The Steel Guitar Forum

Hi Folks,

I don't know about you all ("all y'all"), but my right hand goes to cr@p if I don't play every day. So I've had to come up with a daily practice regimen that gets me at least one hour of picking in a day. I'm posting here because, as a day jobber, I used to get home and feel like there was no way I could sit down and concentrate on practicing steel guitar after a day of work. However, I've found that if I wait until after I've showered, relaxed a bit and eaten dinner, I'm in a frame of mind where I can put in at least an hour right before bed.

I typically play unplugged and work on right hand picking drills --string groups, cross-picking, pick blocking, palm blocking --stuff that's not really "music" per se. To keep from looking at my picking hand (which is one of my bad habits) and to to break up the tedium of these non-musical drills, I watch History Channel or Animal Planet! I really feel like my picking hand is getting stronger and more reliable. Then on the weekends, and at rehearsals & gigs, I get the opportunity to plug in and put it all together.

For me, the right hand is the toughest part of playing the steel guitar. So I just wanted to share this little right hand practice trick with other Forumites out there who might work full-time at a day job and might, like me, be intrinsically lazy about putting in practice time. The key is making a habit out of practicing. And for me, that was not possible until I realized that I had to let myself relax at the end of a work day before I could apply myself to the guitar.

Hope this helps someone out there. I'd like to hear about the ways other Forumites fit practice into their day.

-GV<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Greg Vincent on 10 June 2005 at 09:04 AM.]</p></FONT><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Greg Vincent on 10 June 2005 at 09:06 AM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>my right hand goes to cr@p if I don't play every day</SMALL>

Try these.
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=19269&item=5588112719&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Ron

Practice?.....I think I've heard of it before, but never tried it!

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Zum U-12 w/True Tone pickup thru a Nashville 112

Strats thru a VHT Pitbull

Band Pics
http://community.webshots.com/album/176544894AuXSmi

"To keep from looking at my picking hand (which is one of my bad habits) and to to break up the tedium of these non-musical drills, I watch History Channel or Animal Planet!"

It seems to me you are diluting your attention by watching TV. In order for practice to be maximally effective, full attention is necessary. Here is a quote that illustrates what I mean:

The saying "practice makes perfect" is not true in itself. One may practice the wrong way of doing a thing more easily than the right way because the class of "wrong ways" has in general more members than the class of "right ways." Practice with full awareness of the "right" way, together with full awareness of one's performance, permits choice to influence the physical processes involved, leading to continual improvement. One has only to observe one of the truly great in the arts, say a concert pianist, to see how far above usual performance this practice with keen awareness can carry one.

If your goal is simply to exercise your right hand, I suppose it doesn't matter, but that doesn't sound like the case.

Just a thought.
Cheers,
Alan Shank

Good on ya, Greg. Between the demanding day job, the farm, the 1yr old son, the pregnant wife, and gigs (on bass), I feel lucky when I can sit at the steel once a week.

I have to agree with Alan. If you aren't giving it your full attention you are not getting everything out of the time you are spending. And may even be developing bad habits.

Kill the TV and give your guitar the attention it deserves.

Todd

Greg,

NO! Kill the guitar and give the TV the attention it deserves! JUST KIDDING!

But really, if what you're doing works, why give it up? I think practicing picking for an hour a day is commendable, no matter what you're watching on TV. I'd just pick a different program to watch, like maybe Cold Case Files. I think I'll try it, then I can kill two birds with one stone too.

Though I see the argument against the TV while practicing, I often do like Greg. I think I can get more practice in sometimes if I take my nose off the grindstone every couple of minutes and watch something intresting be it a basketball game , history channel, whatever. Other wise, often I can "burn out" pretty fast. I can focus on the steel and shut out the TV at will, Jim

Jim, that's what I'm talkin' 'bout --I'd simply go nuts listening to those picking drills over & over & over without something else going on. I can still hear and feel if I'm striking each string correctly.

Another consideration: I live in an apartment building and I don't want to subject my neighbors to a daily dose of me practicing. So I just stay unplugged during the week and focus on right hand drills --there is more than enough work for me to do in that department! -GV

I play every day. Somedays I'll spend a total of a couple of hours in practice time. The way I do it is I play every thing I know and then go back and work on technique with each song. Practicing for smoothness. Then once thats done I'll try to find some new song to play. As the list gets longer I have to leave some stuff out but I still work on things pretty hard. Often times I'll work for maybe 15-30 minutes and then leave the guitar to come back later on and do it again. Slowly but surely I'm gaining on things.

Rick

i use to practice religiously at least an hour aday..it made me, nervous, irritable,grouchy, i found myself kicking the dog, yelling at the neighbor kids to get off my grass...now i practice when the mood hits me...but i spend much longer at it, and i feel better about it..and i make sure i treat myself to at least one of Bobbe Seymours play-along tracks at the end of each practice set..what can i say..it works for me!

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Whitney Single 12 8FL & 5 KN,keyless, dual changers Extended C6th, Webb Amp, Line6 PodXT, Goodrich Curly Chalker Volume Pedal, Match Bro, BJS Bar..I was keyless....when keyless wasn't cool....

That's pretty much what I do. I'll work on steel for about 30 minutes straight, then go take a 15 minute break, then go back to it.

Alot of times during the break, I'll pick my Tele and work on some lead stuff, or sometimes I'll walk over to the computer and check out what the fellas are saying on The Steel Guitar Forum, or mow the lawn or do stuff around the house. I have a variety of things that I like to do to re-boot my mind

I've been able to practice for 4-6 hours like that, because breaking it up seems to keep me fresh when I get back to it. It seems to be a system that works good for me.

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:</font><HR><SMALL>Originally by George Redmon
and i make sure i treat myself to at least one of Bobbe Seymours play-along tracks at the end of each practice set</SMALL><HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

What are those? I've been using the Jamey Aebersold play-a-long CD's for a long time. Are these specifically for country or something? Where to get them?

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Terje Larson on 10 June 2005 at 09:37 PM.]</p></FONT>

Breaking it up is a good idea. Going with what interests you the most isn't a bad one either. It takes a lot of patience though cause with that method you might not get around to the things you think you ought to practice for a long time. Might be worth it though cause if you only play what really interests you at the time you will get much more out of it. And if you practice things that you think you ought to practice you might set yourself up for a non-learning practice session.

Next to hitting your grandmother over the head with a shovel, playing a musical instrument with less than 100% concentration is just about the worst thing you can do. There are some very constructive posts in this thread,for instance returning to practice at frequent intervals. Research has shown that when we learn something we will forget some of it over the next 24 hours, and that most of this forgetting is done in the first few hours. The ideal therefore is to return and reinforce what we have learned before we forget.
The idea that learning to play an instrument has to involve long periods of mindless boring repition has been dead and buried for decades, but it still keeps resurfacing.

As far as playing less exciting stuff, like scales, picking & blocking exercises. I'm applying something that my fiddle teacher taught my when I was knee high to a grasshopper. First thing I do when I start practicing for the day is to nail that stuff for at least the first two blocks of practice.

So I spend about 30 minutes (times 2) working on just those types of things. It's a motivator because I know that I'm fixing to get into playing some things I'm excited about right after that.

Another thing that I didn't mention in my last post, is that lately I'm finding that after I'm done with work in the evenings, I'm completely brain-fried. We're short-staffed now, so I'm having to do the work of two other positions while we're interviewing folks to fill the vacancies. The result is that the quality of my practice in the evenings is not good. I can hardly stay awake.

At first I was pissed about this, but I decided to make this the impetus for positive change. So I started waking up in the mornings alot earlier, which allows me to do the most important part of my practicing. first thing in the morning. I tell you what, after I've had two cups of coffee, some breakfast and a little dip of snuff, I'm ready to play!!

Hi Terje;
Hit on Bobbe Seymours site, he has the original sound tracks to alot of the stuff he put out, and very reasonable as well...i think if you look in the Forum Store, you can find some stuff to...lets face it unless you live in a commune, we don't have a band around all the time, so these are really great...Also Try some of Jeffs stuff, Herby Wallace has some out.,..just gotta kinda look around. I go in my music room, fire up the highs, mids and subs..and just whail...i mean so the neighbors can hear it crank....Gotta Love It!

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Whitney Single 12 8FL & 5 KN,keyless, dual changers Extended C6th, Webb Amp, Line6 PodXT, Goodrich Curly Chalker Volume Pedal, Match Bro, BJS Bar..I was keyless....when keyless wasn't cool....

every morning, early before I turn on the PC's for work. 6:00 ish..

I play the same stuff over and over and over for sometimes an hour...

I also make simple practice tracks of tunes we play in the band and I leave room for at least 3 solo's back to back..which allows me to play the exact same phrases or stretching into different phrases without interrupting the flow so to speak....

over and over and over..

discipline..over and over and over...

learnin where the notes and phrases are is the simple part..


it's the execution that will kill ya .....

t<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Tony Prior on 12 June 2005 at 02:21 AM.]</p></FONT>

daily practice?

first of all,if you have a day job you will never get to the point or be as good as you would be if you play professionaly.So,if you realy like playing and want to get all you can out of your body and brain, get on the road with a busy road band.Playing 5-6 nites a week for 4-5 hours will do a miracle for your playing.In a 2-3 years you will play the way you never tought was possible.I don`t practice,don`t have time,too tired and if I ever get in the road band again it will take me few months and I`ll be back where I was when I quit.To me,there is no point to practice if someone doesn`t play.Unles you enjoy practicing.I personaly hate it.Playing by myself same stuff over and over again is not what I consider fun,but work.If I feel like playing I sit behind guitar and play,but as soon as that turns into practice (work) I turn my amp off,sit on my Kawasaki and go for a ride have some fun.If it`s not raining of course.

Db

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"Promat"
~when tone matters~
http://hometown.aol.com/damirzanne2/PROMAT.html

Damir..you are correct..

I practice over and over and over..the same stuff ..and it is work...

but on the gig it turns to fun because the consistent work allows me to play different...

We're all different..thank God for that..I find the time to practice..I have no plans or desire to go out on the road..like most here I also have a long time full time job..and play a couple of weekends/month..
but I still wanna' get better regardless..or at least make the effort ...


t

Damir and Tony

You are "RIGHT ON"

Greg, It really caught my eye when I read that you practice unplugged. I will be the last one to tell anyone what works best for them, but in my opinion, the right hand has so much to do with the sound you produce that I think a person should listen to what they are playing. Playing notes and runs is worthless unless it sounds good. I have heard guys who could play a lot of "stuff" but sounded like ****. If you listen as you practice, you can accomplish the best of both worlds.............. JD

One of the features of the NV-112 amps is you can plug your headphones into it and play. Unless I'm at home alone that's usually what I do. A lot the times whenever I do practice is usually in the early morning hours. I don't usually play my guitar I have in my office at home more than 30 minutes at a time. With me, I can enjoy playing it a little and get up and do something else.

Geroge Redmon, thanks for the tips, I'll check it out.

A thought on practicing scales and other technical stuff. In his book The Jazz Theory Book Mark Levine says something that righs very true to me and that is always make music when you play, even if you're "only" playing scales. Otherwise you run the risk of practicing something in a mechanical manner and you'll end up sounding that way when you go out and want to play music. We've all heard those players.

There are benefits of practicing purely technical things in a "non-musical manner", meaning there are things that are worth focusing on without at the same time attempting to make it sound great. But now we're talking about the physical sensation and your awareness of that. And when you practice these things you need to really focus.

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If you can't hear the others you're too loud, if you can't hear yourself you've gone deaf<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Terje Larson on 13 June 2005 at 10:55 AM.]</p></FONT>

<SMALL>Practice?.....I think I've heard of it before, but never tried it!</SMALL>

Ah, but have you ever stepped in it? Do that, and all is understood!<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by James Cann on 13 June 2005 at 04:51 PM.]</p></FONT>