There are many reasons for this. One is that practicing alone can often mean practicing out of context. Live music is dyamic and fluid, it’s a river running, sometimes quiet and serene, sometimes racing in rapids over falls, through canyons, around hairpin turns. The practice that you do at home is to prepare you to jump in and ride this stream. It’s careful and controlled - you put on the metronome and practice finding the groove as a rhythm guitarist; you practice scales and then use them to make melodies over a loop (see my post on using loops); you learn to mimic a lead or rhythm part from one of your favorite songs and practice it along with an mp3. You practice a tricky passage slowly and carefully to produce the best possible tone and timing. These are all skillful ways to develop your abilities, to sharpen the tools you bring to playing.

But when you play with others, something else happens. First of all, the predictability of your carefully structured practice vanishes. Your partner starts a song at a faster tempo than you are used to playing. Or she chooses a key to play in that is unfamiliar to you. Or you find that she’s not going to stop and start over when you falter, she keeps playing and you have to somehow pull it together, find your place, and jump back in. These are valuable experiences that raise the bar on you and prod you to react more quickly, think on your feet (or fingers!), hold your poise.

It’s the energy of interaction that is missing from solo practice. A metronome can’t hear what you’re playing and give you clues to deepen your groove, but your playing partner can. His solo is a response to the groove you throw down, and in turn you groove in response to his solo. You’re dancing with a partner rather than alone, and you never know exactly just how he is going to move next, so your senses are opened and you respond spontaneously. Your carefully memorized licks may not work in this dance, but something new emerges, something that comes from the facility you’ve acquired in practice together with the energy of this moment.

So your practice at home is honing your skills, putting tools in your toolbox. Then when you play with others, you’ll be surprised. At first you won’t even be able to use these tools. You feel awkward and self-conscious. But you try anyway, and soon you are beginning to get the hang of it. And then you are surprised by the music you are making. This experience gives you both positive feedback, and negative feedback, each of which guides you and feeds your desire to practice more. When things go right in your jam session, it feels so good you can’t wait to go home and practice and learn more. And when things go wrong, you discover your limits, and now you know what you need to work on in the practice room in order to go beyond them.

Playing with others provides an essential balance to practicing alone, is a great motivator, and after all, it’s the reason you wanted to learn to play music in the first place, isn’t it? So don’t wait - talk to your friends, your co-workers, scan the ads on Craigslist or place one yourself, put a sign on a community bulletin board, or go to a jam session at a club. However you do it, find someone to play with. If you’ve learned a few chords and can hold a rhythm, you are ready, so get out there and jam!

updated 6/25/2007

Show information is subject to change. Always check with the venue.

The problem turned out to be a common one among students learning lead guitar. He simply wasn’t practicing in a musical context. Practicing scales up and down the guitar, or repeating a riff, or experimenting with making your own melodies is going to produce limited results unless you do these in the context of actual music. The pitch of each note you play gains meaning from its relation to the chords and key centers you are playing with. And the rhythm of your melodies has to lock in with the rhythm of the music.

One way to practice this is with a partner. You can take turns as rhythm guitarists, supporting one another practicing leads. But what about when you are practicing alone? The solution is to practice with loops.

Several looping pedals are available on the market. Generally, a loop pedal goes in line between your guitar and amp, and works as follows. Suppose you want to practice with a repeating 4-bar section of music. You begin playing the rhythm guitar part, and on the first beat of the first bar you press the record button on your pedal. When you get to the first beat of the first repeat of those four bars, you press another pedal which ends the recording and turns the 4 bars you have recorded into a continuously playing loop. Voila, now while you practice your scales, or riffs, or improvised melodies along with the loop, you are working on your timing, rhythm, and feel as you play.

One of the simplest and most affordable loop pedals is the Boss Loop Station (there are two models). For a comprehensive list of looping devices available, as well as a wealth of looping tips and tricks, check out the website Looper’s Delight.

Looping can also be done on your computer in Garageband on your Mac, or with higher-end audio programs. On your PC (and on your Mac if you don’t have Garageband) try the free software Audacity, or a higher end program. One advantage to hard-drive based looping is that you can store your loops and keep them as a practice library. For instance, you can record loops in all keys, with a variety of grooves, and open them whenever you like for practice.

You can also loop sections of songs on your hard drive, and many programs will allow you to slow down your music files without changing pitch. So if you are having trouble figuring out that Charlie Parker or Eddie Van Halen solo, and playing them up to speed, use your loop to isolate and repeat sections of the solos and slow them down for transcription and practice.

updated 6/18/2007

Show information is subject to change. Always check with the venue.

updated 5/21/2007

Show information is subject to change. Always check with the venue.

One of the most difficult things about guitar playing is visualizing harmonic and melodic relationships across the strings and up and down the length of the neck. Jimi Hendrix solved this problem by using simple triads and pentatonics as a framework for his music, as did the Nashville studio musicians who pioneered the CAGED method. Jazz guitar greats including Joe Pass employed CAGED as the kernel they used to master complex harmonic and melodic music on the guitar.

Understanding tonality as a mandala – a situation in which each note has a unique quality and function in relationship to the key center, and to all other notes of the key - brings greater meaning and utility to the forms employed in the CAGED method.

In this workshop, master guitarist & composer Joseph Brenna will introduce participants to the Mandala of Tonality and the CAGED method, and demonstrate how to gain mastery of melody and harmony on the guitar through the application of these principles & forms to rhythm guitar, solos, chord-melody, and composition.

Joseph Brenna has been recognized as a virtuoso guitarist and composer whose unique voice incorporates music from jazz and blues to classical, folk, rock, and world music. He is a recording artist on the What Are Records? label, and a Naropa University faculty member since 2000. Joseph has toured extensively in the US and received critical acclaim for both his performances and recordings.

We’ve found a solution, to make these lessons as accessible when she returns home as they are now: videotape. Last night, Jenn brought a camera to her lesson and videotaped me going through all of the material that I’ve presented in each lesson. I explained and demonstrated all of the exercises, rhythms, fingerpicking patterns, and songs that I have written down for her each week. Now when she goes home, she can have total recall of everything we’ve covered, and the ability to see, hear, and even play along with everything we’ve done. She can take all the time she needs to study and learn the material. And if she has questions from time to time, I’ll be available by email to answer them for her.

I’ve had many students make audio recordings of their lessons in order to aid their recall of what we’ve done together. Videotape is an even better medium for this. I recommend it for everyone who is taking guitar lessons, and welcome it in my studio!

updated 4/15/2007

Show information is subject to change. Always check with the venue.

Recently I played for Elephant Magazine’s live talk and music show, “Elevision”, at Trilogy in Boulder. The show features interviews about all things sustainable and eco-friendly, and music (which is also, of course, sustainable and eco-friendly). A clip of the music, introducing the show, is now up on Elephant Magazine’s website. I’m looking forward to receiving the full videos of my performance. As soon as I do, I’ll post them online, so stay tuned!

updated 3/11/2007

Show information is subject to change. Always check with the venue.