Do you get enough practicing done every day? Unless you’re blessed with unlimited time and none of those “real life” interruptions (those pesky things like jobs, family, and friends…), you probably don’t. But short of dragging your instrument with you everywhere you go, what can you do? Try Mental Practicing. I’m not talking about mental preparation, like a football player would do before a game to psych himself up, but mentally practicing other musical skills without your instrument. Here are some ways to productively pass the time while stuck in traffic, waiting at a long red light, or sitting through your daughter’s 3rd grade dance recital (except her part, of course).
Memorization – are you or your band learning a new song? Are you still reading it from a chart or scribbles on a sheet of paper? Try running through the whole song in your head from beginning to end, while visualizing it on your instrument.
Transposing – think of a song with a chord progression that you have memorized. Now move it to a different key. If you know your music theory, think of moving the chords using intervals. If you don’t, figure out how many frets you need to move your chords to be in the new key – then figure out each chord and name it out loud. Music theory – If you’re studying music theory at all, there are several mental exercises you can do:
Rhythm play – This exercise is a fun way to work on hearing and feeling different rhythms. They challenge you both physically and mentally. (Warning: if you're in a carpool, this may drive the other people crazy.)
When you’re comfortable with one hand, try it with the other hand and switch back and forth.
Once you get it going and can feel the flow of the parts, try these variations.
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