| By :
Steven Herron
What you are about to learn are the same secrets that Aaron Shearer revealed to me when I was one of his students at Peabody Conservatory of Music. They are the most powerful learning techniques that exist and if you use them consistently they will change your guitar playing forever! What you are going to learn, very simply stated is "How To Learn"! Think about this, when someone has given you a piece of guitar music to learn, did they ever tell you "how" to learn it? Probably not. Most people learn by rote repetition which is repeating something over and over again until it finally gets beaten into their heads. This is very time consuming and usually falls apart if the performer gets nervous. The "mental imagery / visualization" techniques you are about to learn are very time efficient because you will be using your brain to it's fullest extent. Remember, your fingers only do what your brain tells them to do. Clear things up in your head and you will stop making mistakes when you play guitar! The "mental imagery / visualization" procedure you will use consists of 5 steps. All 5 steps must be completed for each measure of the piece of music before going on to the next measure. The first 4 steps must be done with your guitar in it's case. This is important! Keep your guitar in it's case for the first 4 steps! Step #1 - Count and clap the rhythmic structure of the measure. For example in 4/4 time you would count quarter notes as 1-2-3-4. eighth notes as 1+2+3+4+, sixteenth notes as 1a+ah, 2a+ah, 3a+ah, 4a+ah. etc. You would clap the side of your leg with your right hand whenever you would strike a string or groups of strings. This will let you determine and hear the rhythmic structure of the measure - which is the most basic part of music. Step #2 - Determine the left hand fingering for the measure. Using the palm of your left hand as the fretboard, actually press down the finger or fingers you will use to play the notes and chords in the measure while at the same time picturing or seeing the strings and the guitar neck in your mind's eye as if you were physically playing it. Step #3 - Determine the right hand fingering for the measure. If playing with a pick, you would have to decide whether you are picking up or down for each note. If playing fingerstyle you would have to decide which fingering sequences you would use. At this point your right hand fingers or your pick would actually be picking the air while in your mind's eye you are picturing or seeing the string or strings that you are playing. Step #4 - Do steps 2 and 3 at the same time, really striving to see the strings and frets in your mind's eye as you are playing them in the air, while at the same time counting out loud. Step #5 - Take you guitar out of the case and actually play the measure you were working on. If you can play it 3 times in a row with no mistakes, then you understand and know that measure. Now you can proceed to the next measure and use the same 5-step process for it. After you have completed the new measure, be sure to actually perform the new measure with the old measure. This way you are building the piece of music by attaching each measure to the one before it - much like you would build a chain by attaching each new link to the one before it. This "mental imagery / visualization" procedure woks so well because it allows you to focus clearly on each hand separately. If you understand the fingerings for each hand separately, combining them together isn't that difficult. The problem for us guitarists has always been trying to do too many things at once!
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