Classical Guitar Tool Box Jon "Woody" Wood

Todays episode I introduce myself, the podcast, and the goals of the podcast going forward.

This process is designed to provide a guitarist with suggested goals for their practice sessions and a process to achieve those goals. This process attempts at every step to explain the goals of each step of the process, why they fit into that part of the process, and tools used at each step to achieve those goals.
 
One of the objectives of this practice process is to illuminate as much as possible about the musical and technical aspects of a new piece and to make as many interpretive/musical decisions as possible before addressing physical (technical) aspects of its performance on the instrument (Clickstein 33). 
 
The process then attempts to provide different tools (visualization, singing, rhythmic practice, slow practice, memorization exercises, etc.) for achieving on the guitar the musical, interpretive, and expressive decisions determined in the earlier parts of the process.
 
The ultimate goal of this document is to increase the speed of the learning process by quickly and effectively making interpretive musical assessments of a piece through analytical tools and score analysis methods that allow one to hear and understand the music before playing the instrument. The process then takes the reader through stages of actually physically learning a piece using practice tools from a variety of sources in the bibliography. Sources used for this project include guitar teachers I have taken lessons with, videos of guitarists talking about their process, and method books that discuss how to practice. A key goal of this process is to determine musical goals and how to achieve those goals in the beginning of the process as quickly as possible before touching the instrument. 
 
An additional purpose of this practice method is to help with memorization by giving the brain more information to associate with for each piece a performer is working on. There are several examples provided in this document of guitarists claiming that when playing from memory, and especially during a memory slip, they have other associations that help them recall music (Glise 93, Clickstein 84-86). Its easier to remember a measure of music as a chord shape of open C or the finger pattern of a G lydian scale or a ii V I chord progression than it is to remember the notes in the measure individually (Sor 28-31, Glickstein 87-89). This concept is called chunking in psychology and is similar to remembering a telephone number in three chunks such as (800-700-6000) versus all one big number (8007006000). Often novice guitarists spend so much time trying to remember the notes from the score in their proper order that they miss the larger scale or chord patterns they imply or the exercises they have done that match what is in the music (Sor 28-31). It is easy to try to memorize every note of a passage and miss completely that it is a scale one has played several times before. 
 
 
Another example of aiding memorization with multiple types of information from the score is seen in the habit of many professional performers who learn to sing pieces they are working on (Glise 93). When you learn to sing a piece, your inner ear often guides your hands when performing because you have associated sounds with physical actions (lessons I took from Rene Izquierdo and Andrew Zohn as well as sources in the bibliography including Klickstein 86, Kageyama “8 Things Top Practicers Do Differently, Romero 122-124). The ability to trigger memories of physical motions by associating them with another body sensation is similar to the triggering of normal memories from every day life. A smell can trigger visual, auditory, and emotional memories of a thanksgiving dinner for example. This ability for the brain to reinforce memories through remembering multiple aspects of the thing being remembered is a potential tool when learning music. The more ways we learn or examine the score, the easier it is to remember (Carey, Romero 122-124). 
 
Another element of this process is t

The goal of of the first section of this practice process is to use analytical tools from music theory and aural skills courses to internalize a piece and develop interpretive decisions about a work before touching the instrument. By the time this section is completed, students should have a strong grasp of the piece simply by having spent so much time looking at the score and doing analysis (Hill 142). The performer will also have some idea after section one of how the music will sound and have some interpretive ideas in mind so that they are not starting from scratch when the physical practice takes place (Romero 122-124). 
 
The early and middle stages of this process give students ways to aid memory such as harmonic analysis, phrase analysis, or rhythm analysis that give the practicer ways to internalize the piece beyond repetitive physical (or “muscle”) memory of the fingers and hands and that also relies on more than the proprioceptive memory and visual recollection of the movement of the hands and fingers. 
 
For a teacher, the early stages of this process tries to break analysis into small individual chunks that the student and teacher can work on together. For the teacher, I am trying to develop a way of thinking. One of the problems teachers face is how to get the student to hear the music and their playing in the same way and with the same maturity and attention to detail as the teacher. This process attempts to solve this problem by breaking down phrases into smaller units that can be focused on individually. For example, lets say a teacher is teaching a student to phrase a passage of two voice counterpoint. The teacher and student can record the session on an electronic device and the teacher can show the student how to phrase the first contrapuntal line and then the second line. Once the student can play each line of the music individually on their own with correct phrasing the student can begin working on putting the two lines together.
 
The Goal of the second section of the process is to create fingerings in the left and right hand before trying to play the piece (Pujol 62, Rene Master Class). The goal of this stage is to create fingerings that leads to the expressive choices from section the first section of the process. This should be done without the guitar primarily through visualizing all the possible fingerings while looking at the score. This part of the process also allows a performer to see in the mind what will be done physically so that when they sit down to play a phrase for the first time they have already “played” it in their mind and are less likely to make mistakes (this idea has been expressed by several methods and teachers: Izquiredo, Ryan, Pujol, Shearor).
 
The time spent visualizing the interpretive decisions, rhythms, sounds, and physical motions a performer will make through analysis, singing, visualization, and fingering (sections one and two) create a rough draft of the piece in the mind so that by the time the performer begins physically practicing the piece they have already ran through the motions in the mind and heard a rough draft of the music with their voice and with visualization tools. If you practice without any preconceived interpretive decisions, you are learning the note locations but not practicing the phrasing (Quin 83). The physical actions of hitting the notes are not the same as the motions used to play the notes with phrasing, so you are working harder by starting with the notes and then relearning it later when you add phrasing (Klickstein 31).
 
By the time sections one and two are complete, the performer should already have spent so much time looking at the score, singing the melodies, or visualizing the physical motions that they will have a strong idea of what their physical practicing will look like, what problems need to be solved, what spots are most difficult, and what the music will sounds like. This pre work will cause learning and memor

    The value of diving into the historical context of any piece of music is different for each player, but most great players have some background knowledge of the composer and the culture that created the composition. A performer would be wise to research background information for each work they are learning. Researching about the composer, the culture of that composer’s time, and information about the compositional methods and performance practices used when performing the piece have a significant impact on how one performs a work. (Klickstein 43 but also Pujol 62).
 
    Relevant performance practice such as use the of ornamentation, rubato, or slurs are critical to performance. For example, Renaissance lute music does not slur as much as other eras because lutenists from that time preferred the plucked sound and the ability to control dynamics that plucking gave. Music from the 19th century around the time of Chopin utilizes rubato differently than contrapuntal music from the time of Bach. Listening to players who specialize in a genre can be a shortcut to making your pieces sound more authentic to the genre. As rewarding and valuable as it is to read texts by scholars or source material from the time period of the piece you are performing, if you don’t want to specialize in 17th century Baroque guitar, listening to someone who does specialize in the genre and stealing their phrasing, rhythm, and ornaments can be a valuable learning experience and fast a way to quickly learn to play a genre with more authenticity.
 
    Music theory is another important element that can shape one’s performance. Chord progressions in the renaissance differ from the types of chord progressions one would see in the Baroque. Counterpoint also differed between the Renaissance and Baroque. Music from 1750 onwards has a different melodic character given the decreased use of contrapuntal techniques and greater emphasis on block chords and alberti bass. Knowing information like this can help a performer more quickly assess a work and know what to emphasize in the music.
 
    Compositional methods used for the music being performed are also important. The fugue has several specific qualities critical to understanding and performing it. The ability to hear multiple melodic lines as both independent and a cohesive whole is a critical element of the style. Knowing what a subject is in a fugue, a counter subject, and being able to hear changes to the subject such as inversions of the subject is critical to the genre and its performance.
    
    The Baroque prelude on the other hand can be interpreted differently from the fugue. Preludes in Bach can often be played with greater rhythmic freedom than one would play a fugue with use of rubato to create a feeling of improvisation. Listening to a harpsichordist improvise a French prelude would be informative to any performer playing the works of Bach
    
    A gigue and a bouree both originate out of French dance traditions. Knowing their particular rhythmic idiosyncrasies is crucial in making pieces in those dance styles sound authentic to the style. Listening to Julian Bream play Robert De Visee is a dramatically different experience than listening to Rafael Andia because of the rhythmic feel or “groove” that Andia brings to the music.
    
    The classical sonata has a structure that became standardized. Knowing the difference between the exposition and development section can play a role in determining one’s interpretation. I often change tone colors for the main themes of the exposition as a play through the exposition a second time. 
    
    Knowledge of the composer’s biography may have less influence on one’s practice decisions then other parts of the research and analysis stage. Still, knowing information about the composer, the culture the composer grew up in, and the context in which the piece was performed during its time can creat

For me, having a process with a list I can check off is critical to getting things done in my personal and professional life. I guess part of this method stems from the fact that personally I am forgetful. It also stems from experiences I had in lessons and teaching students. I would come in and my teacher would ask me about something in the score. Often the question was something I could have and should have known already. There really isn’t a good reason not to have defined a French word in the score that indicated information about expression or dynamics in the piece. This is easy to do with google. By the time I as a grad student I really didn’t have an excuse for not knowing more advanced things like how many lines in a contrapuntal passage where there or which one was the subject.
 
    Likely part of the reason I was showing up to lessons without having all my basses covered was an issue of maturity. But I also think it had to do with a lack of habit and not knowing what to look for or when to look for it. I hadn’t really trained myself to think about all the different pieces of information I could and should observe about a piece before or while physically practicing it. And I don’t think I am alone in this. Guitarists often discuss whether expression should be added before or after learning the notes. This suggests that there is some ambiguity within the community about when to think through this aspect of playing. It thus does not seem entirely unreasonable that a student may come to a lesson not having thought about expression or the different things in the score that provide information about expression.
 
    If a musician subscribes to the notes first expression second mentality, its even less surprising that a student would come in without having expression words define. Its the argument of this method that the physical act of practicing is different when expression is added to the notes. Because expression changes the physical motions the body needs to make, its the argument of this method, and an argument presented earlier in this method, that one should think of expression as much as possible before physically practicing a piece and add it to practicing as soon as practically possible.
 
    My experience is that teachers often think students should know better when they make mistakes like the one I made with the French word in my score. The French word is in the score! Why didn’t the student look it up? It seems like many teachers just resign themselves to the idea that some students get it and some students never will. That may be true, but I think there are many enthusiastic and potential musicians who don’t know what to look for, when to look for it, and what to do with it when they find it. Nobody ever explained two bar phrases, or walked them through analyzing a piece, or taught them how to phrase. I think part of the problem is there is a ton of things to think about and keep track of in a new piece and its easy to forget to think about any of those factors. Its also overwhelming for a teacher to remember them all and walk a student through them. This problem is especially true in advance music like Bach. So part of the goal of this method is to help the reader keep track of everything going on in the music.
 
    The idea of this section is to have a checklist of things you should do or think about when you first look at a piece. This method is not a theory and analysis book, so I won’t always thoroughly explain all the vocabulary here. I don’t think this means I am leaving the reader of this method hanging. There are plenty of books on these subjects, one could google search any vocabulary in this list, and a good teacher can also provide an explanation and more context. Some of these concepts such as 2 and 4 bar phrases are probably easier to understand and hear with an explanation from a teacher with an instrument at hand.
 
    This method is focused on where