 6-10 hours straight even if they want to. Other players seem to have great success playing songs rather than repeating drills. I’m in the middle of the spectrum somewhere, it depends on the drill, some drills I can practice for days or weeks and others seem to be impossible to motivate to do. Probably the important thing is for a player to recognize where they’re at and practice what makes them want to play. So if that means playing old songs, then do that. Do whatever is the most fun, as long as it doesnt devolve into unfocused meandering and noodling like you mention.

I was pondering getting lessons from a young local piano guy and I mentioned a few things about practice, the general advice for guitarists “drill licks and scales while watching a movie” to get 1-2 hrs of repetitive practice done daily. He went back to the standard idea “nah it’s better to spend 15 really good minutes rather than hours repeating something like that.” A day later when I was revisiting this, I realized, eh. He’s a classical piano player, of course he might have that different opinion, because guitar is much harder than even classical piano, lol 😛 😀

If playing songs is the motivation then keep on it.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rorygfan]

rightonthemark wrote:

i just learned back on the road again for my band.
great tune. a lot of fun.
for the solo i just improvise the hell out of Gm pentatonic.
gary richrath was/is severely underrated.
he’s like some other guitarists (mick ralphs and paul kossoff both come to mind) whose genius is found in their simplicity.
these guys are proof that you don’t need speed licks, sweeping arpeggios and tapping to sound awesome.

Yep. Great song, and until watching it live on youtube no idea it was the bassist singing, keep the faith that your audience will remember or discover these good simple tunes. When I was traveling a few years ago, I had that song and a bunch of others on my phone, as you know there are your favorites that inspire you to pick up the guitar, sing, tap your foot or whatever. I Cranked them while traveling especially long flights and time sorta melts away and you recall all sorts of things in the past and situations in your life when you heard those songs, at least I do. Lots of memories from your subconscience seem to arrive and recall. I miss being a daily radio or stereo listener as I was when younger. Bad Co and Free both have good simple tunes. There is a concert Mick played in w Paul Rodgers on that Tubi channel I mentioned. All original members, and as you know Simon and Paul played w Kossoff.

Ronnie Montrose had simple tunes all were great especially on that first album. Way Back I even transcribed Rock Candy that entire song over an entire weekend and still have it here. I knew little about guitar then but after seeing him live, it inspired me to tab the entire thing out in paper and pencil, note for note.

I liked Ridin the storm out played live, probably first I noticed him on radio and always think about Gary on that one. Kevin Cronin I sorta thought he was a bit too cliche. Their later 80’s power ballads not my thing, (I cant fight this feeling type) , prefer Bon Jovi’s I suppose.

Simple tunes, yeah I noticed even it was Ritchie mentioned that and melodies on the Blackmore Story Superblonde posted. You should watch it, really nicely done. Satriani I think mentioned in the Blackmore documentary that about having the right amount of space to let the song “breath”. Satch has great phrasing of course himself.

[rorygfan]

superblonde wrote:

rorygfan wrote:

its all about the song, and really difficult for maintaining interest unless its about practicing old songs I always wanted to learn.

This is really important advice. Somewhere in the older lessons Doug mentions that some people have the “talent of practicing” and they “treat the guitar like a puzzle which needs to be solved”. It does seem to be a talent in itself, to be able to essentially run drills for hours. MAB has his story about practicing a lick 1,000 times in a single day and I’m sure he did that 6-7 days a week, probably still to this day is running hours of drills. Although age isnt mentioned much on the forum, there’s obvious anatomical age related problems with old players trying to drill for 6-10 hours straight even if they want to. Other players seem to have great success playing songs rather than repeating drills. I’m in the middle of the spectrum somewhere, it depends on the drill, some drills I can practice for days or weeks and others seem to be impossible to motivate to do. Probably the important thing is for a player to recognize where they’re at and practice what makes them want to play. So if that means playing old songs, then do that. Do whatever is the most fun, as long as it doesnt devolve into unfocused meandering and noodling like you mention.

I was pondering getting lessons from a young local piano guy and I mentioned a few things about practice, the general advice for guitarists “drill licks and scales while watching a movie” to get 1-2 hrs of repetitive practice done daily. He went back to the standard idea “nah it’s better to spend 15 really good minutes rather than hours repeating something like that.” A day later when I was revisiting this, I realized, eh. He’s a classical piano player, of course he might have that different opinion, because guitar is much harder than even classical piano, lol

If playing songs is the motivation then keep on it.

I will see, need to make time each day. I still need to study for my spanish and history fluency exams next year and still hacking away at it. The part I don’t like are all the rules of accent marks and need to write a stupid essay in an hour about some subject I know little about, or care really that is graded. Also, it must be hand written (I type!) and not all capital letters as never been doing any writing like that 50 years since I wrote in pencil with lower case letters. Haha.

So, guitar need to see if I can get some discipline in. I feel like the finger exercises I have done here and there have helped though.

Repetition, while boring is really required for muscle memory as Doug talks about and mentioned. After not playing, its taking me less time than previous but still feel rusty. I have never had accurate alternate picking so always practicing that.

The age thing sure is bothering my shoulder/rotator cuff on might right arm, which 12 years back injured it playing tennis. No pain issues playing before, but now that is changing. Its only recently bothering me with a lot of pain so my amount of practice time is limited. Especially on my thick acoustic. So, I will play the electric instead. The fingers at least are ok, no arthritis even started getting callous’ back!

For practicing music theory, hearing chord inversions, your singing etc. you should take piano. I actually was thinking about that myself eventually. Not to perform or really master but for the ear training and inversions and how the piano allows them, like the nearly impossible stuff to play on guitar.

[superblonde]

Ive started to enjoy playing piano (though still not good at all, but it is satisfying) because it is sooo ridiculously easy compared to guitar. Only the “two hands playing independently at once” makes it difficult, otherwise, it is very straight forward. the yamaha keyboard i bought, P121, is absolutely phenomenal feel-wise with weight and sounds amazing.

it took me quite a while to sift thru piano books & lessons to find a good modern approach, since I was playing out of the cheeseball ones they use at UCLA “Piano I/II” classes, which have the same yucky folk tunes Row Row Row Your Boat etc (and a backing track CD so that you can play along with a Techno version of Row Row… ya believe it, it is nutty). I’ve completed that piano book 1 & first half of book 2.. contains no theory and the melodies and chords are awkward, nothing like the essentials needed for understanding music at all. Just more “fun for kids” nonsense rather than hardcore learning. A book sold independently online “Fundamental Keys” looks to be far far better than what UC’s use, I finally got a copy but havent been able to set aside the time to really start playing thru page by page- yet. I’d consider taking lessons if I found a good instructor, as it is, the ones I’ve talked to so far do not vibe at all, basically failing the “can you explain why this is taught this way?” test. Hmm, I should look for video piano lessons. Doug has spoiled me such that I only enjoy video lessons, really.. where I can hit rewind, print out the complete lesson tab, and play along in GP, without having to show up at some appointment timeslot to pay by the minute. I guess if I have a motivator for playing, having a local instructor is not part of that, for me. I wonder if maybe I am the opposite. I remember face-to-face instruction from childhood when the instructor would assign something and I’d somehow (purposely?) do everything else except what was assigned. 🤫 I got myself more motivated for piano practice when i found an intermediate version of Oblivion by Piazzolla and could realistically start learning it.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rorygfan]

Traditional music education I guess needs to be updated? Row your boat? Man that sounds 1970’s. Maybe instead of the method, some video tutorials like you say, but ones that show how to play a song. Or parts of a song, that you can easily master, so you develop some skills. Do you have any Rock songs you would want to learn? Not Jerry Lee Lewis pounding a 12 bar, but say Elton John, Billy Joel, Tori Amos, Sheryl Crow, Fiona Apple, etc. Tommy Lee wrote Home Sweet Home, seems simple sounding. Jump by Van Halen, November Rain or say Frankenstein by Edgar Winter. In the 70’s I played with a group whose Keyboard player had a Fender Rhoads plugged into a Fuzz box, and it sounded cool, you might try and experiment like that with effects. I assume your Piano it has audio out, plug it into a Bass/Keyboard amp say a 1. (15”) cab. You know how good tone helps motivate you to play guitar. I took private piano lessons at about 6 or 7. I learned to read music, then played clarinet so lost the bass clef and chord construction. Took electronic music in college on Oberheim and Mini Moog. But I have forgotten most all those skills now years later. As I recall with the older 90’s keyboards I had, they had no feel, they were simply a trigger device. So you are lucky if you can find one inexpensive that plays like a real piano.

Regarding guitar pro, you can get a multi part-track Midi file and import it. I have mentioned that before and solo the piano part, slow it down as needed. I started back in early 2000’s transcribing “Don’t let the sun go down on me” for guitar. No tab, no music book, no video, all by ear. Not easy really w chord gymnastics and stretches I was unable to figure out how to do more than a page after a few days. But a few years ago, I imported the vocal melodies into GP6 and liked how that worked, except the tab was fouled up, with incorrect fret positions. I hope they fixed that in the latest version.

Oh, another thing I used and had fun with is “Band in a box” back in mid 1990’s. Its still advertised, that might be worth buying to learn piano parts from as thats what it was created around. I looked the other night and they now have more genres. You can type in chords and it will create a backing track for you with fills and standard notation like you did with guitar pro. Then export it as a MID file for use with guitar pro.

[rorygfan]

Here is what seems to be a good piano lesson. Not sure if this is too simple for your level, but its detailed and he repeats parts over and over. If I had a piano I would tackle something I like in a popular song like this. Elton has in his early years in 70’s (his best imo prior to Caribou) nice tunes that I liked you might check out like:
burn down the mission, take me to the pilot, tiny dancer, your song, levon, where to now st. Peter, mona lisas and madhatters, border song.

[superblonde]

Amazing short video interview with a young pianist.

Andrew Garrido taught himself piano on a paper keyboard
Lacking the money to buy a piano, 11-year-old Andrew Garrido created his own paper piano to practise on. It got him through his first five grades with distinction.
Now aged 21, the pianist and musician is in his third year at the prestigious Guildhall School of Music and Drama and has played venues across Europe.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/entertainment-arts-50788871/andrew-garrido-taught-himself-piano-on-a-paper-keyboard

A big part of his progress must be due to audiation because of having to practice on paper.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

[rorygfan]

Thats an unusual and nice story. A piece paper only, seems really difficult to imagine. I used to tap on books and tables to practice drums, like most kids at least with that you get sound. I had support to play instruments with lessons that I disliked probably like other kids my age who wanted to play Rock. Band or Orchestra Instruments were not of my or their choosing, so had to wait till I earned the money years later to buy my bass. That is commitment to create a paper keyboard and his mother at least recognized it and supported him. Imagine those whose parents force them to play Football instead against their will. Imagine if more music studies were available in public schools. Blackmore spoke highly of his parents as you recall in that nice documentary you posted. Rory’s Mom took a loan out and bought him that 61’ Strat, the first in Ireland. Brian May’s father and him built his guitar. Parents can be crucial for support. For some reason I suspect that traditional music education was or maybe still is more important in say the UK than the USA? I wonder. Also, the irony is that say the British their influences were from like Elvis and say American country or folk music which was humble beginnings.

I never read about that cultural comparison Say Europe versus USA though, only a theory that US 1960-70 parents wanted financial success and their kids to learn skills to earn a living and perhaps were in the majority of being more pragmatic? Those with money like Andrew said had resources, but I would bet he has more internally created motivation and drive to succeed in mastering the piano than any of his wealthier peers! Julliard and such US iconic arts places have such high competition, and a kind of closed off snobby elitist thing like going to Yale or Harvard about them. I am sure that discourages those C and B students. I never even heard of any US Famous Music Schools until I was an adult. Traditional old world iconic Theaters that are a goal for musicians to play in like the Wein/Vienna Opera house and Royal Albert sorta don’t exist in the USA either. When we went to the Vienna Opera House I was impressed by the crowd of serious audience members in their limos, suits and formal wear. Snobby crowd, but they support the arts as part of the culture. In the US, Football culture and their stadiums fund the Schools. Sure, plenty of Soccer stadiums worldwide though. Btw E Sports according to a friend who is involved with various sporting businesses is growing and huge. Hard to believe that watching other people play video games is an actual highly profitable thing. I guess it’s an age thing with me.

[superblonde]

Yes, I think music education is more important in europe than the u.s. – for example europe has conservatories – but there is a catch. I dont know details but I believe kids get slotted into various lanes in europe early on, and then they study that avenue mostly. whereas in the u.s., the idea is “teach them a bit of everything”, in europe it is more specialized “this is a science kid. this is an arts kid. this is a vocational kid.” Which is Ok except if someone gets put in the wrong avenue, which is probably frequent, and that there is some classist or elitist structure which limits people from choosing what they might really want. Europe also has entire cities or towns devoted as historic landmarks to musicians, like Mozart’s home town, etc, which I’ve heard a few stories that the music is everywhere in that town. So if a kid sees that music is put on a pedestal by an entire town, then it probably seems like a good future aspiration. there is a young 19 yo guy recently in my neighborhood originally from spain, he mentioned he had been at conservatory for 10 years (i.e. like grammar thru high school) but he says they dont learn music like college level u.s. style, so although he had been “studying music for 10 years, it’s not like, I have really been hard core into classical music studies, its more like, we sing simple stuff in a choir” so he couldnt really answer some music theory questions I was asking him, but he wants to go to some LA music school, so he is just starting to learn that now (classical theory etc) and playing some jazz, as a drummer.

The student with the paper piano brings up a practice motivation point I have always had a problem with. It’s a psychology problem, kind of “I shouldnt be practicing now” guilt. Anytime I am practicing, I am stuck with the feeling that I should be doing something more productive, working on something more important like making a living, or doing chores etc. That is pure parental unit programming right there because I was taught that music was not a worthy subject to learn since it doesn’t lead to $$$ / career / stability / etc (even while being sent off to acoustic lessons, which is bizarre). I’m sure this is pretty common. That feeling goes away if I am having sooo much fun playing, like songs or lessons, so I get completely lost in the music. It seems a bit insane to me that a kid would focus on a paper piano if his family is financially strapped (or that a kid would focus on sports, thats the more typical story), since obviously he should be working towards getting out of that situation, i.e. academics or vocational school- fortunately in his case maybe the piano has become that way, because he was so obsessed. His insanity paid off. As it did for metal kids in the 80s. In some cases it works in sports too, that’s the idea of the 10,000 Hour rule, right? A young kid gets under a focused coach who allows them to beat the competition because they put in 500 more hours at an earlier age and each year those extra hours add up until they are unbeatable compared to the competition.

The video game thing, it won’t benefit anyone long-term. The city library here has video games in the teen area. I talked to one library about putting in an electric piano (w/ headphones) for kids to play instead. They thought it was a neat idea (given that the librarian was a 60 year old woman…who appreciated the idea of playing a piano) but there just isn’t the push or interest for it. I joked to a friend who has a 5 year old and an 8 year old, who often plays video games, buys all the consoles xbox playstation PC etc, that if I had better advising throughout my school years that there were better things to do than video games which I could accomplish instead, that I’d have a Ph. D. right now instead of having spent 1000’s of hours finishing Minecraft or whatever. I like the idea of turning music study into a game and often do that. It is called gamification, there is a new psychology branch devoted to studying applying the fun of game-playing into other areas like school homework drills, or fitbit style metrics for health. That’s why I post things like my practice graphs because it’s always a new high score for the guitar game.

I'm an intermediate student of Metal Method. I play seitannic heavy metal. All Kale Seitan! ♯ ♮ ♭ ø ° Δ ♩ ♪ ♫ ♬
And on the Seventh Day, Mustaine said: ∇ ⨯ E = - ∂B / ∂t ; and there was Thrash; and it had a ♭3; and it was good.

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