Day 1... 9.45am 27/9/2010 Mondays practice

ok,
here goes!
I take the dog for a walk just to get my creative juices ready to flow. However its BEN the collie who seems more ready to flow than myself...especially at every lamppost!
As soon as we are both walked its into my studio to start the days tasks. On the menu today I have my first pupil at 11am. Her name is Maggie and is a seasoned singer she currently has vocal lessons and is working on some vibrato techniques. I have prepared her lesson and all my others for the day which are: Emily vocals, Rochelle Vocals, Paul, guitar and Alan guitar. Em is relatively new to singing and I am still raising her vocal fitness levels...Roch already gigs in a band but needs some more confidence...so we will spend time in front of the mic. Paul is into some killer rhythm riffs and Alan is just about to take his first Theory and performance exams ...at the age of 49! so you are never to old to learn!
All done so now its onto my own 2 hour practice session for today . The thing I have neglected the last few days is my legato playing. For those of you not sure what legato is it is mainly left hand fingering consisting of hammers and pulloff's with no or little use of the pick. The term legato means smoothly.
My exercises will consist of 2 string patterns with 3 notes on each string. I will finger frets 5,6 and 8 using fingers 1,2 4 then swap to frets 5,7,8 using fingers 1,3 and4.
The pattern goes like this on the B string 5,6,8,6,5,6,8 then move to the E string and repeat. I will then use the same exercise after half an hour but fret fingers 1,3 and 4 so it goes B string 5,7,8,7,5,7,8 and then again move this to the E string . Do this exercise for 30 minutes again. Repeat the whole 2 exercises again till you have done 2 hours.
I set my metronome at 50 beats per minute and I play 1 note per click. this might seem very easy and slow but it will build quality and speed and accuracy into my playing. I will also use a clean sound...no fx and a very soft touch with NO TENSION !
After the 2 hour session that completes my gtr practice. I then jam for about 20 minutes over various tracks and apply as much legato as possible.
The remainder of my time goes on some production work for various clients and I will try and work on the new record label web site which is currently under construction.
Not a bad day really.
Keep up the great work and catch you on my next blog
Regards
Chris
free guitar video lessons
www.guitar4hire.com

Welcome to my blog!

I have been playing guitar professionally for a number of years. As I get older I often wonder if I will be able to play my punishing guitar routines or will the dreaded age related joint issues get me!

I have had to re-train my whole approach to the long practice session associated with being a professional guitar player. When your joints are younger eg: teenager, and all you want to do is rock out for 25 hours a day, you don't appear to have any issues, however, over the last 12 months or so I have developed an ache in my index finger knuckle. After a lot of careful monitoring I have discovered that this is purely down to excess tension when I play and not when I practice!

Transfer how you practice to how you play!

Most long term guitar players know that they need to be totally relaxed and have a very soft touch on the fret board...this usually goes out of the window when you play your tracks or are gigging. Try and maintain thjis soft technique all the time and over the years you should be able to play great!

Remember its all about QUALITY NOT QUANTITY.

Regards

Chris (craggstar)
free guitar video lessons
www.guitar4hire.com