As the years
go by in the life of a player, there are two kinds of
growth we can experience. Both are necessary for our
development as musicians and guitarists. I call them
Vertical Growth, and Horizontal Growth.
Here is a common scenario. A person
comes in for lessons after already playing for awhile.
Maybe they have played for a year, maybe a few years,
maybe many years. I say, "Play something for me,
something you are comfortable with". Now a few
different things may happen. They may play nicely, strumming
and singing, maybe even throw in a few runs. So I see
that for the level they are at, they play well. I then
try to find out what they are here for. "What do
you want to do, that you find you can't do."
They may say "Well, I play lots
of things, but I play them all the same way. I want
to learn how to do chord melody solos, more interesting
chords and strums, and also improve my fingerpicking
so I can try some classical." In other words, they
want to move to a higher level as a player. They want
to make VERTICAL GROWTH.
They don't want to continue to learn
new songs and play them the same way. That would be
HORIZONTAL GROWTH. Everyone can always make Horizontal
Growth, even on their own. You just learn more material,
but you don't actually play any differently, musically
or technically.
Vertical progress as a player is the
tough one. It requires what is usually considered "work",
although I have always found it enjoyable, although
challenging.
Here is another even more common scenario.
Someone comes in for lessons after playing for awhile,
and when I ask them to play, they make a couple of excuses,
and then they play really badly! Then I ask them to
play something else, and they play that really badly!
This is the person unable to create Vertical Growth.
The reason they cannot raise their level as a player,
is because THEY DON'T KNOW HOW TO PRACTICE TO SOLVE
PROBLEMS AND ACHIEVE RESULTS! Also, because of this,
there is no solid foundation of technique for Vertical
Growth to be built upon. So there is only Horizontal
Growth, more things played the same way, in this case,
badly.
Do you know how many young players
I've seen who play only the beginning of a hundred songs,
and play them badly? Lots.
Or how many people playing classical
who go from piece to piece, struggling with and mutilating
pieces as they go? Lots. It is sad, and unnecessary.
If you love the guitar, and are dedicated
to your own development as a player, if you are dying
to play the way the guitarists you admire play, you
must know how to create Vertical Growth. This is done
through an understanding of HOW TO PRACTICE. I am of
course talking about REAL PRACTICE, not repetitive "run
throughs" that only re-enforce the muscle tensions
causing the problems you already have.
From my experience as a player and
as a teacher, it is extremely difficult to create Vertical
Growth, once bad, or insufficient practice has locked
in tension and bad habits. The good news is, it is not
impossible. In fact, the word difficult is not the best
word. I use it only because we have such a tendency
to under-estimate the intensity of concentration it
takes to undo past damage. A better word is challenging.
And if you want to keep getting better and better as
a guitarist, you'd better learn to love challenges!
As Mark Twain said "Life is one damn thing after
another", and that is what playing and practicing
are. One damn problem to deal with after another.
But as we learn to actually deal with
and solve those problems, what a sweet reward we earn.
In fact, it is not the problems we
face in our playing that are really the obstacle to
our growth. It is the growing feeling of frustration
and helplessness we experience as time continues to
go by, and we see no fundamental improvement. We start
to feel helpless. We may not admit this feeling to ourselves,
we only notice that, for some reason, we are beginning
to lose our motivation to practice.
When we learn how to really practice,
we start to feel powerful. Problems and challenges don't
frighten us, they excite us. Because we know that we
can look forward to those problems getting smaller and
smaller, weaker and weaker, as we continue to apply
The Principles of Correct Practice.
It is important to realize that the
quality of our Vertical Growth determines the quality
of our Horizontal Growth. Any ability we have gained
as players has been our Vertical Growth. If our Vertical
Growth has been shaky, with weaknesses built in, (which
was true of myself, and I think, most players), that
shakiness will be in everything we play, so our Horizontal
Growth doesn't do us much good, it just keeps us busy,
feeling like we are making progress because we are learning
a new song or piece. This is why so many teachers turn
the page and assign new material to a student, even
though the student can't play the material from this
week. The teacher doesn't really know how to create
Vertical Growth, and so is trying to keep a feeling
of movement going. Most students, if they are paying
attention, will catch on to this.
If Vertical Growth is strong, than
all new material learned will be strong, and will help
you grow as a musician, as you absorb new music, and
are able to play it well. This is the kind of Horizontal
Growth we want.
If you want to learn how to have this
Vertical Growth as a regular experience for you, I invite
you to look around my site further for more information
about "The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar".
It is the approach I have found to work for myself,
for my students, and anyone else who actually understands
it, and uses it.
