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MOVING IN
THE DIRECTION OF SKILL
By Jamie Andreas (www.guitarprinciples.com)
I am fond of
saying, to others and to myself, one of my guiding principles of life
and guitar: "the most important thing in life is knowing what you want,
and the second most important thing is knowing whether you are getting
it". You may dispute with me about whether or not this is of primary
importance in life, but, take my word for it, it IS of primary importance
in playing the guitar.
The guitar student is faced with many challenges, and plagued by many
doubts. One of these challenges is "how to make progress, real progress,
in my abilities as a player", and one of the doubts is "am I making
any progress in my abilities as a player" (we understand this to mean
"am I creating vertical growth, or only horizontal growth"). We cannot
answer this question about whether we are getting what we want, growth
in our abilities as players, unless we understand what it is we really
want.
How can we judge our progress, how can we asses our ability to create
growth in our abilities, which also means assessing the quality of our
practice? What is it we should be looking for? I once saw a master violin
teacher helping a student with a difficult passage. She took the students
fingers as they were on the fingerboard and said "let's see if we can
make this easier". There is much to learn from this approach. Master
players know that it is very difficult to play badly, and it is very
easy to play well! Of course, we are being a bit glib here. It means
that when you see a bad player, you see someone putting out a lot of
effort for very little result, and when you see a good player, you see
someone getting a lot of results for little effort. However, it can
take a lot of effort to get to the point of playing with little effort!
Real progress will always carry this sign, it will always have this
characteristic; what felt difficult will feel easier, if not right away,
then over time. The essential point to grasp is this: we know we are
making progress if we can honestly see and feel that the things that
once seemed difficult are becoming easy, and of course, sounding better.
This is what we always want to see, at any point in our development.
I call it "moving in the direction of skill". Now, let us look a bit
more deeply into this concept.
What is skill? Skill is the ability to reconcile opposing dynamics toward
achievement of a purpose.
Now, think about that very intensely, now and for a while after. "The
reconciliation of opposing dynamics", what does that mean? Well, think
of a baby trying to stand up for the first time. He or she stands up
on little wobbly legs, encounters the force of gravity, takes a step
and falls over! With practice, the opposing forces of muscle contraction
are reconciled with the force of gravity, by the intention to stand
upright, and the goal of that intention is achieved, the baby can stand
up! On to the next challenge! Skill has developed, the ability to reconcile
opposing forces, or dynamics, toward achievement of a purpose.
This is what we are looking for as guitar students. And yes, as we develop
skill, as we learn to reconcile opposing dynamics, achieving our purposes
(playing our music) not only becomes possible, it becomes easier. And
so, this is the first criteria for assessing growth; are we becoming
increasingly able to achieve our purposes as guitar players? For guitar
players, this simply means, "can I make those notes I am supposed to
make!?
If we do not find ourselves, over time, being able to do things we could
not do before, we are not moving in the direction of skill. We are not
learning to reconcile the opposing dynamics and conditions which comprise
the process of playing the guitar. And that is most likely because we
don't even have a clue as to what those opposing forces and dynamics
are, anyway! Of course, that is where The Principles come in, because
they make us aware of those dynamics and conditions, and even better,
they tell us how to reconcile them!
Many guitar players will play for years and never move in the direction
of skill. They may have attained a certain level of skill, as much as
their natural talent has afforded them, but they do not know how to
capitalize on that talent, extend it, and keep extending it. In fact,
many players do not even know there is such a thing as actually getting
better. They kind of assume that everyone just picks up the guitar and
does what they can, and some can do more than others, and that is that.
They don't really believe that there is "mobility" in the class system
of guitar players. They have a "feudal" mentality about it; some people
are born "peasants" and some are born "nobles". Well, to some extent
that is true. The peasant WILL stay a peasant, unless he has access
to education, that is.
Once the guitar peasant is able to have access to REAL education on
playing guitar, they find the same thing the rising middle class discovered
in medieval times: "that duke in the castle isn't really any better
than me, they were just luckier, they had access to education, and leisure
time to pursue it, that I didn't have. Now that I have studied at the
university for 4 years, I can read and write too. I thought you had
to be a genius to do that"!
And in the world of guitar education, it seems this feudal system is
maintained by those "in power" just as it was in medieval times, and
in the same way. I was reading something the other day by a very accomplished
player and teacher. He was remarking how sad and strange it is that
the great players and teachers seem to zealously guard the "secrets"
of their great playing, they don't want anyone else discovering how
they accomplish the "miracles" they perform on their instrument. The
great Paganini, who astounded Europe with his unprecedented virtuosity
on the violin, would quickly gather up all his music from the orchestra
immediately after a concert, lest anyone study his music and discover
any of his playing secrets! (Of course, today the "secrets" are out,
and any properly trained violinist can play Paganini.)
So, the illusion that "class mobility" is not possible for everyone
is carefully maintained by those who have an interest in having it believed.
Well, anyone familiar with GuitarPrinciples knows that The Principles
are the great equalizer. They are the educational resource that make
it possible for any guitar peasant to become a guitar King or Queen.
They make it possible for anyone to move in the direction of skill,
and keep moving. Of course, that doesn't mean there is not a lot of
work involved. It took a lot of work for a King to build his castle
too!
No matter where you presently are located in your guitar playing abilities,
it is possible for you to move in the direction of skill. However, there
are a few important considerations involved.
First, the exact steps for YOU to take may be unique. They may not be
the same as anyone else's steps, and this is especially true if we have
been playing for awhile. That is because we are all "put together" differently
to begin with, and as we develop (or don't develop) we form complex
conditions as regards our playing mechanism that may be very unique
to ourselves. For us, moving in the direction of skill may require a
unique combination of approaches, each one focusing on a particular
obstacle. In addition, we may need to focus on one obstacle, improve
or eliminate it, and then focus on another, then another, in a particular
sequence. It is very much like untying a knot. Pull on the wrong thread
and you make the knot tighter. Locate just the right thread, loosen
it a little, and then switch to another, loosen it, then go back to
the first, and viola!, we begin to unravel the knot.
I have never seen a "knot" that can't be untied, that cannot be worked
on and the loosening process begun. Any time we become aware that we
are not moving in the direction of skill, any time our "knots" are not
loosening, we must conclude that there are dynamics and conditions involved
in the structure and maintenance of that knot that we are not aware
of, and/or that we do not know how to interact with, manipulate, and
reconcile. We cannot find that next right thread to grab hold of and
loosen, or, we do not know how to work with it to "loosen" it, and begin
the process of untying the knot.
We may have a problem playing fast scales. The problem may be a combination
of left hand finger tension and/or form, coupled with pick hand flaws
(weakness or tension), together with insufficient mental conception
of the rhythm itself. It takes constant examination, analytical thought,
and good old trial and error to unravel such a knot in our technique.
But it is always possible.
A second consideration is that the initial necessary steps toward moving
in the direction of skill may not be recognizable as such to anyone
but the experienced and skilled teacher. They may not even feel comfortable,
in fact, they may be quite uncomfortable. For instance, I will often
see or sense something wrong in a student’s left hand position and functioning,
and I will grab their hand and elbow while it is playing, and force
it to maintain a particular position while the fingers move. I will
be preventing a movement of the shoulder or arm which I know is a less
skilled, and compensatory reaction to a difficulty the hand is experiencing.
This forces the fingers to make efforts they would not otherwise make,
and those efforts are what is necessary in order to promote new muscle
or ligament development, and so have a new skill emerge. It is not comfortable
in the beginning, and it is not obvious, and so the student would not
likely discover it on their own. Of course, the superiority of it will
be evident very soon, sometimes immediately. The student will find themselves
with a new ability to reconcile opposing dynamics that could not be
reconciled before, and so be able to achieve purposes they could not
achieve before.
I have the constant experience of meeting students who have been spending
lots of time and lots of money sitting in front of guitar teachers with
their "knots" clearly displayed, and much to the students growing uneasiness,
those knots just keep getting tighter! It is a sad fact that many guitar
teachers simply do not know how to move the student in the direction
of skill. Instead, when the knot will not loosen, the teacher plays
the "shell game" with the student. In other words, you will be working
on something, some piece or some solo, and you will be obviously unable
to do or improve some part of it, and after awhile, the teacher will
merely suggest that you begin working on something else! So, instead
of that nasty thing you are making no progress with, you find a new
song to learn suddenly appearing on the music stand. Now, you can busy
yourself with that, until you hit the parts you can't handle in that
piece, at which point another "switch" will take place, and the illusion
of "movement" can be maintained in lessons (for as long as the student
can stand it, or will put up with it). This is not moving in the direction
of skill; this is "moving in the direction of despair"!
Instead of our obstacles becoming proof of our incompetence, and points
of departure for new excursions into the direction of despair, we can
learn to use each obstacle as a new opportunity to move in the direction
of skill. The way to do this is continually practice what I have described
as "discovering our discomfort". The most overlooked aspect of playing
the guitar is also its most fundamental aspect: it is a physical process
of bodily movement. Music listeners have the luxury of relating to music
on the purely sensual level, the purely artistic or even spiritual level.
Music players should do this too of course, but in addition, they must
pay their dues to the purely physical aspect of playing. We are the
ones who interact with that purely physical thing we call "our guitar"
to make the music, and we do so with our physical selves. All players
must respect this fact, and also respect the fact that during their
entire playing lives they will be training and maintaining that incredibly
complex physical mechanism used to create music.
The surest, and the earliest sign that we are moving away from the direction
of skill is our perception of physical discomfort during practice and
playing. Most people have the all too common and all too human response
to discomfort: they block it from awareness. We must do the opposite.
We must embrace our discomfort, we must "surround the situation" by
increasing our awareness and attention, and coupled with our accumulated
understanding of the dynamics of playing and correct practice approach,
we can use that perception of discomfort as a starting point and springboard
for a new excursion in the direction of skill.
A final consideration for those wishing to move powerfully in the direction
of skill is this: improvement of fundamental skills does not occur through
the process of repetition of procedures, it comes from the continual
upgrading of procedures. This is a finding reported in scientific studies
of those individuals who have acquired "expert performance" abilities.
Here is a quote from "Expert Performance: It's Structure and Acquisition"
by Erickson and Charness (first appearing in American Psychologist,
Aug. 1994)
"Hence, individuals do not achieve expert performance by gradually refining
and extrapolating the performance they exhibited before starting to
practice but instead by restructuring the performance and acquiring
new methods and skills. In the final section, we show that individuals
improve their performance and attain an expert level, not as an automatic
consequence of more experience with an activity but rather through structured
learning and effortful adaptation."
This understanding is of primary importance. It simply means that the
road to mastery or any amount of increased skill lies not in quantity
of practice as a first consideration. It lies in the constant improvement
of the way we go about doing things. The key phrases here are "structured
learning" and "effortful adaptation". We must be fundamentally changing
and improving as time goes by. This is why the Principled Player is
always practicing with intense attention, and always keeping Beginners
Mind. There must always be a place in us that is open, so that something
new can enter. That "something new" is our key to improvement, and the
vehicle that moves us in the direction of skill.
Does everyone NEED to be moving in the direction of skill? Of course
not, unless you are a beginner. If you have NO skill, you need some
before you can even play. Every baby must learn to walk, but does not
need to grow up to be an Olympic athlete. As a guitarist, you can stop
at any point in your development, and sit with your guitar for the rest
of your life and play your little heart out! But, many of us do seemed
to be obsessed with playing like "the masters", and if that is YOUR
story, if that is YOUR path, well, then, now you know the right direction
in which to point yourself. Keep The Principles in mind, and the wind
will be always at your back.
Copyright 2003 Jamie Andreas. www.guitarprinciples.com
Jamie Andreas
Jamie's provocative
writings examine all aspects of becoming a true musician…the technical/physical,
mental, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. Guitar virtuoso, recording
artist, composer, and teacher of 30 years, Jamie is recognized by music
experts around the globe for her major contribution to the advancement
of guitar education. Her method book, "The Principles Of Correct Practice
For Guitar" (1999) continues to bring the highest acclaim, world renowned
as "The International Bible For Guitarists", and the "Holy Grail Of
Guitar Books." With a straight forward writing style, her tried and
true, result-oriented guitar book powerfully reveals the correct practice
methods that no other book has revealed…taking the student from the
beginning stages all the way to the highest levels of virtuosity. Jamie
is already familiar to aspiring guitar players, as her wisdom is present
throughout the Web on all major guitar sites, including her own.
Visit: www.guitarprinciples.com
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