The rhythm of a modern person is filled with a huge amount of information, ranging from social media feeds, work emails, messenger messages, news surfing, phone games, reminders, pictures, videos, and more. All this turns into a huge tangle of information that is not always useful to us. Of course, unless you live somewhere in the outback, where there is no Internet and other benefits of civilization.
In my work teaching guitar, I observe the following picture: children are strangely focused on playing the guitar. In a natural environment, they are engaged in the lesson and don’t even play around during the lesson. Teenagers in class are even more focused on one thing than the average adult in class. Talking to the parents of children and being a father myself, watching my wife, I found the following.
Parents, mostly wives, take care of children, they plan the working day, regulate the time spent on the computer, tablet, and phone. They enroll them in various clubs, music, drawing, sports – this is good development. Children have more useful information than adults. Adults are often left to their own devices and do not always monitor their leisure time. Sometimes there is useful information, but often it is just “noise”, for example, like playing on the phone, which is better to replace with pleasant peace and quiet. This way, you can give yourself a moral rest.
Nowadays, when a person has access to a large flow of continuous information, trying to do everything yourself is considered the norm, which leads to a reflex, a quick change of focus. Let’s think about what guitar practice and concentration have to do with each other. What is concentration is how much a person is able to immerse themselves in one activity.
My interesting observations are as follows. When a student comes to the first guitar lesson, learning begins with simple exercises. Gradually gaining experience, our guitarist can already learn a 1-2 page piece. But it is not always possible to play from start to finish.
Often you can hear the following words from a guitar student: “hmm… I was playing and started thinking about something… something confused me… I was playing and abruptly lost track of it… I’m thinking about work… etc.”
A good teacher will always have advice on how to work on a piece, and with this advice, concentration, a sense of the integrity of the piece, etc. will develop.
Although I am devoted to pedagogy in general, I also practice guitar every day. I will describe my thoughts to you. At first glance, playing an instrument can be somewhat comparable to meditation. But playing the guitar or any other instrument is a bit more complicated. You need to learn the text well, teach your fingers to press the strings properly. And only then do you play the guitar, memorize the melody, and think ahead of your fingers while playing. And to add flexibility and beauty to the piece, think about the dynamics and naturally peek at the guitar neck.
Nowadays, when a person has access to a large flow of continuous information, trying to do everything yourself is considered the norm, which leads to a reflex, a quick change of focus. Let’s think about what guitar practice and concentration have to do with each other. What is concentration is how much a person is able to immerse themselves in one activity.
My interesting observations are as follows. When a student comes to the first guitar lesson, learning begins with simple exercises. Gradually gaining experience, our guitarist can already learn a 1-2 page piece. But it is not always possible to play from start to finish.
Often you can hear the following words from a guitar student: “hmm… I was playing and started thinking about something… something confused me… I was playing and abruptly lost track of it… I’m thinking about work… etc.”
A good teacher will always have advice on how to work on a piece, and with this advice, concentration, a sense of the integrity of the piece, etc. will develop.
Although I am devoted to pedagogy in general, I also practice guitar every day. I will describe my thoughts to you. At first glance, playing an instrument can be somewhat comparable to meditation. But playing the guitar or any other instrument is a bit more complicated. You need to learn the text well, teach your fingers to press the strings properly. And only then do you play the guitar, memorize the melody, and think ahead of your fingers while playing. And to add flexibility and beauty to the piece, think about the dynamics and naturally peek at the guitar neck.
At the moment when a musician plays the guitar, the musician’s concentration on the performance must be at the highest level, otherwise we will not be able to concentrate and will hear the familiar: “…I was playing and it suddenly slipped my mind…”
When you play several pieces from start to finish, you will learn how to work on them properly. This develops a noble habit, namely to finish everything to the end. Understanding the process of creating a result and the main reward is not only concentration, but also the ability to play the guitar, to understand music more at concerts, and to expand your musical and stylistic horizons. And a pleasant and favorite hobby of a lifetime will serve as a small highlight.