A Musician's Question

How should you practice?

  • With Technical Exercises

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Without Technical Exercises

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Differ'nt strokes for differ'nt folks, I guess *shrug*

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Total voters
    0

Berserk

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For all the Scapers out there who play any kind of instrument, I've had this semi-philosophical question in the back of my mind for a while now and this video brought it up again. I was really impressed with her playing, and she says that her practice is mostly just scales with a metronome.

Okay, cool. Nothin' to it, right?

But another awesome musician I used to listen to years back, Vladmir Horowitz (a pianist, if you've never heard of him), says to NEVER practice scales or technical exercises EVER--that the only way to become a truly expressive performer is to practice actual music 100% of the time.

I'm not sure how applicable Horowitz's idea is to the electric guitar anyways, (I mean, it sure ain't as delicate as the piano. The guitar, pick, and gear you use probably affect your sound more than your fingers even do), but I think about this a lot and I'm dying for an answer XD

Especially since the Guitar Grimoire I like to use (an awesome resource, btw) makes it sound like memorizing scale patterns on the fretboard (a Horowitz no-no) is a good idea.

Thoughts?
 

Clarie

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How should we practice? That's a good question... I think that there isn't a specific answer ::meev::

I play the piano for 8 years now, and my way of practicing has been always the same: practicing the same part over and over until I can play it well.
During the first years of piano classes I learned all the scales and played several Czerny Études (those are often used as methods to practice your playing so that you can adapt better to other "actual" songs), there are also many people that like to play a Czerny étude or a Bach Invention two or three times before playing a more difficult song that they're studying.
As for me, I don't do that anymore. I can play a Back Invention or a Czerny Étude sometimes, but just for fun, not to prepare myself for some more difficult song. I also only used a metronome 2 or 3 times in my life... So yeah, it's basically that, keep repeating the part that you can't play well over and over... The only thing I do before starting a song is to play the chromatic scale 3 times to warm up my fingers :P

Hope this was useful ::squee::
 

Elec

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The advantage to practicing scales or memorizing chord patterns (this is both applicable to guitar, bass, and piano), is that you have more tools at the ready, in your subconscious.

My go-to example for this is jazz. If I hadn't studied the bejeesus out of various chord shapes and how a scale feels and looks on the key/fret board until it came naturally, there was no way I could have conjured up the emotion I feel I did when performing.

I really feel as though you can't have one without the other. With feeling and no technique, you could be holding yourself back, or going for bombast for the sake of listenability, or at worst stabbing/strumming wildly and pissing listeners off with your horrible clatter (warning; hipsters may prefer crap like that, yeah i just wanted to throw something in here about hipsters). With technique and no feeling, you run the risk of creating sounds that fail to engage anyone but the performers themselves.


I believe that the worst of the 'to hell with technique' crowd is equally as bad as the most theory-restrained traditionally-trained musician.


There are great examples of savant-like brilliance among the self-tought and the non-practiced who put 'soul' at the forefront, and there are wide-ranging emotional moments, from melancholy to exuberant, amongst even the most indulgent progressive rock pieces.


I AM IN THE MIDDLE GRAY AREA ON THIS ONE


In conclusion, in all honesty, whatever works for the individual. All sorts of theories have yielded all sorts of results.

(note: if anyone says the word 'pretentious' in this thread i get to throw a pine cone at your face)
 

flowersofnight

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Berserk wrote:
Vladmir Horowitz
Don't listen to anything a genius has to say on the matter of learning.
Some of those top piano players are at the point where they don't even need to practice at all (!) but I wouldn't assume that has any general applicability either.
 

boi de memoire

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what he says is true I think

there are many kinds of music and pieces, and all of them have a different challenge or something to give you, it's the same as practicing technic but with the addition of the musicality


though, as said before, practicing scales is a good thing to get them right and know them... then again, scale playing could not be considered a technical excercise, but a theory excercise


the technic will always be there... play dull excercises or pieces of music with challenging parts for your level

so I voted for option 3
 

Berserk

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@Clarie: That's usually the approach I had with the piano too. I would warm up with a technical exercise, and maybe practice some Bach inventions (which blur the line between "technical exercise" and "music") but other than that I pretty much just repeated songs I enjoyed until I really nailed them.

elec wrote:
The advantage to practicing scales or memorizing chord patterns (this is both applicable to guitar, bass, and piano), is that you have more tools at the ready, in your subconscious.
Yeah, I've memorized a lot of chord shapes already more-or-less on accident, and without that I wouldn't be able to make music of my own so quickly or easily. And by "music of my own" I mean doodling around and finding something fun :P But I've found that empowering already, which is why I think I'm going to commit myself to actively memorizing patterns on the fretboard.
I really feel as though you can't have one without the other.
I think that's true. Especially since, in my experience with the piano, the stuff that I practiced that was supposed to be so expressive was also mostly straight-up scales and broken chords. The lines blur a lot between the two. Really Horowitz is the only person I know of who seems to think otherwise XD
flowers wrote:
Don't listen to anything a genius has to say on the matter of learning.
Some of those top piano players are at the point where they don't even need to practice at all
This is very good advice. Horowitz was pounding out the likes of Lizst when he was just a babe at his mother's knee ::meev::

The rest of us mere mortals could probably all benefit from technical exercise.
 

Phantom Pabulum

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flowersofnight wrote:
Some of those top piano players are at the point where they don't even need to practice at all (!)

Glenn Gould (or so he claims)

We had an improvisation/experimentation module in school once, and my teacher stressed that technique is a very important thing for all musicians to have. It gives them knowledge and full control over their instruments, they know the parameters of what their instrument can or cannot do.

It then also allows musicians to go avant-garde crazy and explore new possibilities outside of musical conventions of their own time, because of the credibility that comes with technique.

I myself feel that technique is extremely important (for the above reasons) - and can be achieved through technical exercises or through practicing actual music.

I think I get what Horowitz is trying to say though - though one may gain those technical skills through practicing scales and stuff, it is more difficult for them to apply those musical ideas into actual composition or improvisation, because what they're doing is basically reading from a score and playing it over 100 times. (I am a classically trained pianist myself, and it was painful). This has advantages though, because it gives you skills to play highly technical pieces.

However, if one gains technique through practicing actual music, they sort of understand and get ideas of how chords are used in actual music, how ornaments can be placed here and there, different styles etc. It becomes easier for the musician to apply knowledge that he has gained.

Maybe for different genres there would be different answers? I myself would think that if someone would want to walk the route of a concert performer, scales and stuff would be absolutely necessary.
 

Decadent_Irises

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Hmm, well I would have to go with Elec and choose the uh "middle grey area"... but i'd say i would definitely stress the importance of technical exercises....

I play both viola and piano, but while my viola teacher always made me do technical exercises... (ahhh!) the piano one didn't as much. both stressed scales and obviously, viola had a lot less chords, but i'd say it's definitely easier for me to sight read and play expressively when i already have a feel for where the music is going, which i think you get from those "technical exercises" rather than scales.

However, I do think scales are probably important if you are just beginning to learn music; so you know the different sounds, their tones, etc, while later on, scales become more of a warm-up exercise rather than a training exercise..

well... there's my two cents XDD
 

Einherjer

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The best way to practice technique is to find a piece of music with whatever you want to practice in it so you get the musical context of it. Plus it's more fun that way. If someone asks you to play for them you better not play scales.

But some etudes are tighter than real songs... HMM

do both
 

Amatsu

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I think it depends on what you want your music to be.

Because different musicians obviously think of music in different ways, I don't think anyone could be correct in saying that one way is best, unless they were saying it was best for them. One way is never best, in any situation, for everyone.

I personally play* keyed instruments, and I have no technical ability. I play a song until I(or rather, the muscles in my hands) have it completely memorized. (as far as writing music, I don't use keyboards to write music, only to play it. I write my music in piano rolls on computers. I usually write music with no regard to whether or not I have the ability to play it.)

I've never studied chords or scales (But recently have been wanting to) and I don't think that it hinders my creative ability or understanding of music. (I know WHAT chords/scales are and how they work. I just don't know specific chords or scales individually)

I personally think there's a certain level of cleanliness (to use a weird term) in music that's written without any musical training. Music that is simply the epitome of just "stuff that sounds good" to the artist themselves.

Even though it's undeniable that scales and chords are great tools, it's also true that not all tools work for all people.

I voted the last option.

*I use the term "play" very loosely. I'm not a great key-player, by any stretch. I'm trying to get better. ;D

edit:
Elec wrote:
you run the risk of creating sounds that fail to engage anyone but the performers themselves.

I think for some musicians, this is less of a risk and more of a goal.
 

Haus der Lüge

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It depends on the type of musician you want to be. If you want to be an excellent musician in the traditional sense, then practising scales and such will be beneficial.
But not all good music is made this way. An example of this is Sonic Youth, who obviously couldn't care less about music theory. They have two guitarists (it's three now actually) who play in alternate tunings - not open C or dropped D, their tunings aren't that simple. They play on intuition, whatever sounds good to them.
Just as an aside: two of Malice Mizer's best songs, Shi no Buto and Shiroi, rely very heavily on scales.
 

Rosiel

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I chose option 3, but personally learning scales, theory, and technical practice has helped me out greatly.
I use to just play with whatever sounded good, but for ME, i felt so limited just knowing power chords and the G and C chord on guitar. I am majoring in music and i play guitar and piano. Obviously, school is heavy on learning theory and technical stuff, but I enjoy it. I have become a much, much better musician this way. :D
 
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