Email List/Newsletters>
Guitar College Newsletter Spring ‘08

April 21, 2008

Revitalizing Your Playing 
 
Winter is over and spring is here. Plants are blooming and 
the weather is getting nice. Spring is a time when things 
become revitalized. Spring is also a time that reminds me 
to add some new life to my music. Every once in a while 
our playing is something that needs to be checked to see if 
it needs a little boost. For this article I want to 
discuss giving a little revitalization to your playing.  
 
In the last few years, I have had the opportunity to play 
with some of the better musicians in my geographic area.  
It is always a treat to play with people who are better 
than I am because I always learn new things and it helps 
me see some areas where I can improve. While this can be 
discouraging to some people, it can also motivate us to 
push our playing to another level.  
 
So how do we do that—moving beyond seeing our problem areas 
and start to add some new life to our playing? One of the 
things that Rich Severson really instilled in me was a 
regular, consistent practice routine (we’ve talked about 
some of this before). Working through the Guitar College 
material was like having Rich sitting in my practice room, 
walking me through each lesson. Now that I have worked 
through the material, though I have to motivate myself and 
find my own direction for material to practice. Since 
we’ve talked a bit about practicing before in previous 
newsletters, I won’t review all of that information.  
One thing that I have been doing though is seeing music as 
being made up of several different parts and taking some 
time to focus on different parts one or two at a time and 
hopefully improving in those areas. For me personally, the 
areas of study that I work on are: 
• Technique  
• Sight Reading (which includes rhythm and timing)  
• Song Repertoire  
• Improvisation 
• Harmony (chords)  
 
For others you might include theory application, working 
with your effects, classical technique, finger picking 
technique, etc. We may each have some different areas to 
work on. For me I try to work on a technical area or 
exercise daily (using my metronome) and I try to push my 
picking technique. In that technique area I also work on 
some classical guitar studies to help my finger style 
playing. I do this for about 20 minutes a day. I don’t do 
a specific sight-reading study everyday but I do try to 
study some reading within a week’s time. Usually this means 
working through the Rhythms at First Sight (book from 
Guitar College) or working in a Berkelee book (Technique of 
the Saxophone or Bill Leavitt’s Sight Reading Rhythms for 
Guitar). I might do this once or twice a week for a half 
hour. Otherwise I try to work on my last three areas every 
day. For me I categorize Song Repertoire, Improvisation 
and Harmony together.  
 
What I have started doing is studying particular songs that 
I want to learn. This means that I will learn the melody 
(and memorize it) in two different positions on the guitar 
(this covers my Repertoire area). Next I create several 
chord -studies and a chord melody arrangement of the same 
song (this covers Harmony). Then I try to improvise over 
it (sometimes this means using a transcription, or writing 
out my own solo or trying new licks that I like over the 
chords). So simply by studying one song, I am able to 
incorporate several areas of study into my practice 
routine. I also like Rich’s “Practice sheets” that are 
included in each of the courses. These have been really 
helpful for me to keep track of both my time and material 
studied.  
So here is a breakdown of what my practice routine might 
look like over the course of a few days: 
 
Day 1: Warm up/technique 20 min (using a metronome, doing 
picking studies). 
Harmony 30 min writing out a chord melody or the 
chords of a particular tune in several positions. 
Improvisation 10 minutes of trying to solo or 
learning a transcription of a particular tune. 
Total time 1 hour 
 
Day 2: Warm up/technique 20 min (using a metronome, doing 
right hand finger picking studies). 
Harmony 30 minutes playing through my chord melody or  
Written chords from day 1. 
Melody 10 minutes of learning the melody in various 
Positions on the guitar.  
Total time 1 hour 
 
Day 3 Warm up/technique 20 min (using a metronome, doing 
picking studies). 
Sight reading 10 min Reading through sight reading 
exercies 
Improvisation 30 minutes of trying to solo or 
learning a transcription of a particular tune. 
 
Etc… then next week I might learn a new tune and start all 
over with a different melody.  
 
Now like most of us though, life is busy, so what happens 
is I get into this routine for a time and then I get 
distracted by other books and songs or a gig to prepare 
for. Then I let this routine fall apart for a little 
while. That’s why I need to be reminded to evaluate my 
playing every so often. Springtime seems to be a good time 
to do that. Is it time to revitalize your playing too?  
You may find that you have all the right material to study, 
but just need to begin. Hope this is helpful. 
 
--Eric Elias