Guitar and the Art of Reflection

Ask a musician "how do I learn to play a long piece of music." The answer will probably be true, yet obvious and inexact. "Practice a passage and then move on to the next." "Practice the song over and over" and so on. Likely just a tiny part of what successful musicians really do when they learn a composition, whether they realize it or not. This book is a complete answer, a discussion of just how we learn to make music, and a complete step-by-step process that you can follow. Two...
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Ask a musician "how do I learn to play a long piece of music." The answer will probably be true, yet obvious and inexact. "Practice a passage and then move on to the next." "Practice the song over and over" and so on. Likely just a tiny part of what successful musicians really do when they learn a composition, whether they realize it or not. This book is a complete answer, a discussion of just how we learn to make music, and a complete step-by-step process that you can follow. Two decades of personal reflection and professional teaching distilled into this little book. Regardless of whether you play classical, rock, or something else, this book will help successfully tackle long and complicated musical passages with efficiency and confidence. Embark on a wonderful journey learning to play a complete composition from memory. Follow a set of guidelines really work. Learning music involves several different mental processes and three unique kinds of memory. Follow the process once, and you will be able to learn the next piece even more efficiently and confidently. Guitar and the Art of Reflection includes a workbook section in which you learn to apply the process and have the opportunity to benefit from your own observations and reflections by writing them down. And several complete transcriptions for fingerstyle guitar (in both standard notation and tablature. Besides a complete step-by-step process, the book describes:* Three important qualities to consider when choosing a composition* How to analyze and mark up music for practice* How to improve your performance through focused, purposeful listening* How to avoid forgetting music you have learned* Strategies for dealing with boredom and fatigue* Selecting the best recorded performances and how to slow them down* How to make your practice fun and rewarding (so you do more of it!)* ... and much, much more