who wouldn’t rather play with a few buddies than practice? as a retired teacher i’ll just pass on one thought. REVIEW. Each lesson i set a simple, singular objective but first i review what i did the time before. It helps me to remember and if i do not use it i will certainly loss it. how many of us have studied french for three years and then can’t speak but a word or two? Review and use it. Oh yea, and go slow. Will

Unless one is doing it for some other reason—to further a career or for health reasons, say—it’s all but impossible to do something regularly that one doesn’t enjoy. Even pro athletes stop practicing when they retire.

Many equate practice with dry exercises and scales. What characterizes practice for me is having a goal. There are lots of possible goals—committing a lyric to memory, learning a melody, smoothing out some chord changes… Playing is one way to practice, that is, achieve the goal, and frequently the best way. But if there’s no goal and/or potential for growth, then playing is playing.

So, in the same spirit as Carl’s post, I might exhort: Don’t Always Play to Play…Play to Practice! That is, play and enjoy, but try to be aware of some small thing to work on to add to one’s musical growth.

—Jerry

Hope this finds a spot within this posting. I am a new guy on the block and so far I see this to be a new learning curve as far as tones and picking patterns,but I will learn it just for the sake i can help grand daughter play with me. Question is I love to get on internet bluegrass stations and play along with the artists ,however when I get to station that is playing how is a good way to tell what key they are playing in? Maybe I’m to far ahead of myself with this kind of questions. Thanks for the reply

jens

Good question, one I’ve heard before: How do you know what key a recording is in?

First of all, let me give my humble opinion; if you aren’t fluent with the basics of playing by ear, or can’t play in any key yet, don’t bother with this. I know that sounds harsh, but what I mean is that you shouldn’t be fazed if you can’t do it. It’s not an important skill anyway. Better to concentrate on getting more fluent in general with music. (And remember, we tell you the keys on all our CDs and Song Clips!)

OK, disclaimer aside, how do you do it? Basically—and again, you must thoroughly understand the Roots of the ToneWay Method from our book to understand this—the 1 tone determines the key. Find the 1 tone, you’ve found the key. All melodies (well, 99.9% of them) end on the 1 tone. So if, using your ear, you can match that final tone to a note on your instrument (G, D, C, E, Bb, etc), you’ve found the key! Sounds easy, right? It’s not. But it’s a fun challenge.

Note: Better to practice this not with the radio but with a recording that you can rewind— WHOA, did I just say practice? :-P

Hi I am new to this site. I want to comment about practice. I gave up practice a long, long time ago. I figured I did not have time to play if I practiced. I would rather play.

I’ll chime in again on practicing versus playing. I’m defining practice as more goal oriented, and playing as more joy oriented. Of course these always blend to various degrees. The more purely goal oriented, however, the less likely the activity will continue.

I find that the the degree of social fulfillment I get out of an activity really determines how much joy it brings and thus its staying power. Playing music alone compare with playing it with others is like night and day.

The more doable a music is to people of all ages and talents the brighter the day, the more joyful the way.