Obscure Guitar Links

I'm always looking around the web for guitar stuff (so busy, devoted readers of my humble blog won't have to) and lots of times I find things that would be very helpful to guitar players. Also I find things that anyone can enjoy. Today I thought I'd share a few, some aimed at students, and some for general listening pleasure:

Music Theory for Experienced Guitar Players — In spite of the word "Experienced" in the title, this is a pretty good site for anyone who wants to learn the rudiments of music theory as it relates to guitar:

http://www.zentao.com/guitar/theory/

The C-A-G-E-D system is a method for learning the fretboard. It is a guitar-specific system for learning the shapes of the basic chords C, A, G, E and D on the guitar and how they interrelate. Here is a site that explains its fundamentals:

http://www.cagedguitarsystem.net/

And another in a little more detail:

http://www.highcountryguitar.com/caged.htm

Dutch guitar player Matt Otten is kind enough to put jazz guitar lessons on youtube. He has a lot of good pointers for improvisation. There are good things here for students and also just for general listening:

http://youtube.com/user/mattotten

Another Youtuber, Swedish Guitarist Per-Olov Kindgren has a very nice way with the guitar. His videos can be enjoyed by guitarists and non-guitarists alike:

http://youtube.com/user/AndanteLargo

This is a piece, performed by Mr. Kindgren, I had never heard entitled Arroyos de la Alhambra (the link is to a zip file of the sheet music that you can download), by 19th century Spanish guitarist and composer Angel Barrios. I liked it so much that I found the music on the web and learned it. I taught it to super-student Sean Morse (who learned it by rote, believe it or not) and now plays it at least as well as I do (should I be mad or excited?). Still, I get great comments about it on my gigs now. It's a beauty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz1jnDe4gTE

Another Dutch player Hans Van Leeuwen, here plays something he calls Django — Jazz Meets Flamenco. The tune was written by jazz giant, pianist John Lewis of the Modern Jazz Quartet. I just stumbled on it and thought it was great:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4566DWMbyIM

I hope you'll write and tell me your thoughts about any of these, or make suggestions about others I should include in my blog.

Reader/guitarist Lyle Robinson has asked that I add this site and his blog. There's lots of really good information here:

http://www.jazzguitarlife.com/

http://www.jazzguitarlife.com/blog/

Motor Memory Musings

My last few blogs have been kind of generic guitar-related ramblings, so I thought I'd write a learning-specific blog today on how I use the idea of motor memory in learning guitar. To paraphrase late Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, sometimes I don't know how to define something, but I know what it is when I see it. So allow me to rely on Wikipedia for a definition of motor memory: "(Motor) memory is fashioned over time through repetition of a given suite of motor skills and the ability through brain activity to inculcate and instill it such that they become automatic." (Click the link if you're interested in further reading.) That's not really a strict definition, but you get the idea. Think of walking — the movements are solidified in the brain and you do it without thinking. When I walk I'm not thinking "step, step, step, step". I just do it. To take this thought just a tad deeper, I could say that when I walk, rather then think "step, step, etc." I'm actually thinking of the place that I'm walking to, and with that goal in mind the motor memory kicks in and off a-rambling I go. Now let me attempt to bring these thoughts around to how I see using them in learning to play the guitar.

One Note at a Time
When I'm practicing something I've never played on the guitar, whether it be a new song or classical or chord melody jazz piece I try to remember that what I'm really doing is learning motor memory. I've read that we have two sides to our brains, one for learning and doing some things and the other for learning and doing other things. Now I can't remember which side is which and I'm not sure I care, but the fact remains. Observance and intuition tell me that when learning guitar, I have a logical part of my brain, and a musical part of my brain that play equal roles in the process; neither being more important than the other. I'm not qualified to get into a spiel on the psychology behind this, but I think there are processes where we use the two together too, and for our purposes here I'll call this aspect of thought the arbiter. (I started to say "judge", but decided that sounded so judgmental, and I try to avoid making students feel like they are being JUDGED[!]. . . picture me in black robe and long white wig and you'll understand).

The musical side of my brain is very strong willed and tries to get me to play even difficult passages "musically" right from the start. Many guitar players, myself included many times in the past, want to listen only to this side of the brain and start a process of learning that is not conducive to the kind of accuracy involved in learning motor memory. Call it The Whittle Approach. Practicing this way goes something like this: play something a 100 times and make a 100 mistakes. Practice it another 100 times and make 99 mistakes. Keep this process up and whittle the mistakes down to say, a handful. This actually can work to a degree, but experience and observation tells me that this process never really gets to the point where you acquire the confidence of playing mistake-free every time you do it (allowing for true human error of course). I may do it right when I'm feeling "hot", but not when I'm not.

Experience and observation also gave me the desire to look into the process a little deeper. Here's where the arbiter comes into play. Arbiter-Herby tells me to abandon the whittling-down method of Musical-Herby and allow Logical-Herby to demonstrate how it's really done. Forget the music for a minute. Logical-Herby knows that I can't play the second note (or chord) until the motor memory is locked in and truly knows how to play the first note. And he knows he'll never learn the motor memory required until he repeats it over and over slowly. Let me emphasize: S-L-O-W-L-Y(!). . . repeat this as a mantra for the rest of your guitar-playing-life. First note, second note. . . first note, second note. . . first note, second note, etc.

Here a beautiful thing happens: Musical-Herby (who is closely related to Show-Off-Herby) pipes in and says "Hey! I see what you're doing now! And I can do it better! (And he's right, Logical-Herby is a very uninspired guitar player.) Musical-Herby jumps all over the motion that he has just learned from Logical-Herby and plays it. . . musically! He says to himself "I see what you're trying to do here" and he does it with confidence and perfect intention. But beware, Musical-Herby also sets a trap here: he's not really lying, but he is mistaken. Musical-Herby now thinks, "okay, I can take over from here" and he starts back into The Whittle Approach. It's very important for me to allow Arbitor-Herby to jump back in and play his part, by passing the ball back to Logical-Herby and letting him do his thing. Second note to third note, second note to third note, over and over (again — S-L-O-W-L-Y) to build the motor memory that connects the passage. Then add the first back into the process: first, second, third (need I say slowly again?). When and only when, logic has taught Musical-Herby his lesson, Arbiter-Herby allows him to take back over and play it. This may seem like a bit much, but here's an important point. You are learning motor memory even when you don't practice this way. Motor memory has no opinions. If you continue to glide over the mistakes, it will learn your mistakes, and play them if you don't train it with great care.

I could go on here but again, you get the idea. Repeat this process and be stirred. Think now of what I said earlier about walking. Don't think "step-step-step". Think of where you want to go. Your goal. Where you want to go is to be able to play the piece in its entirety with motor memory firmly locked and loaded. Once you can do this, you can allow your own musical self to take over, play with confidence, and enjoy.