How to Avoid Boredom??

[cdikland]

I find that warm-up exercises and exercises in general, despite their importance, are mostly quite boring. I quickly lose concentration and do not spend near enough time on any of them. I would like to hear from others on what exercises they do each day, for how long and how they keep them interesting enough so as not to lose concentration.

[Heong Ng]

I play scales and appregios for warm-up exercises for about 1/2 hr everyday (I am still a beginner). It's a good way to stretch the muscles.

Well...I find it boring too doing warm-up's.

Here's how I motivate myself to make it interesting:

- listen to some classical guitar pieces before every practice (this will give me some inspiration)
- write down what I want to achieve after each practice.

[M. Stephenson]

I like to find pieces of songs that incorporate techniques on which I want to practice.

Simple example are to use part of RDLA to practice tremolo technique, or a run from a flamenco piece instead of scales.

Another way to keep from getting bores is to challenge yourself. For example, how fast can you play with a metronome and still maintain accuracy and clarity? That is always a challenge for me.

When I loose interest in a particuler technique, song or excersise then I move on to something more enjoyable.

To me that is the bottom line - doing what I find enjoyable. Often this means practicing stupid slow so that I can perfect subtle movements of my fingers, which at times I find very challenging and enjoyable.

[guitarplayer12217]

Lately ive been playing villa-lobos's etude no. 1 for a warm-up. pretty simple when u get the hand movement and such. fun to play to.

[justinG]

in addition to these great suggestions, i keep em interesting by seeing how long i can do some of them without mistakes, and to see my limits of muscle exertion in the hand, by just keeping on playing through the burn in my left hand. i also try and change my tone, crecsendo (sp.) and keep scales and exercises interesting. i do this for about a half hour, or until my hand is warmed up.

justinG

[dap22]

Hi,
JustinG-Do you have any friends who play classical guitar who live near you? Doing technique with them would be great. A graduate student from the University of Arizona who is now getting his Masters Degree in guitar performance here at the University of Akron has started morning technique warm ups. At first I found technique to be sooooo dull, but after attending the morning technique sessions (they go from 7:00-8:30 AM monday-friday) and being able to practice technique with a friend, it really helped a lot. Not only is it more fun, but you have someone else there to watch your hands and movements to make sure you are doing them properly. After about a month of going to these, I have found doing technique to be much more bareable. While I still go to the morning technique sessions, I also practice technique on my own.
Technique excercises I do are scale excersices (similar to those in Pumping Nylon) finger independence (from Carlevaro) multiple slur studies, tremolo (practice in triplets with the accent on the triples, so after 4 counts you will have accented each finger in a different run, P, a, m, I, p, a, M, i, p, A, m, i, P, a, m, I, etc...the capital letters represent the accents.) And then just a bunch of other excercises, including multiple arpeggio patterns accenting the thumb on different beats, rest stroke, free stroke, etc.
Yes, technique can be dull lots of the time, but it is very rewarding to know that it is making you a better player. Doing technique will also help you learn pieces faster, and learn the relation of notes on the fretboard faster.

guitarplayer12217-you must be a monster! Its crazy that you do villa-lobos's etude no. 1 for warm-up! WOW! I don't know how helpful this would be, but its not an easy piece to do well up to speed (as fast as Barrueco or even Fabio Zanon) with all the little important things, such as not squeaking when shifting, clean shifts, not letting any notes be muted by changing positions, etc. There is a lot going on in this, but it would be helpful to do more arpeggio excerscises than just the one pattern of Villa-Lobos etude 1. Check out the arpeggio pattern in the C section of Villa-Lobos etud 11, I love it, its great! Lots of things giong on in etude 11...balance of melody and bass, shifting, arpeggio, tone, etc. What finger pattern are you using in villa-lobos etude #1?
At first I was doing P-I-P-I-P-M-I-A-M-A-I-M-P-I-P-I, but a faster way of doing it is P-I-P-I-P-I-P-M-I-M-P-I-P-I-P-I, although, for a while I was using both, as it is a arpeggio study only, and therefore, it is good to be able to do it in more than one form....but remember thats all it is, an arpeggio study (an amazing on though) you also gotta warm up the left hand though! The only action the left hand sees is the sequence of 9 descending slurs (phew, that can be tough!) Do you do any other 'warm-up'?
Due to their technical difficulty, I always see the VL Etudes as just that...Studies...concert studies, not warm ups! Yikes! You must be shredding like mad on the axe!

Justin-Keep at it, technique excercises, done well, will only help make you a better player. Sure, maybe they aren't as fun as playing something by Tarrega, or Barrios, or Morel, or anything of that calibre, however, do remember, there is a difference between playing and practicing!

Best of luck man, keep it up!

Doug

[dap22]

I realize i forgot to mention an important point about the VL Etude #1, and this being a topic about technique, I though I might remind you...
guitarplayer12217...do NOT make a hand movement out of the arpeggio etude. this somewhat defeats the purpose of it being and arpeggio study..i mean, sure, an arpeggio is an arpeggio regardless of it being played well or poorly, but since we are classical guitarists, and technique is the name of our game, it would be a shame to have a bouncing right hand! Keep it static, sure, you are doing arpeggios at extremely fast speeds on every string of the guitar in a pattern, so to get from the lowest strings to the highest with P and I it requires some shifting of the hand....but do not make a movement of this! It is your fingers that do the walking, not the hand!

Doug.

[Libre]

I'm about to rock the boat here, but to tell you the truth I don't see any great value in lengthy technique practice. Just a 5-10 min (maximum) warm up - if THAT much - is all the technique exercise I ever do. I realized long ago that scales, stretches, tremolos, arpeggios etc are all vital elements to the technique - but as others have said, you can practice those techniques by breaking them out of the pieces you are learning.
I don't say that there is zilcho value in doing scales. But when I was a beginner, (like-33 years ago) and I decided to advance to concert level (I did) I was determined to play EVERY major and minor diatonic scale with EVERY finger combination EVERY day. And that was just the scale work. Then the arpeggions and tremolos, and so on. Eventually i realized that practicing something I wanted to play (like Bach's Lute Suites) would get me there faster than practicing something else that was SUPPOSED to get me there (like isolated scales). It's like studying Latin when you really want to learn Spanish. Or like studying meteorology when you want to learn sailing. Not without value, but why not just concentrate directly on what you really want to do? And don't believe that just because a little of something is good, then a lot of something must be much better. If you doubt that, just be careful next time you are taking aspirin.
Also there is a real danger of overstressing the muscles and connective tissue in the hands by relentlessly pumping nylon. Also, I am not that convinced that isolated technique practice translates to better technique in the context of the pieces they are in. In fact, I have sometimes experienced the opposite. And finally, there is the very real danger of losing interest in the whole process because of ... BOREDOM.
So.
That's me.

[daniel711]

I agree with Libre's philosophy with one caveat - When we play pieces we often compromise perfect technique to "go for the music". In other words, if we need to collapse our wrist, or move the thumb out of position, in order to get the music out, we go for it. And we should.. So practicing technique is our (my) only opportunity to concentrate only on perfect technique, with no compromising. I find value in this, but don't over do it either. I play 3 Segovia scales, rest and free, all combos, and 4 slur exercises in various positions, about 20-30 minutes total.

[knucklebrain1970]

Hey guys is an appreggio basically a chord like an Am but you alternate between I and M going up and down the chord?

Sucks that I can play whole songs, just about done with El Negrito which I guess is not a beginner piece, but I don't know what an appreggio is. :lol:

Kevin

[daniel711]

Arpeggio is simply playing the notes in a chord separately as opposed to simultaneously...

[dap22]

Hey Kevin,
All an arpeggio is, is a sequential pattern that in event makes up a chord. For example, instead of struming and E minor, if you were to play each note individually in a pattern, that is an arpeggio. There are tons of arpeggio patters, an arpeggio isn't strict to playing only one note at a time either, and there isn't a 'specific' pattern that defines an arpeggio...the arpeggios in villa-lobos etude 1 are different from those in etude 11 which are different than those in his prelude #2, which are different than those in prelude #4, which are different than those at the end of Mazurka-Choro (first movement from suite populaire bresilene>)...all different patters, different notes...yet still arpeggios. I hope you understand what I mean by this.
Libre-You do make a good point, but remember, you are speaking from 33 years after you began playing guitar. Your fingers have been trained and developed. So after 33 years of playing when you have played huge piece, maybe those such as works by Barrios, Rodrigo, Regondi, Paganini, Arcas, Bach, etc...it would eb expected that you have trained your fingers in all the necessarry techniques. I do beg you not to tell what you posted to someone begginning the guitar though. It is one thing to learn a technique for a piece, and something totally different than learn a technique FROM a piece. For begginers and those still developing technique, it is absolutely essential to teach technique. Playing rest strokes lightly and fast isn't something learned from playing Bach's partitta BWV 1006...you get what I mean? If you learn a technique from a piece, you will be unable to apply it to another piece. Don't believe me? Here is proof. play Villa-Lobos prelude #2 and then etude #7...they are both in the same key, and use the exact same scale and fingering (one is ascending, the etude is descending) and they both should be used with light rest stroks at fast speed...being able to do the scaled rest strok in prelude #2 is no guarantee that you can immediate move on to the scale in etude #7. I am certainly a living example of that, and not only is it me...it is everybody else who has played prelude 2 and hasn't advanced up to etude #7 yet.
Ok, fine, you are still not convinced...other example: Just because you can hammer out all of the scales (rest stroke in this example) in a Bach cello suite, lets just say #1, doesn't even come close to being able to hammer out the two rest stroke scales in Tarregas Capriccio Arabe.
Ok, you are still not convinced...lets do somethign more relevant. Just because you can do the arpeggio do VL prelude 2 doesn't prepare you for the arpeggio in VL etude 1.

My point is that in the developmental stages, which last for many years of intense practice, technique is essential, after that, once it has been learned and is maintened, you most likely don't need to continue doing the same excercises. Lets use a professional well known name as proof. Read some recent review in which Scott Tennant talks about how he practices. He says he spends only 2 weeks out of the year doing technique, after that, he doesn't do it nearly as much, mostly works on pieces. However, he says when he was in college and even for years after that, he was a technique freak and practiced it religiously daily.
There you have it. In the developmental stages, technique is required. If you can't play like Scott Tennant, and are not doing technique excercises...its time to re-evaluate why again you are 'playing' guitar...you probably should be practicing instead. If you can play like Scott Tennant, don't worry about practicing technique...he doesn't anymore...but don't forget, at one point he did.
Yes, technique can be boring some times, but in teh DEVELOPMENTAL stages, it is required and essential to being a strong player. If you have already developed your playing and are a good strong player, then don't worry about it!

Doug

[daniel711]

Dap22
Actually, strumming is arpeggiating...as opposed to plucking the notes simultaneously, with the fingers!!! Sorry to split hairs :)

[dap22]

Daniel711-
There are many arpeggio sequences in which you simultaniosly pluch two or three notes which make up an arpeggio pattern. My example with 3 notes played at the same time in an arpeggio sequence is the bass melody in the C section of the VL Etude number 11, and if you listen to the B section of VL Prelude #2 and look at the score, you will see the bass notes of the arpeggio consist of two notes. I don't however recall ever saying 'plucking simultaneously'...re-read my post. I do however say, play each note individually...which is the exact opposite of pluck simultaneously!
Strumming is not arpeggiating. You are now wondering what is strumming...take a guitar pick and just run it back and forth through the strings...that should be a nice strum! If strumming were arpeggiating they wouldn't be called different things...think about it! Strumming is not arpeggiating. Get your facts straight Daniel711, read my post before making silly foolish comments.

Doug.

[daniel711]

Don't get so offended! This is a forum to exchange ideas.... :idea: You started to define arpeggio as something "instead of strumming" (your words). All I said was that strumming WAS arpeggiating, since the notes DON'T sound simultaneously. Got it this time?? :lol:

[dap22]

Hey Daniel711-
Sorry about that. Although... an arpeggio is something completely different than strumming...I don't understand your logic.

Doug

[Jubilee Valence]

Hey Dano!! Yeah, he was tearin' me up too!! ...mean sucka'...LOL Now gentlemen does " Broken chords" ring a bell? In the "pickin" world, a strum is the simultaneous voicing together--a chord. If "strummed"(not correct term) so that the pick enunciates each note separately from another, at any rate or "speed", it is essentially "broken" ie arpeggiated.Flatpickin' is one term used for both slow pickin'--arpeggiating, & strumming--whole chords.Bluegrass/country/celt --it's the norm...HEY Kev--House of the Rising Sun is an odd example of broken chord playing & Yngvie's(sp?) runs are all arpeggios--both ascending & descending

[dap22]

Hey,
I apologize first off, I don't want to sound like I am picking on anyone or being mean, out of all honest, those are not my intentions. I am only here to try to help, and hopefully, when I have a question, be helped in return. Sounds fair enough...that is what a forum is for and why we come here, to help eachother out. We all share the same passion, and are constantly trying to improve for the better of our playing, audiences, and the art in general.
What I do have a problem with, is when someone misreads what I wrote, and posts up something tryign to correct something I never said in the first place...Like saying that I said playing notes simultaneously is an arpeggio...that is wrong, and I never once said that. That is the only reason I get offended. I do not post in topics I know nothing about, and only post when I have something valid to say. Correct me when I say something wrong, but don't misread what I write and try to correct me when I was right in the first place. Get it right from the start and there will be no problems. When someone tries to correct me for something I never said in teh first place or misread what I wrote merely by skimming the text, then I get offended. I apologize if I have sounded like a jerk, it would be nice to start over. Jubi-I mean no harm whatsoever, I hope you haven't taken this the wrong way, the only impression I have been left with is you following around what I say in other posts and leaving up other messages as though something I have said you have taken personally. If you have a problem with something I have said, please confront me through email, dap22@uakron.edu, and we can work out whatever difference we may have. I only am here to help, and fighting only ruins it for everyone else.

I don't go around changing what other people said, but it has been done to me two or three times already here...whats going on? It is not that hard to read an entire post, especially if you are going to post a reply.
Trying to sound smart about somethign when you haven't read a entire post, only makes you look foolish in return.

Doug.

[a333a]

Take it easy dap perhaps you are not seeing their point, I think that what they're trying to say is that when you do the strumming you are actually arpeggiating the chord!!!

Perhaps you are the one who are misreading their point!

And it's not personal; think about it the plectrum (the thing you use to play the electric guitar) or the finger don't play the six strings at the same time... :!:


:roll:

[cdikland]

Hey guys is an appreggio basically a chord like an Am but you alternate between I and M going up and down the chord?
Kevin
Arpeggio (Ar-PED-ji-oe)

Playing the notes of a chord consecutively (harp style). A broken chord in which the individual notes are sounded one after the other instead of simultaneously.

[daniel711]

BRAVO Cdikland
I thought I was clear enough, but you put it the best :) 'Playing notes consecutively, harp style' , read that 'strum' :wink: Got it now Dappy?? Ya gotta chill, like me 'n ma man Jubee......who lets it all roll off 'im like water from a ducks back,...life that is 8) , ya dig ???

Jubee - I is writin' like you now 8)

[utahpaulo]

I'm about to rock the boat here, but to tell you the truth I don't see any great value in lengthy technique practice. Just a 5-10 min (maximum) warm up - if THAT much - is all the technique exercise I ever do. I realized long ago that scales, stretches, tremolos, arpeggios etc are all vital elements to the technique - but as others have said, you can practice those techniques by breaking them out of the pieces you are learning.
I don't say that there is zilcho value in doing scales. But when I was a beginner, (like-33 years ago) and I decided to advance to concert level (I did) I was determined to play EVERY major and minor diatonic scale with EVERY finger combination EVERY day. And that was just the scale work. Then the arpeggions and tremolos, and so on. Eventually i realized that practicing something I wanted to play (like Bach's Lute Suites) would get me there faster than practicing something else that was SUPPOSED to get me there (like isolated scales). It's like studying Latin when you really want to learn Spanish. Or like studying meteorology when you want to learn sailing. Not without value, but why not just concentrate directly on what you really want to do? And don't believe that just because a little of something is good, then a lot of something must be much better. If you doubt that, just be careful next time you are taking aspirin.
Also there is a real danger of overstressing the muscles and connective tissue in the hands by relentlessly pumping nylon. Also, I am not that convinced that isolated technique practice translates to better technique in the context of the pieces they are in. In fact, I have sometimes experienced the opposite. And finally, there is the very real danger of losing interest in the whole process because of ... BOREDOM.
So.
That's me.



I love this guy :) Now I feel so much better about my practicing.

[cdikland]

water from a ducks back,...life that is 8) , ya dig ???
Water from a Ducks back (wa·ter frum a duks bak)

To ignore. To repel offensive feelings. Taking things less serious. The ability to ignore and move on.... CAUTION: Sense of humor is required.

Jubee - I is writin' like you now
Great!!! :? What are you guys trying to hide that you dont want to rest of us to hear, know or understand... Next thing you know people will start posting in Spanish or sumptin... :shock: Oh wait, they already are...

[a333a]

water from a ducks back,...life that is 8) , ya dig ???
Water from a Ducks back (wa·ter frum a duks bak)

To ignore. To repel offensive feelings. Taking things less serious. The ability to ignore and move on.... CAUTION: Sense of humor is required.

Jubee - I is writin' like you now
Great!!! :? What are you guys trying to hide that you dont want to rest of us to hear, know or understand... Next thing you know people will start posting in Spanish or sumptin... :shock: Oh wait, they already are...


No es cierto :mrgreen: