Playing in the Dark

Playing in the dark will actually improve your sight-reading.

Let me guess, you don’t believe me? Well true, practicing sight-reading itself, with all the lights out is going to be no use at all! Unless, of course, you’ve taken to wearing a set of night vision goggles as a fashion accessory.

I want to show you what I mean, but first we need to sort out what’s actually going on when you’re sight reading.

Sight Reading

Ok, so imagine you’re look at a sheet of music. It could be traditional musical notation, guitar or bass tab, whatever. You place your hand on the guitar and play the first note, so you need to look down to see where your hand is…

…but that means you need to look away from the sheet of music, so you can’t see the next note…

…so you need to be looking at the sheet music, so you can’t see where your hand is going…

…so you look down at your hand, and you can’t see the next note…

The result? DISASTER! You can’t see what you’re playing, and if you can you have to look away from what you’re playing. This is clearly impossible to do, and I’m sure you don’t want to try. Only to end up on stage looking like a spinning top…always looking back and forth…

…but what if you don’t need to look at where your hand is? Then you could just concentrate on the sheet of music in front of you and the whole catastrophe is averted. So you’re not sight reading on stage? If you’re not staring down at your own hands it leaves your head free to rock out/smile at your mum/give a dirty look to the drummer who’s just missed a beat. Everyone is happy (except maybe the drummer…).

Blind Guitarists

In fact, playing without being able to see your hands isn’t entirely unheard of. Take a look at this song by guitarist named “Blind Lemon Jefferson”. Yep -you guessed it- he was totally blind, but did it stop him?

Click here if you can’t see the video

His type of music might not be your thing, but the point is: he’s playing when he can’t even see where his hands are. He’s playing by feel.

Playing by Feel

Try this as an exercise: Pick up your guitar, making sure that you have good posture. Put your hand on the guitar and think of the note that you want to play- but don’t look down at your hand. Look Straight ahead and play the note by “feel”.

It’s very difficult at first, but it will not only improve your ability to play a note you see on a printed page. It’ll also allow you to play a note that you’re thinking of in your head- because now you don’t have to see yourself play a note to know that you’ve played it. You can start to think up new melodic lines and phrases without being near a guitar.

…of course they wont all work, but this isn’t a listening exercise!

Have fun, and if you want to stay updated on this blog, don’t forget to subscribe.

January 19, 2010 at 3:33 pm | Guitar Technique and Exercises, Practicing and Practice Routine | No comments