Linear Thoughts
Guitar teacher Lin Flanagan shares his stock answers to three of the most common questions students ask…
1."How many hours a week should I practise?"
Preferably 40 – but failing that… the important thing is to practise little and often. How often will depend on your other commitments in life and your ultimate aims with your guitar playing. But, whatever your ambitions, it's much better to do (for example) six twenty minute sessions rather than bash away for two hours non-stop. Anything over half an hour and the concentration will go and you'll end up 'playing' rather than 'practising'. There's an important difference, and whilst playing for hours on end can reinforce your existing knowledge and skills it simply ain't the same as the hard graft of practising new material and techniques.
2. "Should I buy an electronic tuner?"
Well, they can be a great aid - but used aurally,not visually. In other words, get one that audibly produces the tones and tune to this, rather than just following the needle or LEDs. After all, music is about using your ears, not your eyes. If you can't tune your guitar by ear, how do you expect to work out tunes by ear? Try your best to tune up by ear at home, and if you get really stuck then just give me a ring and we'll tune up down the phone between us. Better that, than start tuning up with a visual aid and very quickly becoming dependant upon it.
3. "I bet Jimi Hendrix never spent hours practising all the 'proper' techniques you're getting me to learn – so why should I?"
First of all, I have to point out… you're not Jimi Hendrix. Secondly,
it doesn't matter how creative you are if your limited technique prevents you
from showing any of it. Although Hendrix's technique could be described as unconventional,
it more than allowed him to do what he apparently wanted to. And that's the
important thing! Django Reinhardt was only able to play with two fingers, and
yet left a legacy. But, surely it would be daft when you have four fingers available
to restrict yourself to just two on the basis of someone else's genius? On the
other hand, since you seem to rarely want to use your third or fourth fingers
maybe we should get the hacksaw out and …? Only joking!?
