Law of Attraction

How To Practice Guitar If You Have Just an Hour A Day

What if you have work, family or school commitments and have just an hour a day to practice guitar?

I’d like to help you out if you feel that you have limited practice time. Not everyone is a pro player and can spend several hours every day playing guitar.

Here are some tips. Let’s say you have just an hour. What’s the best plan of attack?

Don’t skip days

Even if you have an hour, don’t skip days. Do it every day even just a little. You’ll be much better off! You need to keep the mind focused from day to day.

=-=-=-=

Pre Practice Session – Have a plan. What will you work on? There are many areas on which you can focus – so choose ahead of time.

I always define what I will work on before picking my instrument up.

For example, you could practice…

a passage in a new piece or arrangementtechniquerunning old repertoireputting together a new arrangement

Part 1Start with a short warm up no matter what. See my groove scales lesson. Once mastered this takes 5-10 minutes.

Video and PDF Download – Click Here

Part 2

Decide clearly on what you will work on for the session, maybe even for the week!

Let’s say you are working on arrangement. Maybe there are some spots where you make mistakes and they are in need of fixing.

Practice SLOWLY

We’ve heard it a million times, but this is golden. I do this! It’s like a deep cleaning up of loose ends. Magically when you pick up the tempo, the music will mesh like gears if you have practiced slowly enough.

Take lots of breaks

Practice short passages in chunks. 15 – 20 minutes max. The mind learns fastest doing it this way, and it’s good for you physically too!Don’t Practice Mistakes, Practice What Works!

Important! Change your fingerings until you get something easy where you almost can never make a mistake. It’s like figuring out a puzzle.

You may need to try a few things to discover what feels right to you.

I can’t tell you how many times as a young guy, I tried to play someone else’s uncomfortable fingerings and always made mistakes, yet tried to force it.

Classical guitarist John Williams once said he finds the most comfortable fingering that he doesn’t screw up, and sticks to it. I do the same!

The Mind Needs Repetition to Learn

Once you find the fingering, it will take repeated practice to drive it down into the subconscious. All too often we think we know a piece but it falls apart when we get nervous. No sweat, just practice it more! 🙂

Remember – take breaks even when practicing a repetitive thing.

Part 3

Mental attitude. Even if after a practice session you can’t play the piece, fear not. Pros know to NOT look for immediate results, and to just put the time in.

It’s like punching your time card at work.

Come back the next day, practice the same piece, again and again. In a week, 2 weeks – you will start to see results.

DO NOT try to practice several different things in a short practice session, and don’t switch every day to a new thing. You will only skim the surface of everything.

Focus in a relaxed way, even if you have limited time. LIke a magnifying glass harnessing the suns rays to burn a small hole in a leaf, you will surely accomplish what you set out to do.

I hope this helps you out!!! Now, get to work 🙂

– Adam

Groove is Another Form of Love

By Adam Rafferty 1 Comment

I heard a fabulous youtube “satsang” talk the other day by a fellow whom I follow online named Burt Harding. He’s a lovely guy from Canada who teaches people about awareness, love and the effortlessness “being” a human “being”.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7awJTBeZfoc]

His talks are full of insights, some of which I myself have experienced, and I am sure you have too. I particularly love seeing how self realizations are similar to musical realizations.

In a day and age where music schools and computers boil music down to concrete elements, we must remember that the silent spirit in between the notes is the true life and soul of music.

Burt was talking about this idea of not really always being able to experience the now moment, even though we talk about the “now” so often. We find ourselves on a road either looking ahead to the future or back to the past. Like driving a car, we look ahead and back constantly.

What then, is the way to be in the present moment? How can we get out of this time-line way of being. Remember – the time line is not “out there” in reality, it’s “in here” – in our heads. That’s how our average waking state is, and that’s how we were created.

Burt presses the question of “how can we be present” and gives an answer.

Love takes us out of this and brings us to an entirely different dimension. Wow. Heavy information! A state of love brings us into a timeless dimension, and busts up this “timeline” paradigm completely.

We’ve all experienced that when we love someone, something, an animal, or what we do – time slips away. I myself forget to eat when I am playing my instrument, so I know this first hand.

And then it came to my mind, how I see the constant error of musicians thinking that music in reality is like it appears paper, and that a metronome with beats spaced apart makes a perfect dribble of equally spaced beats – making so called perfect time. Nothing could be “wronger” 🙂

When you slip deep into musical joy, it is another form of this love – which lifts one up out the timeline completely and effortlessly. A “timeless” dimension is perceived and presence is a glowing effortless now moment.

I then thought about so many experiences I have had – dancing with people (chicks mainly!) at college DJ parties and in an instant feeling a sense of “loving” them spontaneously. The same for musicians…I have been in clubs where I ended up on stage with musicians whom I never met before, and love was present when we played even though we never spoke a word.

Groove is one of the fruits provided by the tree of love!

It’s a “zone” I am talking about which can’t be known by the mind, it must be experienced. If you’ve ever loved anyone or anything fully – a real groove feels just like that. No future, no past….just a warm loving big fat funky “now” moment. Like a downbeat with a gorgeous tone.

Playing Guitar True To Oneself

By Adam Rafferty 8 Comments

We’ve all heard plenty of expressions, axioms and words of wisdom regarding “being true to oneself”. As a solo performer, I am finding this to be extremely important.

A few months ago I took a fascinating course called PSYCH-K. No it’s not a breakfast cereal for mental patients, it’s a method to help change or replace subconscious beliefs. What a cool class it was.

I found many interesting and fascinating similarities to my studies and experiences of playing music in the class teachings. Particularly in regard to what musicians and athletes think of as “the inner game”.

The method used by PSYCH-K to test what your beliefs are is called “muscle testing”. While it may not seem totally scientific, the premise is that your subconscious does in fact, know the truth and that before your conscious mind can BS an answer – your muscles know tell the truth about what you feel deep down.

By muscle testing for a strong or weak response, you get an answer from your subconscious mind. I have shown this test process to many friends and they laugh in amazement when I do it on them and it tests accurately.

After showing the testing technique to us in class, they showed us to install new beliefs in our minds. After the “installation”, we then tested to see if these beliefs were true to our subconscious minds.

What strikes me is this similarity to playing music: if I play music that for some reason I don’t believe in, or question in some way – I play weak, just like a weak muscle test. I may be able to fool some of those around me, but I know internally, the sensation of playing “weak” vs playing “strong”. A variety of factors can make music feel weak or not right.

When you hear someone playing “strong” – it may not be loud and fast, but it is a through and through conviction and honesty. What happens then is that a vehicle for much greater communication is created. The musical communication that the player and audience experience together is one of total “integration”.

The notes become a vehicle for non verbal communication. The communication is beyond the notes of the music. The mind of the performer then connects in a positive, confident, loving way to the minds of the audience.

There are a couple of ways to achieve this. I give this advice to myself as much as to you, dear reader!

1) Play music that moves you, not what you think you should play to be “accepted”, or “cool” or part of some group or “clique” of people. (If you are getting paid to play music you don’t like at least search for the “good feeling place” in the music.) It must ring in you as “true”. I.E. You can’t fool anybody! Truth is apparent for all to see and hear.

2) Practice. The more you practice, the more your subconscious has the images, sensations and sounds of the performance. When you actually move into performance, you will be saying “yes” to the images and sensations and sounds as they come and they will feel “true”.

As well, you will undergo a process of weeding out fingerings and sounds that test weak and arrive at strength and truth.

3) Set list or not? Lately I have performed with no set list and simply trusted that whatever song should come next will reveal itself to me. That’s a question of personal preference.

If I have a song on a list, but have a feeling about the “truth” of what should happen in this moment, I’d rather go with the feeling. I can’t predict moments of inspiration and audience communication, and choosing the right tune is part of being in the moment.

4) Integrating the right and left hemispheres of the brain prior to the gig, and in each practice session. This is kind of a huge topic, but achieving a “whole brain state” is optimal and even required for performing. I am convinced that much of what my mentor Mike Longo taught me in regards to rhythm “activates” a whole brain state.

I try to teach musical techniques in classes to help students achieve this.

5) Some tunes just never feel “right”.

I have had tunes that I “think I should do” or styles I “think” I should play. I have even taken songs and practiced them every day for a year and found that because they were not registered as “the truth” in my mind, they just never seemed to work on a gut level.

A good point to bring up here is “who is the I that thinks this”. This could be the ever insistent ego in disguise! When you are immersed in music so there’s only music and no “you”….you are likely on the right track!

On the other hand, I have discovered music in an instant that rings of “the truth”. That music always feels good to play – and the focus is the music and only the music. And, the music that the audience likes and remembers is the music that feels like “the truth”. What a coincidence 🙂

What is true and right for another performer may not be true and right for you 🙂

A Recap….To Thine Own Self Be True

So – enjoy being true and honest with your music. Your audiences will appreciate it and your work will be play. Even if you can’t yet play a hard piece or arrangement you are working on…if you love it enough and it rings true to you, it will reveal itself to you in time!

Until next time, keep swingin!

Adam

When You Change One Thought You Change Everything

By Adam Rafferty 5 Comments

Yesterday I heard a fascinating message from author and lecturer Gregg Braden as I was looking for interesting quantum-physics type stuff on youtube.

Mr. Braden talks often about the “holgraphic nature” of the universe. Before you start yawning and thinking this is about to be “quantum dribble” read on – this affects you right now and has for your entire life!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ih3RoDASkw]

You may have seen a holograph on a keychain. Due to light inteference patterns a 3D image is created on a 2D surface. Don’t ask me to explain this to you.

By the way they’ve now figured out how to do this with people – this is too much… Princess Leia, watch out!

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thOxW19vsTg]

What’s fascinating about holographs is that every part of the holograph has the entire image in it….see exceprt from dictionary.com:

‘Appropriately enough, the word hologram comes from the Greek words holos, “whole,” and gramma, “message.” If a hologram is cut into pieces, each piece projects the entire image, but as if viewed from a smaller subset of angles. ‘

Gregg Braden adds:

‘A holograph is whole and complete unto itself, while is part of an even greater pattern. For example, one cell of your body is whole and complete, and has all the info needed to create another body.’

Wow. Reality gets even weirder when you consider the spiritual implications. If we look at consciousness as holographic in nature, then we are truly one, all viewing reality from a different angle. Just like your finger and nose are not separate…neither are all of us.

Braden goes further and says:

“Anyplace in a hologram where one change is made, it is mirrored throughout the rest of the Hologram.”

Okay…actually this is what caught my attention…if all of what has said thus far is true, one can assume that:

Anything You do or think changes everything
Anything You do or think changes your life
Anything You do or think affects everybody else

The old way of thinking about a “separate me” and the idea that you can do something “in secret” gets blown out of the water. Everything affects everything.

It’s also inspiring to know that engaging (or not engaging) in an activity or thought pattern even just a little bit, will change your life…for example these quick little things will change everything your life:

for better…
10 minutes of meditation
30 minutes of exercise
positive self talk
listening to uplifting music
cleaning up the house
reading

for worse…
having one cigarette
watching violent or graphic tv or video
negative self talk
giving into laziness
believing you are separate from others

It’s just amazing to think that itty bitty little things affect our whole lives and everyone around us.

It certainly inspires me to “straight up and fly right” more and more knowing that what I think are my “silent thoughts” could and do affect people all over the globe.

Any little thing you do changes everything.

Anything you do effects everyone.

Your truth is broadcast everywhere.

There is nowhere to hide.

Until next time, keep swingin!!!

Adam

Guitar Practice Techniques to Program Your Subconcious Mind

By Adam Rafferty 14 Comments

Greets friends! I am back in the oven known as August in New York after a very nice 14 days on the west coast.

An interesting thing happened at a guitar class/lecture/performance and I’d like to share it with you. My good friend Frank teaches an evening guitar class at a college in the Bay Area, and I got to do a Q&A and playing session for one of his classes.

I find it hard to speak and perform in the same setting. It’s like I don’t know whether I am in the left brain or right brain zone. When I finally got down to performing that night, I had what I consider to be an unacceptable memory slip on a tune that I have played a million times – “Billie Jean”. Partially because of the mental zone, but also due to preparation.

Recently I upgraded the chorus to fit the phrasing of the original song better, and the newer different fingering was new enough that it still required conscious control. I had yet to get the new fingering into the subconscious so that the fingers just “go there”.

I don’t think anyone else except Frank knew. My mind went blank for a split second for the fingering of the chorus of the song due to the newness of the fingering. I played the melody with chord forms under it and got right back on…but I thought to myself “I gotta drive this down even deeper into my subconscious – first thing tomorrow!”

I wasn’t angry, did not beat myself up, and the performance was just fine from the audiences point of view. However, this flaw was to be addressed in my next practice sessions.

(There’s nothing like performing to show you what you need to practice 🙂

I decided to use some of the techniques I’ve learned from success coach Brian Tracy to drive this tune deep to the level of never ever botching it ever again. These motivational techniques are nice to “hear” but I decided to use them and see if they worked any differently from standard “practicing”.

Here’s a recent video of Billie Jean live where I am in performance mode! No problems here….just a lot of heat that day:

1) Make it the #1 Priority

Sounds simple, but I made this the #1 priority in my life for a few days. It’s one of my most requested tunes, so it deserves this attention. How often do we know we need to make something a priority and then allow small things to get in the way? This was (and is still) priority #1 until it is bulletproof.

2) Use Positive Self Talk

I carefully guarded my speech and said over and over “I play Billie Jean perfectly. I nail it to the wall. My version of Billie Jean is flawless.”

I gave energy to the positive vision, not the negative. You dig?

3) Visualization

I went to sleep visualizing the right left hand fingering. This was hard!!! Every time I woke up out of sleep, I tossed and turned and only visualized the right fingering! I flooded my mind with the right visual.

4) Practice in 15 Minute Time Chunks

Brian Tracy says somewhere that our minds pick up the most at the beginning and end of practice sessions. I practiced for a few days, and for each 15 minute chunk of practice I played the chorus to Billie Jean. 15 minute chunks do more for your mind than an hour straight he says.

That’s it. Practice makes perfect…now get to work!!!! As soon as I hit the post button it’s practice time.

– Adam