I've spent the last week poring over and reevaluating my playing, thanks to two small epiphanies. The first came in the form of a photograph--rather, several dozen photographs. In rooting through a load of photos from past performances, I realized that the vast majority of them have me looking like this:
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| ...or... |
All jokes about Jewish hair aside, the big issue here is that in most of these pictures, I was looking down at--or, more specifically, craning over--the neck of my guitar. It's a real symbol of amateurism, and I'm working hard to weed it out entirely!
The second tidbit that got me going was a quote from Mark Levine's seminal book on jazz theory. On the subject of practicing scale patterns, Mark has this to say:
"Should you write out these patterns in every key? I wouldn't. You'll just end up reading them; instead, your goal is to internalize them. You need to train your ear and your fingers, not just your eyes. Classical music is both ear music and eye music. Jazz is almost entirely ear music. Jazz musicians play best when they don't have to read, when they've internalized everything so well that they no longer need music. As Bird said, 'learn the changes, then forget them.'"
--Mark Levine, The Jazz Theory Book
That really got me thinking about the different ways musicians view their instruments, and their music, and the role that eyes play in the process of making music and playing guitar.
In my experience, guitarists use their eyes as a crutch, thanks to a combination of issues inherent to the instrument. First, every individual note on the guitar uses nearly identical fingerings, in that the basic procedure for playing most notes is the same: press down the string between two frets, and make the string vibrate. There are few landmarks or subtleties to make any one note unique from any other. What's more, compounding the problem of the "visual crutch," the landmarks that do exist are the inlays on the fretboard, beneath the strings. This leads to a preoccupation with position-checking throughout a performance. Secondly, guitarists have little choice but to learn by shape. We have the Guitar Grimoire and other such publications to thank for that! Even if the notes of each string were the first thing a guitar player learned (which they rarely are), the likelihood is he or she would still learn combinations of those notes through scales and revert to a visual reference for both the fretting for that scale and its non-inclusive notes.
For guitarists, and for all musicians (with the obvious exception of sight-reading), using one's eyes acts as a sort of spell-check: it serves as a substitute for what should be internalized. It's an after-thought! Consider this: you've never played something incorrectly that your brain didn't already know was incorrect (remember, guessing at what's right is tantamount to playing what's wrong). So, skip the on-stage spell check altogether and internalize in the practice room!
Guitar players need to be especially wary of this. An over-reliance on the eyes as guides to the correct notes is only adding an extra layer of calculation to your playing process. Your brain is forced to interpret the visual cue of your fingering, then superimpose that image onto the mental picture of the correct fingering. Skip the visual altogether, and use only the information that's already in your head. That makes room for more of what is, or should be, memorized: chord progressions, strumming patterns, licks, form, et cetera. Only use your eyes when it's necessary. I find that I only have a real need to look at the neck when I'm making a jump of six frets up or three down--that's one fret beyond my casual reach, because I can play comfortably with all four fingers, and stretch my pinky to play a fifth fret of position, without losing my place. If you're not comfortable playing with the fourth finger yet, consider your casual reach to be three frets, and check yourself only when you move a fret farther than your third finger or two or more frets behind your first finger. Through practice of more scales and patterns, you will start to extend your reach and become familiar with wider movements. Use your eyes sparingly, only to establish position, then use your mental image of the correct notes as your guide, and the feel of your first finger's position as a reference.
As Mark stated, jazz music is almost exclusively ear music. Truthfully, improvisation is all ear! You must hear the idea in your head, then use your knowledge of scales, licks and patterns to make that idea real. That means training yourself to hear your location in and proper context of a scale, lick or pattern so that it can be properly and musically executed. For scales, once you have the pattern in your head and no longer need any visual cues, start to internalize both the sound of every scale degree and the order of intervals within the scale. The order of triads in the major scale is one of the first things my jazz students learn:
- Major
- Minor
- Minor
- Major
- Major
- Minor
- Diminished
The same idea can be applied to every chord type or extension in the system, whether it's seventh chords (maj7, m7, m7, maj7, 7, m7, m7b5), ninth intervals (M, M, m, M, M, M, m), elevenths (P, P, P, A, P, P, P) or thirteenths (M, M, m, M, M, m, m), regardless of the harmonic system. Luckily, every one of these chords or interval combinations has a very specific fingering on the guitar. It might seem like a huge amount of information, but it is surprisingly finite. It all boils down to the same twelve notes, and there is a massive amount of repetition. Internalize a handful of fundamental shapes and fingerings, and their unique sounds, and you can start putting those crutches away for good.
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