A lesson on how to practice music, classical guitar, and organize your practice session – I receive regular emails from my followers asking how they should organize their practice session so here’s a lesson on how to practice and learn…
Annie Bosler and Don Greene explain how practice affects the inner workings of our brains.Lesson by Annie Bosler and Don Greene, animation by Martina Meštrović. A general overall view of practice. Pretty common info but good reminders and some case…
Nice article on practicing slowly with some great pros and cons via this article from The Strad . Although this is a simple piece of advice, on a more broad scale the more guitarists listen to the advice of the…
Nice article about practicing via Stephen Aron Guitar Studio. He gives us context about practicing and also outlines what types of things make up a balanced practice session. Here is the intro paragraph: Serious students of the guitar generally regard…
Classical Guitarist Nina Fourie-Gouws, based out of South Africa, has a new blog (with a great title!), check it out: p i m a DONNA | Classical Guitar Blog. Her first blog post is titled “Becoming your own teacher – Part…
As guitarist Scott Tennant states in his technique book “there’s no substitute for preparation.” That is true, you certainly don’t want to perform something you haven’t practiced well. The more you prepare the better the performance will go. However, there’s more…
Ideas on practicing music with a focus on quality. This not a ‘how to practice’ post but really just a reminder to students about the importance of quality in your practice sessions. Quality vs Quantity As I’ve said in other…
Problem: Even when students practice efficiently there is still the possibility that they are not practicing well. Here’s an example: Brad practices the most difficult sections of his music during his daily practice session (this is good). He practices the difficult…
As a follow up to last week’s review of Ricardo Iznaola’s On Practicing: A manual for students of guitar performance, I came across a checklist including a statement called “Emotional Detachment”. Here is what Iznaola states: a. Emotional Detachment from the material being…
On Practicing: A Manual for Students of Guitar Performance by Ricardo Iznaola – This small manual is great for any musician as there is little reference to guitar specifically. Most of the references are actually to violin and piano pedagogy…
One of the most important lessons a student can learn is that practicing music is a problem solving experience. I read an article a few years back by classical guitarist and educator Scott Tennant that clearly defined the difference between playing…
One of the biggest problems with music education these days is that many students are practicing scales in the same way, everyday…forever. For example, let’s say a teacher is using the Canadian Royal Conservatory of Music (RCM) exams as a…