Irrelevant Skills

Today's electric guitar practice session, unplugged on the Strat, leaning against the kitchen counter:
- 24/7 - long scales in all twelve keys and relative minors using patterns and right hand finger combinations from the Segovia "Purple Book",
- Single note tremolo picking exercise (16th notes with gradual increase in speed using a metronome,
- Strumming chord progression "From the Day" with metronome as above,
- ii-V-I progressions in all keys using drop 2 and drop 3 7th chords and inversions,
- Sight reading practice using Ricci Adams' online music theory exercises,
- Preparing from the written guitar score for an upcoming performance of "Bye Bye Birdie" at my daughter's high school,

And almost nothing having to do with memorizing worship music.
Or practicing tapping in a delay tempo. Or fiddling with overdrive settings. Has my electric guitar skill set become irrelevant to modern worship?

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Permalink Reply by Nathan Gifford on July 11, 2017 at 3:25pm

See my reply to Toni above... if you haven't already. I'm with you. None of us should simplify just because others on the team are not at your musical level... and likely make no efforts to move in that direction. There is nothing spiritually or Biblically that would support a need to simplify your musical playing. I see quite the contrary. Throughout the Bible, we are shown that God wants our very best. So we should give our best. It is not a prideful thing to utilize what you are capable of. Now, if you have an attitude about it and are "showy" about it... that's a completely different story and you'd certainly be in the wrong. But if you are using your gifts for God's glory, giving Him your best, and keeping yourself in check, then keep playing my friend! The little drummer boy played his best for Him, right? :) David wasn't brought in to play his instrument for the king because he was some slack musician. No, he was known for being very skilled, and also for being very anointed.

Know that you don't have to simplify and dumb down your abilities. No one should ask you to either. The question to be asked is actually to them.... "what are you doing to grow the gifts that God has given you? Or are you simply content with just sitting on where you're at?" The parable of the talents makes it pretty clear that God desires us not to only use our gifts, but to do the work on our part to increase them. Then what does HE do as a result? He adds to it even more! 

Use what you have... put in the efforts to grow and develop it... and God will use it. Or don't... and take the chance of God taking what He wanted you to do and giving it to someone else.

Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on July 28, 2017 at 4:03pm
I value the time I've wasted on uneccessary and inefficient practicing. Not in a negative way. On the contrary, I consider the time spent to have been invaluable. I do not see the practice of electric guitar as one of those activities which is improved in any way by optimization or Six-Sigma analysis.
Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on July 29, 2017 at 8:05am

Which is also why I'm not a fan of ultra short, "efficient" rehearsals. There's no substitute for time spent playing together if we actually want to sound good playing together. Unless memorizing fixed parts to a metronome in home practice and briefly regurgitating them to a click at a quick, efficient rehearsal is the ideal. Why is it the ideal? Yes, people have busy lives. No, not everyone is content to have no apparent professional career just so they can volunteer to play at church. Oh... I see it now... Never mind, then.

Permalink Reply by Greg Moore on July 31, 2017 at 5:59pm

Sick Stigma is still around?  I would have thought Dilbert's analysis had finished it off:)

Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on August 18, 2017 at 7:23am
And soldering. I forgot to mention the irrelevant skill of soldering. After many years of as is, I finally replaced the 100k tone pots in the Norlin era SG with 500k audio taper pots. Along with re-installing a master volume, defeatable this time so I can go back to the nmv circuit, on the Frankenmarshall. Devotional soldering!
Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on August 21, 2017 at 11:10am

Another irrelevant resource for you: La tecnica degli arpeggi, by Guglielmo Papararo, Edizioni Berben 1967. The first section of the book is a series of open string arpeggio patterns to be repeated as exercises, like classical guitar Hanon for the right hand only. I have revisited it recently using a metronome, and flatpick instead of fingers: all up / all down / alternating / hybrid. Since we are frequently called upon to arpeggiate (is this a word?) treble string triads, this might stretch and reinforce that skill, and perhaps therefore even be mildly relevant. For the left hand: "Slur Exercises and Chromatic Octaves", Segovia, Columbia 1979. Small muscle athletes are we. 

Permalink Reply by Vic Salt on September 1, 2017 at 8:08am
I've be doing more practice on the use of my pedals. These are part of my instrument now. And the ability to play without looking down at the guitar. Re scales I'm working more on being able to more between melody and rhythm. Scales off three a four note chords whilst playing in different times. I mostly practice this in a limited set of key G, A, Am, Ab, Bb, D, Dm, C, E, Eb, F
Also working on my double stop and octave scales
Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on September 4, 2017 at 2:00am
Another Sunday without a Wednesday night rehearsal. I employed the irrelevant skill of playing on the strat neck pickup with barely any overdrive and no pedals straight into the Hi-Tone, so no reverb either. And comped/improvised by listening to what the acoustic guitar, piano, and bass were doing. It worked again in spite of us. We did Come Ye Sinners and 10,000 Reasons.
Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on September 4, 2017 at 4:46pm
Not only that, I used those big wound strings, too.
Permalink Reply by Toni on September 4, 2017 at 11:51pm

There is apparently no helping you, is there?

;-)

Permalink Reply by Greg Newhouse on September 5, 2017 at 1:01am
Once I've begun one of these riffs people do stop replying. If you wish to google it, you may note that there is ample advice contrary to my practices. I would even agree that most of it should be followed. You also could have told me, "Shut yer gob!", but you didn't, though it was justified. You are far too polite.
Permalink Reply by Toni on September 5, 2017 at 2:49pm

Use of a strat neck pickup is fully justified, but I'm not sure about those big wound strings unless you're playing jazz. :p

As for "shut yer gob", that's not a phrase which would normally trip from my tongue since my mother generally did a good job on my manners. However I would say that if this continues then your credibility as a 'rocker' will be seriously diminished, which may be a source of pleasure to you.

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