Fast - Speed - Warming up - Practicing - Daniel Christopherson

Many musicians and non-musicians do not realize the amount of energy, determination and REPETITION that fast / efficient playing requires. It's like continually looking for, and chasing your weaknesses. In my own practice, I am constantly looking for sloppiness. When I identify a lick that needs work, I create a rhythm in my practice, where the lick which needs work is re-played and re-examinied every couple minutes (as I go thru and refine other licks that need attention).

I call this kind of pactice, "The Zone." ....continually rotating between many things a guitarist wishes to improve.

To those who don't understand this approach, a practicing musician may sound completely speed-focused, monotonous and unmelodic.

The idea is not so much to practice what you already know, but rather, what you do not know.... what you cannot yet play smoothly. What you cannot yet play, or what you do not yet understand.

Seeing this video of myself was partly discouraging, as it is clear which techniques need... uhhh, PRACTICE.

The other super-cool thing about this is that no matter how good you are, or how far you take a technique, you can always improve and explore new possibilites.

How many parts in daily life are truely limitless like that?

How cool!!

It can be a real high just to get into "The Zone" and turn it into a jam, despite the fact that I am "working" on several techniques that need attention. Which means slowing down, so I can idenitify what apect of playing the lick is the real problem. Then I can focus primarily on that!

I look at groiwing as a musician to be a lot like painting one amazing picture of who you are. You get to decide what is actually on the canvas, what colors are used, etc.

Every guitarist has painted some kind of picture of who they are with their own style and approach to music.

The best news is that there are no limits except those which are self-imposed.




Daniel's new CD is called FOR THE PLEASURE OF WATCHING IT BURN at Guitar9.com or amazon.com or CDBaby.com

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• Joe Satriani
• Steve Via
• Jimi Hendrix
• Trower
• Guitar
• Speed
• electric guitar.
• Fast
• Warming
• up
• Practicing
• Daniel
• Christopherson