your power practice attitude

7/23/2019 Your Power Practice Attitude

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Your POWER PRACTICE ATTITUDE

Your

POWER

PRACTICE

ATTITUDE!

10 ESSAYS

THAT WILL

HELP YOU GET

RESULTS

FROM YOUR GUITAR PRACTICE

from “ The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar”

by Jamie Andreas

Thank You!

for downloading “YOUR POWER PRACTICE ATTITUDE!”

from

www.guitarprinciples.com !I wrote this collection of essays especially to give guitar students the kind of

information that you will not find in method books, but is nonetheless essentialto your long term success with the guitar.

My name is Jamie Andreas, and I appreciate your trust in me and the unique guitar instructionalmethods I have created. I am the founder of GuitarPrinciples, a company completely dedicated tohelping guitar players get better at guitar by solving the problems that are keeping them from advanc-ing.

I am also dedicated to making sure beginners start with all the right information and methods thatguarantee they will not end up with playing problems down the road. These problems cause many play-ers to hit a “playing plateau” that they never rise above. GuitarPrinciples is the prevention, and the curefor this frustrating condition!

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Contents

Aggressive Guitar Practice 2

Te Alone Place 5

Lost In ime 7

Climb Every Mountain 11

Te Inner Master 15

Plateaus 19

Sincerity And Mastery 22

Make it Practical, Not Personal! 24

Boredom 28

Perfection 34




Aggressive Guitar PracticeI have a student, who shall remain nameless but not blameless, who has

often illustrated very nicely how NOT to go about learning the guitar.

She will come in for her lesson, and in a helpless little voice, ask me

something like "Oh Jamie, I need your help with this, I don’t under-

stand what to do here. How do I play this chord. It’s so HAAARD!"

I will then do a couple of things. First, I calm her down, and have her

collect herself, and focus. Then, I ask her to take a good look at the

"problem". I have her take a really good look at that chord that is so

"haaard". We look at each note, one by one. We look at each finger written next to each note. I ask her questions, l ike where each note is. I

don’t TELL her anything. I only ask her questions, which she answers.

Within a few minutes , she has figured it all out, and solved the problem.

There is much to learn here about the right and wrong way to go about

practicing, and much to understand about why some people progress

so slowly. It has nothing to do with musical ability, it has everything

to do with how we think, whether we think, and what we are feel-

ing emotionally about ourselves when we practice. I will explain.

In the case of the student mentioned above, each time we would solve

a problem in this manner, I would point out to her that I had notdone anything for her that she couldn’t have done for herself. I sim-

ply acted as an outside agent to help her focus on the problem. Then

I asked her the proper questions in the proper order, step by step,

until the problem was solved. She on the other hand, while practic-

ing at home, for no GOOD reason, had not done this. Instead, when

confronted with something she didn’t immediately understand, she

panicked, got more confused, didn’t really even look at the prob-

lem, and concluded it was unsolvable, impenetrable, or HAAARD!

In essence, as I would tell her, she had sent up the white flag and sur-

rendered. If she had just tried a little bit, she would have made prog-ress, and eventually solved the problem. Most of the time, the answer

is staring us in the face. Unfortunately, we are not staring back.

One deeper note here, as I touch on a theme I will write about later.

In order to really make progress with this student, it was neces-

sary to not just describe what she was doing wrong in her approach.

But also to explain why . Because I have taught her for many years,

I know her personality, and I know that this behavior is part of her

overall psychological pattern. She likes to pretend she is helpless,

so that she can be rescued. She likes to be the damsel in distress.




The rule here is, student or teacher, you must be aware of your-

self on the most intimate levels to be the best you can be.

Know what you are doing, and why you are doing it. (By the

way, she is much more powerful in her practic ing now).

Passive Practicing

The above description of how not to practice, I call "Passive Practic-

ing". Wimpy, in fact. It is the opposite of Aggressive Practicing. This

is an extreme case, I admit, but not uncommon in some form with

many students. The worst part is that when a student does this, they

lose a whole week of progress. (Let me add here that I have constantly

found myself doing the same thing. No one is immune from this. As you get more advanced, you just do the same "avoidance" behav-

ior in a more subtle, harder to recognize form. The trick is to always

be open minded enough to catch your own blind spots. Every time I

have solved a problem in my playing, it is because I am now paying

attention to something I didn’t bother to pay attention to before.)

As I have told the above mentioned student, and many others,

you must be very Aggressive when you practice. Whenever there

is a problem or something you don’t understand, you must at-

tack it like a pit bull, and not let go until you have solved it. You

must take it apart, and put it back together again, over and over.If, after making your best effort, and finally you conclude that

there is something you don’t understand, and you must have out-

side help, then fine. At that point, get the help you need from your

teacher or whoever. But don’t give up at the first sign of trouble.

When it comes to solving problems in practicing, I think of it as

a war. (This is only one way of thinking of it, but often neces-

sary to get the job done.) I think of the problem as the enemy, and

I am Attila the Hun. Choose the fantasy that works for you!




There is another common situation where passivity in practicing slows

down a student's progress tremendously. It is a passivity of mind andthought processes. To make the fastest progress possible, a student

should be thinking all the time while practicing. Every time something

new is learned, or a new understanding is achieved, everything should

be reviewed in terms of the new understanding. If you just learned that

too much tension being allowed in the pick hand was the source of a

particular problem in playing, the aggressive student will immediately

start looking for all places in his of her playing where that same condi-

tion is causing a problem. The passive student won’t. The aggressive

student will raise the entire level of his playing by doing this. By always

working this way, the aggressive student becomes the best they can be.

The same applies to musical knowledge. I couldn’t believe it, when a

student didn’t know what a half step is, after completing Mel Bay Book

#I, and after having had it explained and written down in his note-

book. He had never bothered to look back and review , or even think

about it after learning it. This kind of laziness will get you nowhere.

The Aggressive student will hold on to everything he learns. He

will think about it and use it. He will ask questions, and never be

satisfied until he understands. If he learns a concept, such as key

signatures, he will look at the key signature every time he plays a

new piece. (Of course, as his teacher, if I had not caught it, that

would be my fault. I would then have been the The Lazy Teach-er, who is not constantly checking and testing the student).

The attitudes and working habits of the Aggressive Student can

be learned by anyone. If you are not used to working with this in-

tensity, it will take some time and a lot of your effort to change.

If you want to be the best you can be, you have no choice.

If you fully appreciate and understand what has been said so

far, you will understand this Principle of Correct Practice:

"Practicing is the process of solving problems. Your abil-

ity to solve problems will be equal to the strength ofyour desire, awareness, and understanding."




Te Alone Place

I am sitting in the forest right now, having the exquisite pleasure of

listening to music that is in many ways more divine than the mu-

sic I make. It’s Thursday, somewhere late in the afternoon. I’m not

sure exactly what time it is, and I don’t really want to know. I don’t

want to experience time right now, I want to experience only move-

ment and change, and the stillness that lies beneath them both.

I am listening to the beautiful songs of some of my favorite birds,

and new ones are coming to join in as time goes by. They are all

so different, some are like liquid whistling, some are like sigh-

ing breathing, some are just kind of chirpy. Some are actually fun-

ny, but they are all incredibly enjoyable, incredibly delightful.

I love listening to these musicians of nature, because they sing for

the best reason there is; because they must. They are pure, and I

come here to soak in their purity. It wasn’t long before I had to unzip

my guitar from my new “go to the woods to practice bag”, and of-

fer some sounds from the human world to my bird friends. I must

say that even though I felt absolutely inspired as I played, I doubted

my bird friends really enjoyed my music as much as I enjoyed theirs.

I thought to myself “I doubt they are having a spiritual experi-

ence, but I hope at least they find these strange sounds coming fromthis strange box at least as interesting as I find their sounds.”

And, I pretended they did.

I thank God and everybody else that I get to spend every day do-

ing what I love the best, doing what I would be doing if I died and

went to heaven, which I often feel I have. But it wasn’t always so,

and no matter how demanding life became, I never forgot to go

back to the place I am in right now. I call it my “alone place”.

Everyone has an alone place. It’s where you really are, all the time,

whether you know it or not. Usually, we can’t feel this place, because weare too distracted by the world, which has us convinced that IT is reality.




When you are in your alone place, there is no other voice in your head

except your own true voice. It is always a voice of love and encourage-ment, it is always telling you what you need to hear. If you hear other

voices, voices you have acquired over the years, voices that say hurt-

ful things to you, then you are not in your alone place. You have be-

come trapped in someone else’s “outland”. You have become trapped

in someone else’s prison. If you hear hurtful voices criticizing and

demeaning you when you practice and things are not going well, tell-

ing you that you don’t measure up, and worse, never will, realize that

this is someone else’s voice. You have accepted it and made it your own,

but it is not yours really. It is not the voice you followed when you

first picked up the guitar. Find that voice again, and purify yourself.

When you are in your alone place, you play for the same reason

the birds sing. And it is pure, un-self-conscious joy. The birds re-

ally don’t care what I or the other birds think about their singing,

their music. They are simply in their bliss, being their nature.

Make sure you go to your alone place, especially, and if at no

other time, when you play the guitar. Because you play the gui-

tar, or want to, you have a special entrance pass. When you are in

your alone place, you will be playing for no other reason than to

play, the same as those birds up in the trees. You will not be prac-

ticing or playing because you want to be somebody or something.

If that is your motivation, you will be nothing and nobody.

Rather, when you are in your alone place, you will be practic-

ing and playing because you want to practice and play, because

you want to be the instrument that plays the instrument that

makes the beautiful sounds. Of course, you will be somebody and

something, but that takes care of itself. “Who” you are may be

mildly interesting and enjoyable, but it can’t compare to “what”

you are when you are playing the guitar and making music.

It’s always open and admission is free. Right now, I got here

by going into the forest, one of the best and most power-

ful ways. But sometimes I go there by going into a room, clos-

ing the door, lighting some candles, and playing. When I play

for other people, my goal is to be entirely alone, so that, through

the music, I can meet everyone else in their alone place.

If you stay in your alone place, you will be pure, and your re-

lationship to what you are doing will be pure, and because it

is pure, it will grow. If you can be in your alone place when

you practice and play, you will connect with your own pow-

er and inspiration, and what you need you will find.




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Lost In ime

It’s interesting to think of the ways people speak about time, and

their relationship to it. Certainly, the subject of time has been

the study of not only scientists in recent times, but even more so

by mystics, sages, and saints throughout the ages. Saint Augus-

tine, one of the early church Fathers of Christianity and a major

philosopher of his day, wrestled with the question of time, say-

ing of it, “if one asks me I know, if I try to explain it to someone,

I know not...my soul is on fire to understand the great enigma”.

He sensed that he would achieve a new level of spiritual develop-

ment if he could penetrate the mystery of time. And he was right.

The yogis of ancient India HAD penetrated the mystery of time to its

core. And they came to the same understanding by the power of insight

that Einstein reached at the beginning of the 20th century using the

power of science and mathematics: simply put, time does not exist.

We do not live in time, time lives in us. We create time with the mind.

We might say time is the way the mind organizes experience. Whether

you believe it or not, it is true. As Einstein proved, time is a relative phe-

nomenon, and it is relative to motion. Truly understanding this, and de-

veloping the capacity to function on the basis of this understanding, (at

least some of the “time”) will not only enrich your life, but is one of thevital attributes of a true artist, and necessary to the creation of true art.

There are two levels of functioning in relation to time: the mun-

dane, and the mystical. They are both necessary, useful, and ap-

propriate in their proper context. If a Mack truck is moving toward

you at 100mph, it isn’t appropriate to remind yourself that time

does not actually exist because practically speaking, it DOES ex-

ist for you in relation to the speeding truck, and it might be a good

idea to respect that fact, get into mundane mode, and get some

serious relative motion happening in relation to that truck!

The mundane level of time is useful for everyday functioning, itgives us power. We can measure, and we can control, as in meeting

someone at 3 o’clock. It adds to our survival potential on the physi-

cal level, and that is why we have developed the tool we call time. We

can make the trains run on time, and we can measure things like the

amount of time we practice guitar, and how long a quarter note lasts.




However, just as humans have invented language to represent Real-

ity, and then mistake the symbols for the Reality, so it is with time. We forget that we have literally “made it up”. Early man observed

the motion and cycles of nature (sun up, down, that sort of thing),

and related directly to motion and change itself, without postulat-

ing the idea of a “stream of time” in which the motion took place.

Infants don’t live in time. It doesn’t exist. Their experience of time is

one big “forever”, and remains so until the child begins to grow and

becomes increasingly aware of the phenomenon of motion around

them. All of us became aware of the repetitious nature of our ex-

perience. It’s light, it’s dark, over and over. Mommy wakes us up,

mommy puts us to sleep. Movement. Repetition. Rhythm. But no

matter what is happening, no matter what “time” it is, to the child

it is always “NOW”. And that is why the child is capable of being

intensely alive. Children have that magical ability to feel pure joy

merely from the fact of existing because they float in a sea of “time-

lessness”. But “in time”, he or she will probably lose that ability.

The child will be made to adapt to the “real” world, the one where being

alive is an experience measured by a metal bar swinging around a circle

of numbers, and a bunch of little squares on a calendar, each with its

own name. Little sections, some where we are free (days off) and most

where our “time” is owned by someone else. We become unable to have

the direct experience of our own awareness, our own consciousness,as we learn to package it into minutes, hours, days, weeks and years.

We LEARN to live in t ime, we LEARN the idea of past and future, and

then it becomes a psychological reality. It also becomes a psychological

prison. Gradually, we come to really believe that the universe runs on

some gigantic clock, with numbers, dates and years written in stone. Be-

lief in “the past” becomes an act of identification of remembered streams

of events, and that becomes “who we are”, and so we cannot change.

Belief in “the future” becomes worry and anxiety. Since we think we ex-

ist in time, and don’t see that time exists in us, we fear that nasty”future”

as if it were out there right now, like a train station waiting for us topull in, rather than seeing that we are creating the “future” right NOW.

And remaining in that prison through the tyranny of time, we are

locked out of that one place Reality is actually to be found: NOW.

NOW is not the same thing as time. NOW cannot be measured,

only experienced. And when it is fully experienced, the experi-

encer disappears! Time is made of minutes, which are definable.

NOW is made of “moments” which are indefinable, wholly quali-

fied only by their subjective content, not by any objective standard.




All of this conditioning must be undone and unlearned, or at least

that process must begin, if we are to become artists, or even capableof practicing the guitar correctly. This is what I mean in The Prin-

ciples when I say we must have Beginners Mind as a constant aware-

ness. It is also what Jesus meant when he said of the little child on

his knee, “you must become as one of these if you are to enter the

Kingdom of Heaven”. It is also what Pepe Romero means when he

says “you must practice with the mental simplicity of a child”. The

corrupting influence of allowing the mind to live in time, as if time

were an objective reality, deadens our ability to be real ly alive.

As the years go by, and the accumulation of experience mounts, the

tyranny of time takes its toll. Time becomes our enemy. We need

to “kill it”, we “waste it”, or find ways to “pass it”. Rather, since it

is a tool man has made for his use, we should be using it, not be-

ing used by it. From the mundane point of view, the highest use

of time is to SPEND it, and spend it wisely. We should spend it

wisely, and make a profit for our effort. If we do, we become rich.

We should be very careful to whom and to what we lend it as well .

From the beginning of playing the guitar, I jealously guarded

my time, spending it like a miser, and investing it like a Wall

Street tycoon, setting weekly practice goals, writing down sched-

ules, and grading myself for how many hours I got in each week.

This was the single biggest reason I got real good real fast.

After becoming wise in our use of time, after making it our friend in-

stead of our enemy, it is time to learn the highest use of time, which is

the non-use of time. Like any good friend, once in a while we need to

tell it to go home, we need to be alone now. This is the mystical rela-

tionship to time, where the mind in fact stops creating what it learned to

create so long ago. I call this relationship to time being “lost in time”.

This is the timeless world of the child, the mystic, and the artist. It is

what made me pick up the guitar at age 14 and start practicing 3 hours

a day without really noticing I was doing so. It is what any great artist

does when they are playing their best, it is what any great athlete does

hen they are “in the zone”. The mind has stopped creating time, and

the self that was experiencing becomes one with the experience. Only a

witnessing awareness remains, without any center. We are “lost in time”.

To become lost in time is simply what it sounds like. We have all

done it, most of us still do at some time or the other. Its when

the clock stops. The clock doesn’t even stop, its just that there is

no clock. There is only “what is happening”. There is no us do-

ing something, there is only the doing. There is motion, but

it is not relative to something else, so there is no time.




There is no “us” there anymore, in the usual way, to be rela-

tive to what is happening. It is usually described as a “one-ness”. For us guitarists it means we lose awareness of an “us”

playing the guitar, there is just “playing the guitar”.

The inspiration of the artist is always NOW, as is any experi-

ence wherein we feel truly alive. We have all been in this place, but

many have forgotten how to go back there. Some even believe they

shouldn’t go there. They are wrong. If you wish to be a great gui-

tarist, you must find your way back to this, your natural state.

When you play your guitar, you must be able to become “lost in time”,

lost in NOW. There must be no concern for a future that takes your At-

tention out of the NOW. I have sat and watched so many would be gui-tarists allow their anxiety for future attainment prevent them from seeing

what needs to be seen, in order for them to really have the future they

want. They are so concerned about being better than they are, their At-

tention is not in the NOW, and they can’t discover their own obstacles.

Our power to change is in the NOW. Because they are so con-

cerned with getting somewhere, they are not aware of where they

ARE. And so, they have no ability to move anywhere else.

When you practice, and you are at the Bottom of your Practice, you

should be lost in time. Your attention to NOW should be very complete

and powerful. For Principled Players, No Tempo Practice (along with

Posing) are the foundation of our practice approach. A tempo implies

linear time. In no tempo practice, time stops, and we have all the “space”

we need to direct our attention anywhere we wish, anywhere it is needed,

in order to develop the primary quality of all great players: Awareness.

We bring that Awareness back with us when we return to time, and play

with a tempo. At first, many people are simply unable to do this. The

first job of the teacher is to train them to have this ability. This is why

attitudes and emotions must be dealt with sometimes by the teacher,

because they will often be at the root of the inability to become lost in

time. Likewise, when you play, you should be lost in time, not movingan inch in either direction out of NOW. The “me” is lost in the music.

We all have our “Mack Truck Moments” when the tool of time must be

used, and such moments are dealt with automatically, in their moment,

in their NOW. Clocks, calendars and schedules are there to serve us,

not rule us. In general, we must learn to float in the sea of timelessness

as we did as children, especially when we practice or play the guitar.




Whenever you feel the pull of the clock, making you feel like

you’d better hurry up before your time runs out; don’t sacri-fice your NOW, jump back into the sea of timelessness with

this thought: You should always feel like you have all the

time in the world, and since time is within you, you do!




Climb Every Mountain

The longer I teach, the more I am impressed with one unassail-

able fact: most of what becoming good or great on the guitar is

about has nothing to do with “musical ability”. It has everything to

do with that group of qualities loosely spoken of as “character”.

When I was 16 years old, I met a friend who enabled me to put an end

to my desperate search for a classical teacher. Scott played the classical

guitar, and was taking classical guitar lessons at a music school I had

never heard of, but started going to immediately, where I took lessons

with his teacher. It was thrilling to meet Scott, because I had never seen

a person play the classical guitar in person, only heard it on records (and

from that, was trying to teach myself: wrong move!). It was more thrill-

ing to meet his teacher, a trained, experienced, and fine classical player.

As time went by, I remember going over to Scott’s house often and play-

ing guitar with him, and hanging out and practicing and playing at his

house. After awhile, it became clear that I was surpassing Scott in my

classical playing. His mother was a very astute and intelligent person,

and would always listen to me play. I remember that she used to remark

about a difference she noticed between my relationship and approach to

guitar and that of her son Scott. She noticed that I applied myself with

an intensity that Scott never exhibited. For instance, she noticed that I would work relentlessly on the same piece, the same passages, the same

problems, always striving to reach a higher level of perfection with what

I was playing. For whatever reason, Scott just did not do this. (Actu-

ally, all reasons come down to one thing: I needed to do it that way,

and Scott didn’t. The entire “why” of it all would be another essay!)

Believe me, Scott had as much ability to play as I did,

as much “natural talent” for music. It took him so far,

and apparently, that was far enough for him.

I am in the business of building excellent guitar players, and so, I

must convey a certain truth to them along the way, one that does notseem to be obvious and sufficiently appreciated by most people. It is

this: it is relatively easy to achieve about 80% of anything. It is rela-

tively easy to develop ourselves to about 80% of proficiency in any

field we may choose. If you want to become a computer program-

mer, a business person, own a restaurant, be a carpenter, be a musi-

cian, anything, you can study it, get experience, and become “func-

tional”. Most people that bother to develop something useful ( and

most do, being forced as we are to “make a living”) achieve this level.




But to become really good, to start to rise above the level of the aver-

age person, THAT takes a whole different kind of effort, and a wholelot more of it. Most people do not do this in their particular field. Most

people really are, when it comes down to it, content with doing what

they “must”, and keeping their standards and goals low enough to avoid

too much demand and discomfort. That is why the age old lament of

all employers is “you just can’t find good help anymore”. Yes, because

the #1 goal of most people is to DO as little as possible and GET as

much as possible. That is the formula for mediocrity. To put it simply,

it is easy to be mediocre, that is why so many people are achieving it.

We are all climbing a mountain. In fact, we are climbing various moun-

tains all the time. Becoming a guitar player is a mountain, and every

piece of music you work on is its own mountain. It is easy to work on

a solo, a song, or a piece, and get it “pretty good”. You know, 80% of

the notes are there, so hey, leave me alone, what do you want, ALL

the notes! Come on, I would have to REALLY work hard to get that!

To bring a piece of music from 80% to 90% is an incredibly demand-

ing process. Climbing that mountain further and further is the es-

sence of being an artist, no matter what your field of endeavor is.

Yes, that is the truth. It is easy to get 80% of the way up the mountain,

any interested party can do that. Closing in on that last 20%, well,

that separates the men from the boys, as they say. Here is the thing

to understand: every step forward and upward required to move pastthe common crowd will most likely require as much as ALL the ef-

fort previously put out. The higher we climb, the more we must exert

for every inch gained, but every inch is precious, and worth more than

everything before it. The gap between 99% to 100% is, in fact, infinite.

The real polish, the real excellence, comes only to those deeply

committed to it. I don’t know why, I didn’t make up the rules.

However, I believe it has something to do with some natu-

ral “filtering out” process. As if Life were saying “only those act-

ing from great desire, great need of the highest kind, need ap-

ply. Only those willing to prove themselves by using every ounce,and then more, of their strength, will achieve greatness”.

This is why it is very common for me to have the kind of experience I

just had with a student who is working with my two books, The Prin-

ciples, and The Path. Jim is working on getting his first songs together,

beginning to end, strumming, changing chords and singing, and doing

it from memory. He was working on the song “Amazing Grace”, and

has dutifully practiced the chord changes according to my instruc-

tions, and was in the process of putting it all together. I told him I

wanted the song memorized, and showed him how to go about it.




He came in the next week, and announced that he did some practice on

it, but really spent most of the time on the new blues shuffle I had givenhim. Obviously, it was “spanking time”, and I reached for the paddle!

I explained to him “yes, you have achieved the ability to play that song

with a lot of hesitation and stumbling, and losing your place. Con-

gratulations. You have climbed part way up the mountain, and that is

good enough for you. You decided you would do what was easy, fun,

and exciting, the new blues shuffle (exciting because it is new, left up

to him, it would receive the same treatment, left half done and never

“polished”). You decided to avoid the REAL work of bringing that

song all the way to perfection, where you can grab that guitar, and

sing and play that song from beginning to end.” Yes, Jim hung his

head in shame, and admitted I was right, and resolved to do better!

What I was doing was preventing the swerving toward mediocrity that

was already beginning to assert itself for this new student, by giving

him the attitude that leads to good and great playing. Now, understand

that this student is not intending on being a professional, and in fact is

an adult with many responsibilities, and so gets little time to practice,

sometimes only a few minutes a day. It doesn’t matter. That is no excuse

for letting months go by, and ending up with a bunch of butchered and

dismembered “pieces” of music that are just that: nothing but pieces!

Whatever level of player or student you are, you must always de-mand excellence from yourself. And that does NOT mean “do it to

the best of your ability”. Who knows what ability any of us have. It

means “do what must be done to achieve the goal”. And that implies

you HAVE a goal, and that it is the correct goal. Ultimately, our goal

should be to be able to say “as far as I can see, I have climbed”.

Segovia, when asked how much he practiced said “as much

as I need to”. He meant “I work as hard as I have to in or-

der to achieve my vision of what I know is possible”.

The artist is constantly climbing, growing into our abilities, con-

stantly surprised at what our striving brings out of us. There is alwaysa new height coming into view, and we climb it because it is there. As

time goes by, we occasionally look down at the view and are amazed

at how high we have climbed. People below us may look up at us in

amazement at the height we have achieved. They may applaud, and

the sound of that applause can be like a siren song to some, who

may decide to stop and listen, and forget to get up and move on.




A true artist (whether it is your first day playing or your 50th

year) will soon lose interest in that, and turn their gaze upwardonce more, and begin moving once again toward their vision,

to the height that remains out of sight for others, and can only

be seen and achieved because of the height already attained.




Te Inner Master

Of all the things you can do to make sure you are enabling yourself

to achieve your guitar playing dreams, finding the Inner Master is the

greatest. All great players have found the Inner Master. Once the Inner

Master is found, everything else that can be useful becomes usable.

How do we find the Inner Master? Actually, we don’t. The Inner Master

finds us. The Inner Master finds us when we are ready to be found, when

we are ready to l isten. The Inner Master is l ike the “still small voice”, it

can’t be heard when other voices are talking, or screaming, inside of us.

We won’t hear the Inner Master if we are busy hearing voic-es of worry about how “good” we are on guitar, or if we can

ever be “good”. We won’t hear the Inner Master if we are hear-

ing voices of pride about what a great guitar player we are!.

Worry and pride are noises that scare the Inner Master away.

We will hear the Inner Master when everything is quiet enough

for the Inner Master to hear US when we play, or practice; that

is, to hear our music. When our Inner Master can hear us play,

He, or She, will instruct us, guide us, to our next step of develop-

ment, to the next awareness we need in order to move beyond

where we are. Our Inner Master should be the one we play for

when we play. The Inner Master hears when we truly listen.

Mastery on the guitar is not the attainment of a state of perfec-

tion, it is the attainment of a position; and we arrive at that

position through the practice of essential attitudes. These at-

titudes allow us to see what is important, and what is true.

They allow us to be Masters, and to become Masters.

Mastery is the state wherein there is no obstacle from the outside to the

inside, or from the inside to the outside. Mastery is a position of “no-

position”, it is complete openness. Masters are those who have spent

a long time in that position, and have developed from that position.

Masters are never finished growing, they haven’t seen everything.

They are just in a position from which they COULD see anything.

Finding The Inner Master

How do we find the Inner Master, or allow ourselves to be found?

I really recommend a way I believe has been successfully used

over the ages: find the Outer Master first. Or, we might say, be

able to recognize the Outer Master when you do see him.




Nothing can release your own Inner Master more effectively

than seeing a great player play. But, you have to know how tolook. You have to look with complete openness, you have to ab-

sorb it all without “mentalizing” about it. You have to “feel” the

great player, you have to feel like you ARE the great player.

I have always noticed a very peculiar thing. Whenever I would watch

a great player play, as time went on and I went back to my practic-

ing, I would notice that I was doing things a little differently, I was

using a finger a bit differently, or I was feeling a bit different as I

played, perhaps moving, or feeling my body in a new way. I realized

I had picked up something by just watching a great player play.

Somehow, I had internalized, in a non-verbal and non-conscious way,something about the way that player was approaching playing the

guitar, something about the way they were related to the whole thing.

I have to admit I haven’t done a scientific study of it, but I have to

believe it is something that happens all the time for many people, and

is possible for anyone. It is simply a matter of letting everything you

are connect with something outside of you, and everything IT is con-

nect with something inside of you. Then, you will notice changes.

I once watched Segovia play a chord, and then bring his hand away from

the strings in such a beautiful and graceful way. I felt afterward that I

had learned worlds about how to touch the strings, and how to feel in

the whole body as I did so. My Inner Master had connected to his Inner

Master. I found my Inner Master through attention to an Outer Master.

When I was young I went to see Julian Bream play. I fe lt I learned

a lot about being a master as I watched him simply walk out on

stage! His incredible naturalness as he sauntered around to the front

of the stage, combined with those red socks, conveyed so much

about how one ought to feel about sharing the intensity of one’s re-

lationship to music and the guitar with a crowd of strangers.

But watching Julian’s face as he played said more than any-

thing else, and conveyed more than anything else could. His absolute

involvement and concentration on the music, and his surrender to

it, revealed the inner experience of a Master. The emotional intensity

of the music, reflected in his face as he created and communed with

it, made a harmony as beautiful as any in the music itself. My In-

ner Master knew he was in his Alone Place, and that was the place for

a player to be when he or she plays, and it helped me enter my own

Alone Place. I have gotten that same feeling watching Stevie Ray, An-

gus, Jimi, etc. play. If playing Rock or Blues were my highest and most

urgent calling, these would be the masters I would commune with.




When you can allow the eyes of your Inner Mas-

ter to see the Outer Master, communication and transfer-ence will take place, you will discover the effects later.

Occasionally, when I am instructing a student in correct practice, and

I show them the depth of attention needed, and how extremely slowly

movements must be done, they will say “I thought that I should be

doing something like that, but my last teacher told me NO, don’t

practice that slowly, it’s not necessary. It felt good to me, and I thought

I should be doing it that way, but my teacher said no”. This is an ex-

ample of the Inner Master trying to be heard, even in a beginner, but

not being listened to because of mis-guided faith in “authority” in-

stead of trust in one’s own Intuition (in--tuition, inner teaching).

Te Inner Master “Finds” Te Way oTe Notes

People sometimes ask questions like “I saw John McClaughlin

play, and his face was tense. Jamie says you should have no ten-

sion. Is John McClaughlin wrong?”, or “I saw so and so play, and

his pinky was sticking out, somebody tell Jamie to yell at him!”

It needs to be understood that what we do when we practice is entirely

different than what we do when we play. Whatever look you see on

John McClaughlin’s face when he is playing, you can rest assured itis not because he is s truggling to play! What you are seeing is a Mas-

ter “finding his way to the notes”. If the music is there as you watch

someone play, if the master player has found his way to the notes , and

you are hearing them, then, whatever he is doing, is right. In play-

ing, whatever we do to get the notes is fair game, legal, and allowed.

I have seen John Williams’ pinky flying around. I see that with my

eyes, but I also hear all the wonderful notes! How can what he is do-

ing be “wrong” if he is finding his way to the notes? Obviously, when

that pinky needs to play a note, it’s there, and Williams makes sure it’s

there! So, be very careful when you judge a master player. I have seen

Bream look like he might be having an epileptic fit, and I have seen

him look like he was going to jump out of his chair. He is doing what

HE needs to do, at that moment, to find his way to the notes. A master

knows what he wants, knows how to get it, and knows when he gets it.




When we practice, we create the optimum conditions for training of

the body, so that it becomes able to respond to our commands. When we play, we do whatever we feel like doing, and we do whatever we

must do to “find our way to the notes”. And sometimes this involves

body language and movements, and facial expressions that may not

make much sense to someone on the outside, especially someone hold-

ing a list of rules about how things ought to look when one plays.

The Intention and Attention of a Master is so powerful, the desire for

the music is so strong, that all matters of technique and form MAY

be overridden occasionally in the process of finding his or her way to

the notes. If a student see such a moment, they will not understand

what is happening, because they are always trying to figure out “the

rules”. Ultimately, there are no rules, there are guidelines. For every

rule, there is some great musician, breaking that rule as he finds his

way to the notes. Preparation, if necessary, will yield to inspiration.

Mastery is a position we take. We do not have to wait to take that posi-

tion, it can be recognized and found within us even from the beginning.

If you can keep your love of music and desire to play in it’s original pu-

rity, free from contamination of ego, free from the bondage of service to

the ego and it’s needs, then you will hear the voice of your Inner Master.

The Inner Master knows the best you are capable of at any mo-

ment, and it will accept no less than that. The Inner Maser will ac-cept nothing less than the music you make when your whole being

is fully immersed in the making of the music, when the notes being

made are made from your complete love and honest and passion-

ate involvement, nothing else. Then, as you and your Inner Master

listen and enjoy together, the Inner Master teaches, and you learn.




Plateaus

A student once asked me “how do you handle it when you hit

a plateau, when you feel like you are stuck and you can’t get

past the level you are at”. Now, of course, this is a common ex-

perience for all players, and a common question as well.

I believe we all know that the usual reaction to this situation is a

negative one; frustration perhaps mixed with anger, and a little de-

spair thrown in for good measure! When we can’t get something to

sound the way we hear someone else play it, even after lots of prac-

tice and lots of time, it IS a very frustrating, annoying situation.

At the very least, we want to hear ourselves making that wonder-

ful music we admire, and more than that, we want to feel like we

are getting somewhere as guitarists for the effort we put in, and

that we have the ability to make continuous progress. So, when we

keep getting negative feedback, in the form of repeated failed at-

tempts to be able to do something, it starts to take the wind out

of our sails, and we begin to lose confidence in ourselves. Di-

minished desire for practicing usually follows rather quickly.

So, what DO we do about this unavoidable situation?

The answer lies in understanding the point I made in my es-say “The Inner Master”. We must understand what Mastery is, and

why it is possible to be, in essence, a Master right from the begin-

ning of our relationship to music and the guitar. And that is be-

cause Mastery is an inner attitude and disposition. It is the in-

ner position in which there is no obstruction from the outside to

the inside, and no obstruction from the inside to the outside.

Sure, people who are called “Masters” hit plateaus, but they have

learned not to react in ways that will prevent eventual transcendence

of the limitations of that level of ability. They have learned that all

negative reactions will prevent moving beyond the plateau. The onlypossible exception to this is the person who has learned the wonder-

ful art of turning anger into an ally, using frustration as a fuel for

determination; even in this case, the anger is handled with mastery,

and not allowed to become an obstacle, but that is another essay!




The Master has realized the wisdom expressed so eloquently in the

New Testament “resist not evil”. The meaning of this is simply this:the way to overcome that which we do not like is not to resist and

resent it, because that only strengthens it, and weakens us. It is to

“remain in place” inwardly, to study it, to understand it, and then to

act. Then, we achieve power, which is the ability to create change.

And so, knowing this , what does the Master do when they find

themselves on a plateau? Why, they build a château on the pla-

teau, and take up residence there! They say, “Hmmm, something

is going on here that I don’t understand, so I am going to stay

here and study the landscape. I will focus my attention so strong-

ly on what I CAN see that I will begin to see more.”. The master

knows the reason for being stuck is because there is something sit-

ting there, at that level, that needs to be known. So the Master s its,

and studies, and if there is one thing a Master has, it’s patience!

For someone who has not discovered the inner position of mastery, the

reaction to being “stuck on a plateau” is quite different. For such a per-

son, there ARE obstructions from the inside to the outside, and the out-

side to the inside, and the obstructions arise quickly-- anger, resentment,

and feelings of inadequacy (inner obstructions) appear and intensify in

reaction to negative events (outside obstructions). If these feelings were

examined, if these feelings were seen as judgements about reality rather

than “facts” about reality, the road to mastery would begin to becomevisible. If these feelings were examined, we would find that it is not real-

ly the natural frustration of not getting what we want that is the biggest

problem, but rather, it is the fact that we are, underneath that, allow-

ing ourselves to feel inferior and inadequate. THAT is the real culprit.

Like children watching their parents divorce, we conclude immedi-

ately “there must be something wrong with me, that is why this bad

thing is happening”. In both these cases, this conclusion may ap-

pear to be justified, given our level of understanding, but it is not the

truth. The Master may feel these feelings too, but unlike the novice,

the Master neither runs from these feelings, or merely accepts them asvalid. Rather, they simply become part of the scenery to be surveyed.

The novice feels such emotional pain from these feelings that they

are helpless to do anything but try to avoid them. The novice

shuts his eyes, and covers his feelings. In fact, the novice wishes to

leave the plateau more out of a desire to avoid feelings of inferior-

ity than by the desire to really enjoy a higher level of ability.

Unlike the novice, the master does not identity with these feel-

ings; they may arise, but the Master does not give these feel-

ings the power to define who he or she is, or can become.




Just because I feel like I am inferior, or unable, is no reason to assume

I actually am; that would be a very dangerous belief to adopt on suchdubious evidence. And so, the Master sets aside these feelings, and sits,

and studies. The Master becomes so involved in the process of commun-

ing with the conditions of the plateau that the desire to leave it becomes

secondary to the interest and adventure of learning all of what is there.

Because of this, the depth of understanding of the Master increases,

and the rising to a new level of ability appears automatically.

All of what you see in The Principles is the result of my time spent,

sometimes many years, on my own plateaus. Or, it is from the s tudy of

the plateaus upon which my students have found themselves. I have nev-

er seen a plateau from which I or my students could not eventually rise.

Because the Master does not allow frustration and despair to obstruct

the flow from the inside to the outside, he or she is led to relate in

the best and most appropriate way to the level of awareness called

“the plateau”. And so, no obstructions from the outside to the in-

side occur. The so called “plateau” becomes the teacher, and instructs

the Master/Student in the wisdom that is necessary to rise higher.

And so it goes, and so it goes.




Sincerity And Mastery

GuitarPrinciples is very fortunate in that we seem to attract an ex-

tremely high quality of player to our site. I do not necessarily mean

in terms of the level of playing ability attained, I mean in terms of

that one quality that transcends and in fact, determines everything

else about our growth as guitarists. This quality is what I look for in

each student, in fact, what I must see in order to work with some-

one. That quality can be called Sincerity. It could be called by other

names, such as Purity, Honesty, Earnestness and so forth. Sincerity

of desire, and its translation into intensity of effort are the primary

qualities which bring about our growth, from beginner to master. Without it, the path will be weak, or abandoned along the way.

People often ask me “do you teach beginners”, and are surprised when

I say “sure, why not”. It makes no sense to me that my criteria for

teaching someone should be that they already play! In fact, there is

something quite special about teaching a beginner. That is, there is

something quite special about it if that quality of sincerity is there.

If a beginner comes to me for lessons, how do I know I don’t have

a future genius and master player and musician sitting in front of

me, who I just happened to have been given the honor and respon-

sibility of guiding in his or her first steps; those crucial first steps.Does a gardener like the plant less if she started it from a seed?

In fact, the only thing that is equally satisfying is to save the life of a

plant that is dying, or transform one that is wilted. To meet a long time

player, and provide what is missing from their understanding or ap-

proach, and show them how to remove the obstacles to their next level

of development, is very thrilling. It is also very mentally challenging,

since, unlike beginners, the teacher is presented with an infinite vari-

ety of situations already in progress; knots already tied and tightened

in various ways and for various reasons. Finding the approach that

begins to create movement and un-ties someone’s knots is interesting,challenging, and enjoyable as we both see the progress take place.

If you are wondering what I mean by sincerity, it is very simple. Imagine

two kids going to the playground. One kid just can’t wait to jump on

the monkeybars, the see-saw, the swings. He or she gets so involved with

playing she doesn’t even come up for air or notice anything else until




the sun goes down and Mom is calling and she has to leave. The other

kid goes and he is looking kind of suspiciously at all the other kids. Heis wondering if the other kids like him. He doesn’t like a lot of the other

kids, especially the ones who seem to be really good at the different

games being played. This kid is not having fun, and does not play well.

That’s how it is with guitar players, some are like the first kid, some

like the second. One is sincere, he or she is playing the real game,

and is much more concerned with playing and having fun than with

winning. The other kid is playing his own game, and pretends to

be a winner, needs to be a winner, but always feels like a loser.

That is what I mean by sincerity.




Make it Practical, Not Personal!

In his famous essay “Self Reliance”, Ralph Waldo Emerson said

“to believe that what is true for you in your private heart is true

for all men - that is genius”. Well, whether doing so will neces-

sarily make you a genius or not, I’m not sure. But, I have found

that at least checking out the possibility that what is true for

me in own heart is true for others is certainly a policy that can

lead to very interesting, and often enlightening results.

I am not talking about my wonderful thoughts and feelings,

but rather, the area of all my worst parts. I have found through-

out my life, almost without exception, that all the parts of my-

self I am least happy with, least proud of, the parts that are the

most crazy and downright destructive in my life; I have almost

always found these parts to be shared by my fellow humans.

To put it in plain English, no matter how crazy I think I am,

I can feel confident and consoled in knowing that there are

a whole lot of people out there at least as crazy as me!

And in addition to making me less alarmed about myself, this aware-

ness has often led to things that are quite useful to myself and others.

One of these things (surprise) has to do with practicing the guitar! And,it is something that, when understood, can have a fundamental, and

I mean major, positive effect on your progress. In fact, it can begin,

determine, and continue, the very course of your movement forward.

Needless to say, I instruct all my students in this understanding.

Here is what I am referring to. I have noticed while practicing,

that if I listen real close to the “inner voices” (which often sim-

ply have no real voice, but are only feelings), if I listen real close

at those times when I am having trouble with something and am

just not able to do something I am trying to do, I hear a particular

voice that comes from the part I affectionately call “crazy Jamie”.

This “crazy Jamie” voice says, “Well, personally, I think the reason it’s

not working out, and you can’t do it IS BECAUSE YOU JUST CAN’T

DO IT! It’s as simple as that. Just face it.”. Now, I have to tell you, I

usually don’t listen to this voice for too long. But I know that it has

often stopped me in my tracks, and most importantly, it prevented me

from looking further for a solution to my trouble. I would realize this

later on, when I would find the solution (maybe a year later!). I would

realize that I could have seen it much sooner - instead, I listened to

that voice, and did not look for solutions, or at least a new direction.




Erase that! The problem is not really that I stopped and lis-

tened to that voice. My mistake was that normally, that voiceis droning on, like an undercurrent of feeling which rises

up when the going gets tough, and I never really AM listen-

ing to it, it is just droning on and affecting me nonetheless!

When I do real ly stop and listen to this pathetic whine, I tell

it to shut up and get out immediately, which it does! And then

I get to work right away, thinking, experimenting, and learn-

ing. These days, I have to admit, I ’m pretty good at it!

Now, here’s the thing. I have noticed from my observation of many

hundreds of people that this little inner drama is very often going on in

their heads as well! I don’t know how, but we all caught this thing, orat least a whole lot of us. Every time we hit some bump in the road, we

make it PERSONAL, not PRACTICAL! We don’t even question it!

Every time something doesn’t go our way on guitar, a little voice in

our heads is ready to tell us that it is probably our fault, and we have

no right to expect anything better. Somehow, this bad thing that hap-

pened is a reflection and a statement on our basic nature. It’s like

what soldiers talk about when the guy next to them gets shot. They

feel guilty because they didn’t get shot, they somehow feel responsible

for what happened to the guy next to them. Or a little kid when his

parents divorce; they always figure it is their fault. It’s like “Our Faultby Default”. In our minds,we allow the imperfections of life to de-

fine us - unless we really use our intelligence to see through this.

If, for example, you are trying to do a fast little lick on your gui-

tar, and you keep screwing it up, and can’t seem to get it, what hap-

pens? You get a little upset, you try again, same thing happens, it’s

all messed up. The more you try, the more messed up it gets. That

crazy little voice starts playing, “You just can’t do it, you’re not good

enough”. As if to defy it, you keep on trying, and keep on proving

the voice is right (or so it seems). A lot of the time, a good help-

ing of self pity will be added to the mix, as in “ I should be able

to do that, it’s not fair, this whole guitar playing thing stinks!”

What should happen? Something more like “Hmm, let me see

what those fingers are real ly doing at that spot. Oh, it’s the pick,

I keep missing the string with the pick right there. Oh, I see, I

tense my wrist right before that, and that is why I miss the string.

I think I’ll try some no tempo practice here and focus on that,

and work it up with the metronome. And I think I’ll do that ev-

ery day for 15 minutes for the next month, and see what hap-

pens.” Now, THAT is making it practical, and not personal.




So, here is my advice. BE LIKE THAT! At least when you practice the

guitar. When you are having a problem with something, don’t makeit personal. Make it practical. Observe, think, then observe again.

Understand the relationship between the sounds you are mak-

ing (or not making) and the way your fingers are behaving. Un-

derstand the relationship between how your body feels and the

way your fingers are behaving. Understand the relationship be-

tween what is going on (or not going on) between your ears, and

how your body feels, and how your fingers are behaving.

Examine yourself very honestly and see if there is a glim-

mer of the feeling I am talking about at those times

when you are having a problem with the guitar, especial-ly when it’s “throw the guitar out the window time”.

And finally, if by any chance it turns out that I AM the only one

who has ever felt this way while practicing the guitar, please,

don’t tell me. I don’t think crazy Jamie could handle that!




Boredom

Even the most ardent and enthusiastic players and students will at

some time or another, find that they must deal with the enemy of

forward movement known as “boredom”. The experience can range

from feeling a localized loss of enthusiasm with a song or piece that

we have been putting a sustained effort into, to not feeling like prac-

ticing for long periods of time. It is a multi-faceted subject; bore-

dom will make its appearance at various times, in various ways, and

for various reasons. Like its kindred area of concern-practice orga-

nization, dealing with it is most properly seen as an essential life

skill, one that we will be called upon to exercise in many other ar-eas of life, not just the most important one, our guitar playing!

o Be Or Not o Be-- Bored!

The first thing that any thoughtful consideration of the subject

will bring to light is the fact that each of us has a native capac-

ity for enthusiasm, some more, some less. Some people are natu-

rally endowed with a zest for life and all it contains, they tend to

go at things with great energy as a rule. Others just kind of shuffle

along through life, as if their primary goal was to avoid attract-

ing much attention, hoping no one will notice they are here.

They don’t want to have too much of an effect on the world, and

are hoping the world will not have too much effect on them.

And so, we have two types of people: the first has an almost natu-

ral immunity to boredom; life is too exciting for boredom to ever

appear. The other finds life bearable at best, and constantly seeks

to escape its pressure. This latter type will rarely, if ever, be found

in the ranks of good guitar players, they really don’t have what it

takes to find the love of playing within themselves, and then turn

the desire to improve into real accomplishment. However, we fre-

quently find this person flirting with the guitar, trying some les-

sons perhaps, to see if something can be accomplished withoutpaying too high a price in personal energy and commitment.

The challenge to keep our practice exciting and motivating still remains

even for those of us not mired in these deeper issues of personal develop-

ment. Even the most motivated and hardworking student must know

how to navigate through the constantly shifting demands of technical

development, knowledge of music, and of course, musical enjoyment.

We all must discover how to conduct the balancing act between apply-

ing ourselves to something long enough to produce results, while still

knowing when to move on to new, exciting and motivating challenges.




Boredom With Exercises

Exercises will quickly lead to boredom if we do not know two things:

where they are coming from, and where they are going. By this I mean

that we must know WHY we are doing an exercise, and we must know

HOW to do it so that progress with the skill developed by the exercise is

evident. I will categorically state that most guitar students doing exer-

cises do not have the slightest idea of HOW they should really be done,

and that is why results are so often minimal, or actually counterproduc-

tive; the doing of the exercise actually builds in playing handicaps.

If we are getting nowhere, then nowhere is where we feel like going,

and so we naturally fall into a boring acceptance of our present posi-

tion, and exert no effort to move beyond it. We must see, we mustexperience, the cause and effect relationship between our efforts with

the exercise, and the results those efforts produce, or all motivation to

continue will be lost. Unfortunately, teachers will typically hand out

exercises with great enthusiasm, while remaining silent on the sub-

ject of how that exercise needs to be done, tailored to the individual

student sitting in front of them so that success will be experienced.

We must also know WHAT the exercise is going to do for us, and

WHERE it is going to take us. We must be able to see its ele-

ments and its purpose in the overall context of guitar playing abil-

ity, as much as we are able to. We should demand this insight fromour teachers, while realizing that our ability to grasp and appreciate

this knowledge is slight in the beginning, and grows with time.

Even with this understanding, we will come in time to be bored

with a particular exercise, either because it has done all it can for

us at this time, or the natural need of the human mind for the ex-

citement of change has come to the fore. We should move on to

another exercise, and come back to review the one we are leaving

at a later date, at which point it will serve as an interesting barom-

eter of our progress (we should ALWAYS be able to do them to a

higher level of skill, if we are consistently engaged in correct prac-

tice.). If we find we are bored with all exercises, it will be from one

of two reasons: either we truly do not understand anything about

any exercise we do, or we are s incerely satisfied with our present

level of technical ability, and have no wish to improve upon it.




Boredom With Songs or Pieces

Unlike exercises, which have no point at which they are ultimately

“finished”, we must have a point of closure with songs or pieces. We

must have an “exit strategy”. So, how do we know we are “finished”

with a song or piece? When we can either perform it for others,

or make a recording of it for ourselves, then we know we are “fin-

ished”. As an important provisional step, being able to sit and play

the song or piece from beginning to end is a good indication that

we are close to our goal, that we have “got our hands around it”.

So, what if we get bored before reaching that point?

Well, than we have not suff iciently set these endpoints of performingor recording the piece as desirable and necessary goals, and we must

reinforce our realization of the necessity for doing so. I am not saying

we must do this with every song or piece we come into contact with,

but at any given time we should be in the process of raising some-

thing to “performance level”. Professionals do not have the luxury of

procrastinating about doing this: we live or die (eat or starve) by our

ability to deliver the goods. Students should beware of the danger of

languishing around with bits and pieces of unfinished music, as it is

an easy trap to fall into, and quickly leads to malaise about practice.

Te Anatomy Of BoredomIn order to deal effectively with the myriad forms of bore-

dom, we must understand it in its essence. Boredom is the state

that results from the suppression of Desire. As a vacuum is

there when air is not, Boredom is here when Desire is not.

There are many reasons for the suppression of desire, from the casual to

the tragic. We may continue to plug away at a piece or a solo, long after

we have lost all enthusiasm for it, because we think we are “supposed

to” be able to play it. A reassessment, and formation of more appropri-

ate goals may be needed, but we do not allow that. Or, we may continue

a certain style of guitar, and avoid learning another, because we arenot “supposed to” play rock if we are looked at as classical guitarists.




We may not follow the prompting of our heart. We may not finish

that song we started writing, because we feel we are not great song- writers, and of course, we must be great before we are allowed to do

what we want! This happened in a lesson recently with someone who

was bringing “Here Comes The Sun” by George Harrison to comple-

tion. It was 90% done, and his motivation was flagging, not just for

the song, but for practice in general. As we looked into it, I asked

him what he really wanted to do. “Write my own music” was his re-

ply. We discussed why, then, he wasn’t doing this. Of course, it was

fear, the usual culprit, fear of not being good enough. He played a

half finished song for me (half finished for a long time) and I told

him I wanted to hear the other half next time. Boredom was setting

in as the proper punishment for him not listening to his pure desire.Of course, like pain, it should be seen as a warning signal, that more

attention is needed to various neglected parts of ourselves. Whenever

we are feeling bored, a lack of will to move, we must ask ourselves

if it is because we are afraid to admit where we really want to go.

The voice of desire is within all of us, but it must be listened to, or

it will cease to speak, and boredom, and perhaps even apathy, its big

brother, will take its place. The voice of desire is within all of us, be-

cause there is a purpose that has called each one of us into being, and

it calls to us throughout our life. If we are serving our true purpose,

chronic boredom cannot exist, because as our voice is listened to,purpose is uncovered, and goals are discovered. The rightness of those

goals for us will generate Desire that will pull us toward those goals

like iron to a magnet. The congruence of our goals with our true na-

ture, and our true purpose, determines the intensity of our desire.

We must chose worthy goals, goals that we respect, goals that

give us self-respect. You will know you have found the goal you

need when it gives you this, as well as the energy to pursue it.

If desire is weak, it is sign we are not doing something we would be

doing if we were true to ourselves, or we are presently doing some-

thing we wouldn’t. And so, if we suffer chronic boredom, we mustask ourselves “how am I not listening to my own inner voice, how am

I not seeing, and feeling, my own purpose”. Find the answers, and

you will find your Desire, and you will banish boredom forever.




Avoidable Boredom

Boredom can be of a more transitory nature, and be the result of

less serious concerns. Boredom is often simply the result of the

failure to set adequate or appropriate goals, not for any deep rea-

son, but simply because we have not tended to our own inter-

nal “housekeeping”. It may arise because the goals we have set are

too easy for us. It takes a certain amount of challenge to energize

us and compel us to bring out our best. On the other hand, if we

have chosen goals that are beyond our present resources to achieve,

we will also find our energy and enthusiasm waning. Picking the

right goals as we go along is an essential part of the process.

Sometimes, we find ourselves not traveling our path of progress simplybecause we have not clearly decided where we want to go, or we have

not decided in which direction the path lies. We must create “structures”

of activity, we must “cut out our work” before we can do it. This is why

I always stress creating practice schedules and routines. However, we

don’t have to follow them 7 days a week, and we should not turn them

into another source of torment by feeling like we are failing to live up to

them. We can just fool around for awhile, and even cheat and take days

off, but we should have a structure to return to after skipping school!

Inevitable Boredom

Some of the more transitory aspects of boredom are natural occurrences,

arising out of the natural need to seek balance after one side of a polarity

has been experienced to its full, such as the need to get out of the house

after being cooped up for so long you feel “stir crazy”. We simply need

a change of scenery after awhile. For this reason, I am always working

on a number of things at the same time in my practice, each at different

stages of development; some for pure technique, some for the music.

When boredom arises, I always listen to it, and I do something

to energize my excitement once again. I may be doing a techni-

cal workup for anywhere from 10 min to 30 min, and then stop and

play some pieces if I feel the need. I may start something new, or

find something new in what I am presently doing. I do not recom-

mend working while bored, better to stop and seek the cause and

cure of your boredom. Of course, if we have performance obligations,

we must learn the material in any case, but we should realize that it

is not our responsibility to merely learn the material, but to be ex-

cited by it as well, so that excitement can be transferred to others.




Children, when they are bored, think the world is at fault, that the

world is boring (what parent hasn’t heard the lamentation “I’m bored,there’s nothing to DOOOOOO!”, which is almost as popular and

universal as “Are we there yet!”) Sometimes that is true, because they

are forced to live in a limited world of limited choices, but more of-

ten, they are simply refusing to make use of the choices they have.

Ultimately, being bored is a failure to meet our own responsibil-

ity, it is a lack of involvement, a lack of creativity either in the mo-

ment to moment work we do, or in the creation of the structures

within which we work, and the goals we are working toward. It is a

warning signal to be heeded, it means we must make a change, and

recharge our inner battery. As in life, so in guitar, and those who

meet the challenges of life with the dedication to express their high-est potential will find boredom an infrequent, and fleeting visitor.

Key Points

◊ People vary in their native capacity or enthusiasm aboutlie.

◊ A high level o enthusiasm is essential to our progress asguitarists.

◊ We all ace the challenge o sustaining our motivation bykeeping our practice interesting, exciting and productive.

◊ Boredom is the condition that results in the absence ofDesire.

◊ Desire may be absent because fear shuts down the voiceo our inner callings.

◊ Boredom may occur simply because we lack the skills toset adequate and appropriate goals.

◊ Te congruence of our goals with our true nature, andour true purpose, determines the intensity o our desire.

◊ Practice schedules, properly made, maintained, andchanged, help prevent boredom.

◊ Ultimately, being bored is a failure to meet our own respon-sibility to be creatively involved in lie, and the moment.




Perfection

Hi Jamie,

Just a question about your own playing, When you were

about aged 21-22 had you reached a sense of techni-

cal perfection? Was there anything you couldn’t play?

Thanks,

Charles

Hi Charles,

I am tempted to tell you “yes, Charles, at age 21, I had reached

a state of technical perfection, and, in fact, there was nothing I

could not play”. I’m tempted to tell you that just for the fun of it.

But instead, just between me and you, I’ll tell you the truth!

Here is the short version. No, I had not reached a state of technical

perfection at 21, and no, I still haven’t at 46! What I have achieved is the

understanding that there is no such thing as a state of technical perfec-

tion. I have also reached the understanding that the best players do not

even think in those terms. The best players, if they ever thought they

had reached some state of perfection, would immediately set out to find

something wrong with their playing, something they could improve,

something to challenge them and keep the whole thing interesting.

They would be like Pablo Casals at 90, when asked

why he still practiced, he said “I find I am getting bet-

ter” (Casals was considered by many to be the greatest play-

er of ANY instrument throughout the 20ths century).

No, Charles, there is no such thing as “technical perfection”

in terms of some absolute state. There are just things you can

do, and things you can’t do. And there is just the ability to un-

derstand WHY you can’t do certain things, and then the abil-

ity to DO something about it to change the situation.




I am answering your question, (and I am glad, in your innocence,

you asked it) because the attitude from which the question proceedsis the MAIN obstacle to yours, or anyone else’s progress on the in-

strument. And that attitude is there for very good reasons. The big-

gest reason that attitude is in place, and maintained in its place, is

because it is PERPETUATED by so many players, and people who

have something to gain by having advanced players looked at as

somehow more than human, as somehow enjoying a state attain-

able by only the elect few. And the common people are allowed to

gaze admiringly, but should understand that they themselves are

not cut from the same superhuman cloth. Look, but don’t touch!

Answering your question, Charles, brought to mind something I had

written about a year ago on this subject. I think it bears repeating:

This word “perfection” is one of those very dangerous words we use.

We use the word as if it actually referred to something. We use it as if

there were things that were “perfect”, or people that are “perfect”, or gui-

tarists that are “perfect” (we usually use the word “Master or Maestro”),

when in fact there is no such thing. There are many words l ike this. The

word “time” is one of my favorites. We create the concept because it is

useful, it enables us to organize our experience into a framework that

we can use to live effective lives, in other words, to have POWER. But

then we forget we made it up! We think it’s real! We made up the word

to organize our experience about the movement we observe about ourown sun, and then we live (unconsciously), as if it were a universal fact.

We think there is such a thing as a “day” in other galaxies, as if when it

is Tuesday here, we think it is Tuesday on Alpha Centuari. WRONG!

So, there are words that we create that do not actually point to

objective “things” that we can touch or even recognize. They are sim-

ply “conditional concepts”, created for our use, to give us power. If we

keep this in mind, we will have, and increase, that power. If we forget

that we created these words, these concepts to begin with, they will

control us and limit us, taking our power instead of giving it to us.

If we forget we made up the word time (which has even been proven

scientifically by Einstein to have no “objective”, but only a “relative”

existence), if we think it is a “something” out “there”, then we can

be afraid, get stressful, do the worry thing, because since we think

it is a real substance, we are afraid we are going to run out of it!

Now, Perfection is like that. There is no such thing. It is a con-

cept meant to empower us, if we use it correctly. If I think it really

exists, and some people are “perfect”, some guitarists are “perfect”,

and I should be “perfect”, I will always come up short, since I will

always find something in me that could stand a little improvement.




Perfection, like Time, is an intangible, a concept. It is like a mirage

in front of us. We reach for it, we travel to it, and it disappears when weget there, to be replaced by something else, a little further up ahead. The

purpose of consciously using the concept is to bring out the best in us.

Perfection is an individual thing. It is your awareness of what

your next possibility is. Without an awareness of your next possibil-

ity, and a striving toward it, you cannot grow. Leonid was telling

me how to think, what attitude to have, (always striving), to make

sure that I would enjoy constant growth as an ar tist. He was tell-

ing me to never expect to reach it, because he knew it doesn’t exist!

To live these words in your life, you must have a commitment to

growth. You must always be “sharpening” your awareness and sen-sitivity. You must always feel a sense of “creative dis-satisfaction”

with where you presently are. You must strive for that vision up

ahead, and become bored when you get there, and look further.

As a guitarist, as in life, you get what you settle for. If getting half the

notes is good enough for you, fine, be a “good enough” guitarist. If you

never even take the trouble to record yourself and listen back to how

you really sound, fine, stay in the dark. Keep the fantasy bubble float-

ing until such time as you might have to play in front of other people,

who will hear how you actually sound, and let them burst the bubble.

For myself, I am only happy when I am attempting to meet

some new challenge. As soon as I accomplish that, I am look-

ing for the next one. Like a shark must constantly be mov-

ing, and a rat must constantly be gnawing at something, I find

I have to be always moving into and chewing on challenges.

I am actually very happy to discover things wrong with my playing.

I was so happy when I noticed that a little tension in my 3rd finger,

coming from using the 2nd, was causing me a problem in many areas

of my playing. I immediately set out to attack the problem, and im-

prove the situation. I was so happy to have discovered this flaw, since

I knew it was the first step to a “new, improved me” as a player.

And as I observe myself and other people, I come to the con-

clusion that this attitude is one of the primary reasons I have

developed to a relatively advanced level as a guitarist.




Let me leave you with one of the most inspiring things I have

ever read, in relation to this topic. Those who have read my previ-ous writings know of my immense admiration for Pepe Romero,

as a True Master of the Guitar, and as a man. Here is a story re-

lated by him, appearing on his latest release, dedicated with great

love to his father, his first and only teacher. Keep in mind that

Pepe is regarded as one of the supreme masters of the instrument in

the world today. He writes this after his father’s death in 1996:

“The greatest, most cherished lessons were those that I had

with him during his last year. I started the year with firm confi-

dence in my maturity and perfection as a guitarist and as a mu-

sician. But my father, with his love,and his knowledge, taught

me more in this year that I can ever learn in he rest of my

life. We had a lesson every single day that I was at home.

The collection of music I play (on this recording), was an essential

part of the repertoire he gave to my brothers and me, so that through

our love of it, we could search for beauty and the unattainable per-

fection that is the guiding light of all the great servants of music.

I hope that you, Charles, and all my readers, will remember those

eloquent last words of Pepe’s, “the unattainable perfection that is

the GUIDING LIGHT of all the GREAT SERVANTS of music”.




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