I had a particularly good practice day yesterday where everything felt right. I could play pretty much whatever I wanted and feel the "ease" of it all. I had a sense of “light-fingered-ness”. I was practicing and playing about a half-dozen, new-to-me classical pieces that I’ve learned over the past year or so and have tried to practice with this sense of ease. The pieces I was playing ranged from a couple of lively baroque things — a Bach allemande and a gigue by Robert deVisee — to a romantic era piece by Spaniard, Angel Barrios, to up-tempo jazzy Latin-American classical pieces that I love. I felt hot. I felt like I had them in control and could make them sound like I wanted them to.
Confession: I didn't pick up the guitar and feel that way immediately. I’m not a guy who can always pick up this instrument and make it sound the way I want it to. I have to find a certain place in my mind before I’m ready to go. Yesterday it took me over an hour. Sometimes it only takes a few minutes. I can’t predict it. Once I’ve found a way to achieve it though, I can zone in. I’m in the zone.
I've been trying to think of a way to describe the process to students and how I get there, as well as help them to find their own zone. This post is an attempt to help you find yours.
First of all, I should say that I didn’t really feel inspired yesterday. I had the time to play, but didn’t particularly feel like it. I can’t predict when that comes either. After a short mental struggle, I decided to continue with an ongoing experiment I’ve been doing where I see if I could bring myself to the zone, try to remember the process, be able to explain it, and ultimately see if I can teach it.
I went through a series of mental and physical warm-ups I’m going to try and describe. I’m not trying to tell you that you should follow these exact steps, but that you should find your own way. This is simply what worked for me on this particular day.
The truth is, I can’t, nor can anyone else, do it for you. You have to find your own way of getting there. All I can do here is describe how I do it and invite you to explore yourself. More than anything you have to play music that you love playing. This is a subject that is close to my heart and it would do me good to hear from Jemsite readers with their own zoning issues.
A Lightness of Touch
If I relax my wrists and just wiggle my fingers freely in front of my face, away from the guitar, I can move them easily. I just let them go and feel the "ease" of the movement. I move them quickly and move them slowly (and in between) and just let them go with abandon. All thoughts of "assessment" are gone from my mind — there's no right or wrong way to do it — only a sense of freedom of movement.
That feeling is exactly what I’m trying to describe here, and it's that exact feeling that I want to be able to instill in students right from the first lesson. Next, when I do pick up the guitar — this is very important — I have to be able to transfer that physical and mental sense of ease into making sound.
I'll do the most simple movement I can think of, say, play just the C to the D of a C major scale. Over and over I play C to D very slowly and at the same time try to remember what my fingers felt like when I was just wiggling them in front of my face. If tension creeps in anywhere in my hands, fingers, wrists, etc. (and it often does), I stop and just wiggle them again, freely, wrists loose. Here, I'm just reminding myself of that feeling of ease.
Back to the guitar. I experiment, looking for this sense of lightness of touch. Mentally at this point, the only thing in the world that is important to me is that I can play C to D with ease. C to D has my total concentration. I expect to play it well. Any thought that keeps me from that task is my enemy and I treat it as such. I might start to listen for the beauty of the simple C to D sound, the musical possibilities that this simple interval inherently has. At this juncture I’m not concerned with tone, only with touch. Once I have the sense of ease, tone issues resolve themselves.
I might find here, that I have the sense of ease in one hand but not the other. I’m mainly a fingerstyle player but it’s true for pick-players too. Back to wiggling, seeking the sense of freedom of movement. Then back to C to D. Importantly, most of all I'm thinking of the sound I'm making. That may seem obvious, but all too many times we get so tied up in concentrating on what our hands are doing we forget to listen.
Once I feel that I’m successfully playing the C to D interval with ease, I try to see if I can maintain this sense through an entire one-octave scale. Here it is most important that I am not judgmental. If I make a mistake, or a note is not as clear as it should be, I make mental note and correct it the next time through. This helps keep negative thoughts out of my mind. Any sense of "Sh*t! Another mistake!" ruins the whole thing.
As the zone comes over me I have a sense of allowing myself to play the scale well, not trying to force my way through it. Then. Suddenly. I can do it. It's easy. From there I'll do a two-octave scale and try to maintain. I’ll begin playing it with expression — yes a simple major scale can be played with lots of expression. I’ll practice it in tempo of course, but I’ll also practice accelerating, retarding. I hear how I want it to sound in my head and then I’ll play it that way. I’ll think of all the different ways to play it I can. The point here is I take total control of, and responsibility for, its sound. “I’m not in the mood” doesn’t cut it.
Now the trick is to learn to maintain control no matter what I’m playing. I remove all doubt that I can do this. This is a dance I do with my mind. Sometimes it comes easily and sometimes I have to work harder to get there. But it is always there. It’s up to me to find it (or not). On this day I used a simple interval that lead to a scale. On another day, I might use an actual piece that I’ve played for years, or I might pick something new. It’s up to me to find the best road to the zone from where I stand at a given moment.
Oddly, if I try to concentrate on it too much, it goes away and the tension in my hands can return. As I said, it's more like it happens when I'm not trying and just allow it to happen. I’m concentrating without concentrating. My brow isn’t furrowed. My eyes are not narrowed. Teeth not clenched. All is calm. I have a sense that what I’m trying to do is actually innate, that I could do easily if I didn't fight it. Once I’m able to grasp this, I'm in control — time-wise, sound-wise, tone-wise, etc., without trying to be in control. As I re-read what I just wrote I feel like I might as well be saying "Use THE FORCE, Luke!”
A trap here is that I may at some point find myself “trying not to try.” This is another can of worms. Trying not to try leads to expectations and expectations are the worst enemy of all. Expectations allow ego and its nasty allies to rear their ugly heads. I must explore and monitor what happens without loading myself down with burdensome expectations. I’m thinking in the present, and only in the present. I play with a sense of wonder and awe. My ego becomes a non-factor.
Just by coincidence, after writing the first draft of what I wanted to say in this post, I watched a movie called “The Legend of Bagger Vance” from the novel by Steven Pressfield. “The Legend of Bagger Vance” if you haven’t read or seen it, is about a golfer who at one time was able to zone and swing freely on the golf course but had lost the ability. He had played well in the past but his expectations, and the presumed expectations of others, of now having to play well weighed on him, causing him to lose what he instinctively had previously known. His sage caddie helps him find his way back. Everything he says in the movie about finding “his own perfect swing”, is pertinent to guitar zoning. Other sports books have had this same vibe — “Zen in the Art of Archery”, and “The Inner Game of Tennis” come to mind. I guess zoning is zoning.
I’m talking about a sense of ease that I'm not sure can even be explained (I'm going to keep trying though), but you see it all the time in the great players, from Segovia to Django to Tiger Woods. I could go on.
Let me add that another part of the experience is that the hands feel very loose. The blood is flowing freely and they are warm. I've read that Andres Segovia used to soak his hands in a basin of hot water before a concert. Whether it's that or doing hand warm-up exercises, stretching, etc. you want to be loose. Don’t forget to wiggle the fingers.
I hope this gives you food for thought. If you don't mind being a guinea pig, I'd like for you to try and get the sense of it yourself. Let me know how it works for you.
Herb Smith is a guitar soloist and teacher who's a veteran in the music business. He plays everything from up-tempo Latin-American classics to jazz pieces and contemporary guitar favorites. Check out his Guitar Performance and Instruction blog.
I had a particularly good practice day yesterday where everything felt right. I could play pretty much whatever I wanted and feel the "ease" of it all. I had a sense of “light-fingered-ness”. I was practicing and playing about a half-dozen, new-to-me classical pieces that I’ve learned over the past year or so and have tried to practice with this sense of ease. The pieces I was playing ranged from a couple of lively baroque things — a Bach allemande and a gigue by Robert deVisee — to a romantic era piece by Spaniard, Angel Barrios, to up-tempo jazzy Latin-American classical pieces that I love. I felt hot. I felt like I had them in control and could make them sound like I wanted them to. 
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