Practice...please help.

[Charles Turpin]

Before i ever sit down to practice Mentally i try to picture theory wise, what lick i want to play cause i feel you ought to be able to explain what you are doing if someone ask.Then comes about 5 minutes of finger warmups. Using JOes wrights course cause still after 40 years of playing i think them right hand warm ups are the best i ever seen yet.Then i work on the lick with all kinds of rhythms and changing notes. By playin a lick slow and then fast it challenges you in order to keep the same rhythms while playing at different tempos. Iplay so much that a book is helpful if you want to play other people stuff. But i have worked as long as a month on a song. But worked on different things on that song. To play from the heart is way different than playing from a piece of paper. I always feel that knowledge of playing is important. I love to listen to a piece of music and take a key just out of the head and know what chords they are playing after that many years i can do that.But when i practice here is my steps i guess you could say.

1. before i practice i get mentaly charged to what i want to practice.
2.Then i warm up my fingers by either Joe wrights book, or the scales i feel needed for the licks.
3. Then i work up to the speed of the lick being played. If they are speed licks then sometimes it takes longer.
4. Take the same lick then turn it inside out play it back wards. Start in the middle of the lick, to see if you can create new licks from the main lick.
5. Then play around the lick to see what you can do with it.
6. Take the lick and see how many ways you can get into the lick and out of lick. ( Example: If your lick is in over an Aminor chord.can you get into the lick good form the connecting chords.C-aminor-F or Eminor-Aminor-Dminor.
7.Try the lick in different keys right there in the same position. This last idea it has helped me out of more situations than anything. play something simple like three blind mice just at the third fret in C key. Then try it in the key of G just at the third fret. Then try harder licks like that.
But that is how i practice most the time almost every day hehehe


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[Bob Hoffnar]

Lots of good ideas here. I have been enjoying this thing:
www.ronimusic.com/

I'm one of those guys that break my practice time into sections. I found that practicing slow and careful helps.

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Bob
intonation help