This article came from an earlier version of the AOV.

To perform like a pro, you have to do it constantly, under the spotlights. Because that’s what pros do. They’re constantly performing. That’s why they’re good.

At the beginning, this could mean imposing yourself on others, playing free gigs, whatever it takes. The goal is to establish familiarity, to make the performing experience as ordinary as possible.

If you go out under the spotlights every day, pretty soon, those spotlights will stop bothering you.

But you have to do it under real conditions, or in simulated conditions if real conditions are not available.

If you’re a concert musician, play in concert halls as much as possible. If you’re an athlete, perform in tournaments. If you can’t do it in real concerts and tournaments, do it in rehearsals.

The truth is, you can’t learn your skills under one set of conditions and expect to deliver them under another. In other words, you can’t practice your guitar in your bedroom and expect to replicate that performance in a concert hall.

Many people do not understand this.

They would practice a great deal in their practice rooms and attain a high level of proficiency. But then they go out in front of the public, find themselves unable to deliver, and would blame it on nerves.

Yes, nerves is always a factor, but it’s more than nerves, it’s also inexperience; if you’re not used to performing in front of an audience, you wouldn’t be able to deliver your true potential.

Sometimes the problem is not lack of experience, it’s lack of preparation.

To play like a pro, you must know your material like a pro. This means practicing your moves over and over until they become second nature.

The trick is to acquire a repertoire of moves and routines that you are deeply familiar with and which you can play at the drop of a hat.

That’s what pros do. They have a core repertoire of favorite moves and routines. When they play, they would usually reach into this repertoire and perform something they’ve done many times before.

If they have to do a new move or play a new piece, they would practice it over and over and test it in front of many audiences before they add it to their core repertoire.

That’s a disadvantage many beginner and student players have. They don’t have a core repertoire.

When they play, it’s usually something new, perhaps even something they just learned last week.

That’s tough. If you’ve just learned a piece, there is no way you can play it as well as someone who’s played it for forty years. (Translation: If you’ve just learned the Chaconne, don’t expect to play it like John Williams in your first performance, or even in your tenth performance.)

That’s why it’s good to put things in perspective. Don’t expect too much from your first performances.

And don’t be afraid to perform the same routines over and over. That’s the only way to polish your act, to do it constantly.

If you were to check the programs of concert artists, you will see the same pieces featured over and over.

I used to think it was a lack of versatility. Now I realize it’s a sign of their complete professionalism.

At the beginning, you might have to be a one-trick pony, but with time, you’ll become a two-trick pony, and in no time at all, you’ll be a hundred-trick pony.

Pros understand one thing.

It’s not how many routines you have in your repertoire, it’s how well you play them.

I was surfing youtube when this video caught my attention.

It’s the incomparable Sharon Isbin. What caught my attention is her right hand, especially in the way she plucks ‘upward’ in a soft brushing motion, rather than inward with a lot of ‘follow-through.’

It’s almost a textbook example of what I described in the AOV for Guitar as good efficient right hand movement (in the section on fluidity, page 89):

Right-hand fluidity is mostly about moving in circles and arcs.

This is a point I’ve made a few times before but here’s a more detailed explanation of how it works.

The right-hand plucking motion consists of two parts, the plucking and the rebound.

It’s crucial when you pluck that the two parts are part of a continuous movement. The only way to achieve this is to move your finger in circular motion at the fingertips.

To do this, push through the string when you pluck.

Make sure you don’t push too hard. Most of the action should be taking place at the fingertips.

As soon as you clear the string, move upward and back to your starting position. (Yes, this is probably the tenth time I described the process, but bear with me.)

The whole movement is one continuous action. If you were to watch your fingertip in action, it will describe an oval-shaped trajectory.

I’ve always been aware that my approach to teaching is different from many of my colleagues in one respect:

I emphasize facility over polish.

My rationale is that facility is something we can’t take for granted while polish is mostly a matter of time and increased sophistication.

In the beginning stages, I give students mostly free-stroke pieces and studies, all designed to get them to start moving their fingers.

The emphasis is on facility and speed, without any regard for tonal quality.

It’s just common sense, there’s not much point demanding good tonal quality if a student can barely move his or her fingers.

It’s like getting an invitation to a party.

If you haven’t been invited to a party, you’re not going to worry about what you’re going to wear.

You’re going to work on getting that invitation first, and then worry about what you’re going to wear later.

It’s the same with playing the guitar

If you haven’t developed good finger facility, don’t worry about the finer details of tone and refinement.

Focus your efforts on developing that speed and facility first and then worry about the finer details later.

I came across Lean Six Sigma while browsing at a local bookstore.

What caught my attention was the word “lean.”

As I started reading, I was struck by how similar the principles in this hot new trend in management strategy are to the ones I described in the AOV.

Especially the emphasis on speed.

I’ve always been convinced that the principles I wrote about in the AOV are universal principles that apply to everything we do, but I didn’t quite expect the close parallels between them and LSS.

Leanness or economy makes sense. If you have less to do, you can do them faster.

It’s nothing new of course—just common sense. But I have to admit, “Lean Six Sigma” sounds a lot better than plain old “economy.”

What intrigued me are the inevitable layers of organizational paraphernalia that have grown around the concepts.

Taking a cue from the martial arts, practitioners of Lean Six Sigma have to go through several stages before they attain “Master Black Belt” status. And that’s just one small part of the complex LSS architecture.

It’s interesting to note that the whole LSS phenomenon emerged from some Toyota assembly plant and from Motorola’s highly innovative management team.

The question now is, which part of LSS is responsible for Toyota’s current problem with runaway cars.

I recently did an interview with Christopher Davis of the The Classical Guitar Blog. Chris is an incredibly talented young man and I’m honored he asked me to do the interview. Here’s the link:

http://www.classicalguitarblog.net/2010/01/philip-hii-interview/

Posted my first youtube video. Agustin Barrios’ La Catedral:

I’ve always advocated having a strong left hand, and pressing down firmly with the left hand. It’s something I learned from Karl Herreshoff. His advice was always:

“Maximum pressure left hand, minimum pressure right hand.”

I understand this approach runs counter to current thinking in left hand methodology, which is to use minimum pressure in the left hand.

Of course, I’ve always believed that if pressing down lightly with the left hand is working for you, that you should keep on doing it.

But to me, pressing down firmly with the left hand is the key to a secure left hand. It’s absolutely essential if you want to develop strength and agility, especially in hammer-ons and pull-offs.

In my AOV for guitar, I included a simple left hand slur exercise for developing strength in the left hand, but any slur exercise will do.

Success in developing a good left hand is absolutely contingent in making a habit of pressing down firmly with the left hand. This pressure should not be dead and unvarying but should be alive, like a vibrato, one moment pressing down firmly, the next relaxing that pressure. It’s almost like you’re singing with the left hand.

I want to thank Andre de la Torre for pointing out to me that Casals made the same point about pressing down firmly in the left hand in one of his masterclasses.

I have tried to google that statement or any other statement by Casals made in reference to the left hand but so far have been unable to find anything, except for references to Casal’s “strong” left hand.

3.28.2010

Just received an email from Andre and he provided me with this quote from the masterclass in question:

I have him on video telling a student that “the percussion (of the left hand) puts vibration in the string and the sound comes easily. When a string is (thusly) put in vibration then the sound comes easily, naturally. If the string is not put in vibration, it is more difficult to have a clean sound.” Casals demonstrates this.

One of the key principles I wrote about in the AOV is fluidity. In the book, I explained how we can achieve greater fluidity through anticipation.

I recently received an email from Miguel de Maria where he pointed me to the following webpage in support of the concept:

http://www.cello.org/Newsletter/Articles/mantel.htm

Here’s an excerpt from the interview:

TJ: You wrote, “Anticipation is the key to virtuoso technique.” What does this mean?

GM: If I play slowly I have time to prepare for the next action. If I want to play fast, I have much less time, so I have to plan much earlier, perhaps several notes ahead of the difficult point.

Let’s take a shift, for example. In order to shift successfully, I need to initiate a preparatory motion in my body and in my arm well before the shift actually occurs. The time between the first preparatory motion and the shift can be as much as one second. When playing a series of fast notes, I have to start preparing for the shift several notes prior to when it occurs, not just the note before. A common mistake is that students practice shifts in fast passages by endlessly repeating only the note prior to and after the shift. This is a waste of time. Success or failure is decided much earlier. One must practice the shift by playing the entire series of notes involved in the shift preparation.

(GM is Gerhard Mantel, author of Cello Technique)

Miguel also pointed out another example which supports another technical concept described in the AOV for Guitar.

In the book, I suggested that we anchor the “a” finger on the first string when playing the lower strings with the “i” and “m” fingers.

Here is Miguel: “on the DVD of Yamashita and Coryell playing Four Seasons, Yamashita does a fast im scale (Winter, I think) on the high E string. He plants his a on the b. I thought of that while reading your book, thought I’d pass it along.”

Many thanks to Miguel for providing me with these two pieces of info!