Knowledge to Wisdom?

[RHBoy]

I have been playing mandolin for about 3 years. #I practise usually 1 hour per day minimum. #I read the cafe daily, including tips, for sale ( http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/tounge.gif ), and lessons. I listen to music daily. #My question is this: # When does the knowledge become a part of my playing? #Other musicians I play with say I have improved greatly. #This is wonderful, but when I play in public, it is like my brain stops working correctly and I do the simple licks rather than the great ones that I have worked out. #Sometimes I am improvising not because I am a hot picker, but because I am lost. #How do you get the consistancy and the things you know from the head to the fretboard? #Sorry for long post and thank you in advance.

[John Flynn]

I have been playing fretted instruments in public for over 30 years, mando for over 12 years and I still have that problem. Three years is a drop in the bucket. If you are improving, your knowledge is already part of your playing. But when the degree of diffculty goes up, it is natural for the quality to go down. To play in public or with a group, I think you need the following:

> You need to be "overpracticed." That means if you want to play perfectly at 120 BPM in public, you need to be able to play perfectly at 132 BPM (or whatever) in private.

> You need lots of experience playing with and for people. Hours playing in public are "money in the bank" for lowering your stress level.

> Relax, stretch and warm up before playing for people. Loosen up, dissapate some of that stress.

> Try to connect with the audience and the other musicians. Don't worry so much about how you personally sound, worry about how the group sounds and how well the audience is enjoying it. It is not a contest. There is no score for most notes played. All that is just showing off. When you have a lot of musicians, each one doesn't need to do so much to make the ensemble sound good. A simple lick, well played, is a thing of beauty.

> Reading the Cafe' is no help whatsoever. Get back to practicing!

[Ray Neuman]

Great advise Johnny!

I have been playing as long, and the "edge" is still rugged. It always is. My current delima, is I play guitar, banjo, mandolin and fiddle. I SHOULD pratice each daily, but, alas.

the professir with too few hands.:D

[grant_eversoll]

Part of playing for me is finding a comfort zone. I don't have stage fright but it always seems the first few songs are...simple, Songs that I know well I just seem to go into "Simple Mode" when I play out. Once I struggle through the first few songs and find a compassionate face in the crowed (someone who is really getting into it) I start to play to/for them and all is well, the licks that I have practiced all seem to come back to me and all is well.

I have played music for 29 years in many different venues and styles. 75% of my time was spent being front man and playing keys for a classic rock band 20% has been as an acoustic solo act with the remaining 5% as a Bass player for a country band, music director in church, piano player for church and a few odd gigs playing saxophone.

Now I am back doing the acoustic solo gig and finding myself like you
"when I play in public, it is like my brain stops working correctly and I do the simple licks rather than the great ones that I have worked out. "

I have found that "time heals all wounds" (it also wounds all heals) and with more stage time and practice it will all one day just fall into place...hand in there.

As the singer song writer Harry Chapin said in his song "Greyhound"..."It's got to be the goin' not the getting there that's good."

[Ken Sager]

MandoJohnny is right on. Let me add that there are two types of practice:
1) Practicing the instrument
2) Practice performing with the instrument

The first you can do alone, the second you can only do in public. The more you do it, the more comfortable you'll be and the more natural it will feel, sound, and look.

Best,
Ken

[kudzugypsy]

johnny is right on. believe it or not, if you are practing intelligently 1 hour a day, you are improving. you may be going for stuff over your head, or you may not be internalizing the stuff you are learning. i dont know what level of stuff you are tring to pull off, but just play the ideas that come from your inner musical self...NOT the stuff you are trying to cop from X picker - what i see too often is someone going for the sounds from another persons head. the BIG wisdom comes when you realize that YOUR music is EASY to pull off, because its in your head - you already posses it. trying to play what comes from someone elses head is a recipe for disaster on the stage.
LISTEN to a lot of stuff, internalize the sounds in your head. the rest will follow.

great tip: if you have access to a "slow down" software program or one of those 1/2 speed machines (not the tape ones, wont work as well). just listen to stuff at 1/2 speed. dont try to copy the licks, just listen - listen to the phrasing, the pick attack, etc - make yourself a tape or cd of the stuff and just LISTEN. you will be AMAZED at what a few months of this will do to your ear / skills. believe it or not, you will begin to hear in "slow-motion" all the these things that wizzed by you before - and as i said, once you OWN the sounds, they are yours and effortlessly pulled off.

[Ted Eschliman]

> Reading the Cafe' is no help whatsoever. Get back to practicing!
Wrong. Reading the Cafe' is LOTS of help, some great advice here.
However, spending time 'blogging your thoughts on the discussion board when you could be practicing, I agree is "ho help whatsoever."

[sunburst]

Great thread!
Good advice all, especially Mando Johnny.

RHBoy, I suspect you're farther along than you think. I don't think we have a moment when we click over into using the knowledge we've accumulated. I think it sneaks into our playing gradually without us consiously trying to use it, just through practicing and playing. I also think we find what works for us as individuals and use that, and discard the other stuff that sounds good from someone else, but we can't pull off.

Bela Fleck was once quoted as saying something like "Try to learn everything, then play 10 percent of it."

[mandodebbie]

I have been playing mando for a year and two months. I have been actually teaching myself through books, CDs, one video, and stuff from the Internet. (There are NO Mandolin teachers in my town!)My practice sessions are about two hours minimum. I even joined the local Bluegrass Society, but only got to jam about 5 times with them. Anyway, after about a year I can say that I have improved greatly. I can pick out any song I like - more or less- and I can chord to many songs. At least in the comfort of my teeny-tiny apartment. When I "perform" for friends and family or even the bluegrass Society, my brain shuts down. I forget all the words for the songs, or technical terms like "tremalo", but I can still pick out a tune...slowly. That is if I have been practicing it 10 times a day. Yesterday, I brought my mando to the wind up meeting of our local Camera Club (the picnic was canceled due to inclement weather). I forgot all the words to Blue Moon Of Kentucky, but managed to stummble through John Hardy. ( But,I forgot the chord sequence to that song.) By the time I struggled through Ragtime Annie, everyone had finished their donuts and were rinsing out their coffee mugs. Meeting was adjourned for the Summer. If someone would write a book on Zen and the Art of Mandolin, I would be the first to order it. http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif I guess we all have to just keep slugging away at it.

[DrP]

Mandodebbie:

Not exactly what you were looking for, but close:

Tao of the Mandolin (http://www.birdnest.org/birdj/music/taoman.htm)

[twaaang]

When the moment is about "the tune", rather than about "me playing the tune" -- that's when I find I'm right in the pocket, enjoying the sensation that the mando is almost playing itself with me as a privileged spectator. Sometimes then the basic tune is revealed as something I had never really grasped before, powerful enough in its simplicity. I wish the moment came more often! -- Paul

[250sc]

DrP,

I just finished reading the Tao of Mandolin. Your very good at putting your thoughts into words and I'd guess your playing shows much of the same skill.

[picksnbits]

How about a woooooweeeeeeeee moment. Does that count?

[DrP]

250sc:

I'm not the author of the Tao of the Mandolin. It was written by a guy named John Bird - I stumbled upon it a few years back and thought it was an interesting take on playing the mandolin and music in general.

As far as my playing skills are concerned...it's best we don't talk about that!

[kudzugypsy]

there IS a book like you are talking about called "The Inner Game of Music" (also another call "Music for the Joy of It"). i cant remember any specifics, but it uses sports "the zone" type of stuff. basiclly, you will play your best when you SHUT OUT all those little things going on inside your head and just play the music. you know....."oh, no, here comes my break.....oh lord, here is that really hard lick i've been working on...." etc, etc.