The main differences between practice and performing?

AtomicJeff said:
I don't think your problem is the live environment; it's neurosis.
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Not really neurosis. My cousin is in a band. And one day ALL the bands equipment got stolen. They were older and realized it would be too much work to buy and set everything they spent the last 20 years setting up all over again and his career ended.
 
Do you really think muscle memory can be sustained and even improved on COMPLEX solos by playing them ONCE and only at concerts 3-4 x week? I believe the details and fine elements of the solos would deteroriate over time. You still need to fine tune and repeat each lick you've mastered through repetitive practice on a regular basis for muscle memory to remain sharp.
 
dsouza said:
Not really neurosis. My cousin is in a band. And one day ALL the bands equipment got stolen. They were older and realized it would be too much work to buy and set everything they spent the last 20 years setting up all over again and his career ended.
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So? What does that have to do with the differences between practicing vs. performing?
 
AtomicJeff said:
So? What does that have to do with the differences between practicing vs. performing?
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True. I just meant just because one masters a song and can perform it by muscle memory doesnā€™t mean it will stay sharp just by performing it once every concert. But youā€™re right at a concert you only get one take!
 
dsouza said:
Do you really think muscle memory can be sustained and even improved on COMPLEX solos by playing them ONCE and only at concerts 3-4 x week? I believe the details and fine elements of the solos would deteroriate over time. You still need to fine tune and repeat each lick you've mastered through repetitive practice on a regular basis for muscle memory to remain sharp.
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Yes and no.

Listen to some DVD commentaries from musicians and you'll often hear them say "I just listened to the studio version and realized I've been playing it differently live for years and didn't realize it" and I'm specifically thinking of Vai and Petrucci as I've heard them both say it now. At a certain point, the performance version of a song, even at the Vai/Dream Theater level, is more important than recreating every nuance of the recorded version, but that is only discovered by playing a song live a hundred times. And the changes might not be anything related to the technicality or challenge of playing it live, the new thing might just be preferred, or it has a better live dynamic, or it just felt right to do on a saturday night because it was 80 degrees outside and a bird chirped in the morning.

There's a level of analyzing/hypothesizing in this thread that is non-important in the grand scheme of practicing/performing. Play a gig and you'll learn really quickly what you need to practice more, keep repeating it until gigs go by without you remembering any mistakes regardless how many you made because you were too focused on the performance part to give a shit about the mistakes.

At a certain point there's going to be a trade off of perfection and performance and unless you're a known guitar hero performing in front of fans, it's best to focus more on performance because no audience member in the local music scene is going to give a shit watching some dude stand there pulling off sweep arpeggios to perfection while standing in place and not actually performing. Hell, most guitarists don't even want to watch other guitarists stand in one spot and play no matter what they're pulling off.
 
dsouza said:
Do you really think muscle memory can be sustained and even improved on COMPLEX solos by playing them ONCE and only at concerts 3-4 x week? I believe the details and fine elements of the solos would deteroriate over time. You still need to fine tune and repeat each lick you've mastered through repetitive practice on a regular basis for muscle memory to remain sharp.
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The thing with "muscle memory" is, that it comes quickly but doesn't stand under pressure - it's deceptive. That's the typical phenomena in a performance situation or the sentence that every teacher knows so well: "at home i did so well, why did i fuck up now?".

When you practice a piece you'll soon find, that muscle memory kicks in very fast - giving you the illusion of having mastered it. But in reality then is the time where you have to go back, break the piece apart to its atoms and learn it thoroughly.

Best thing to check if you "know" a piece is: Could you play it without the instrument - just visualizing it, seeing your fingers in your mind and hear the melody while imagining it in your head? Most people will find, that there's one or another segment where they have to grab the guitar and re-check the notes. These are the parts that will most likely fall apart in a pressure-situation. Practicing without instrument is highly underrated for that purpose. It's also called the "carpenter effect" where even imagining movements leads to activating muscle groups. This will also give it a higher sutainability and provide you with a long-term memory
 
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Heinzi said:
The thing with "muscle memory" is, that it comes quickly but doesn't stand under pressure - it's deceptive. That's the typical phenomena in a performance situation or the sentence that every teacher knows so well: "at home i did so well, why did i fuck up now?".

When you practice a piece you'll soon find, that muscle memory kicks in very fast - giving you the illusion of having mastered it. But in reality then is the time where you have to go back, break the piece apart to its atoms and learn it thoroughly.
Best thing to check if you "know" a piece is: Could you play it without the instrument - just visualizing it, seeing your fingers in t mind and hear the melody while imagining it in your head? Most people will find, that there's one or another segment where they have to grab the guitar and re-check the notes. These are the parts that will most likely fall apart in a pressure-situation. Practicing without instrument is highly underrated for that purpose. It's also called the "carpenter effect" where even imagining movements leads to activating muscle groups. This will also give it a higher sutainability and provide you with a long-term memory
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This is excellent advice. I often learn a new Slash song then when I try to visualize myself playing it and the melody in my head and where my fingers are going (I try to SEE and HEAR it in my head without the guitar) , I start to fuck up at some point and develop anxiety because my mind is trying to remember the specific visual or notes and I'm stalling out. The song where the melody comes easier to me as well as me visualizing the notes are easier to play even after a layoff in practice for several days. This is why I believe visualization is so crucial to success as a guitarist as it is in every other industry. When I can't visualize it I pick up the guitar and start practicing again. But no matter how easily I play it with muscle memory if my mind is tired and I try to visualize it again later that night or the next the same brain fart happens. It's as if if there is so many notes it becomes virtually impossible to visualize and see yourself playing each one. How do you combat this under pressure environments when you can no longer visualize and distractions are everywhere?
 
TSJMajesty said:
See if you need to ask this question once you've practiced it 10,000 times. Not completely kidding.
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Yea...when I'm learning a solo the first thing I do is listen intently to it a couple of dozen times, if not more, without attempting any transcription so it's embedded into my head; I don't even have to think about how it goes.

Then after transcribing/learning the notes/phrasing, I play it about a dozen times per day, for as long as it takes, for everything to really settle in. There is no substitute for playing a solo a billion times until you get it ingrained into the brain and muscle memory.
 
dsouza said:
How do you combat this under pressure environments when you can no longer visualize and distractions are everywhere?
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You have to practice in a way that gives you plenty of enough "headroom" when you're performing. Never perform at your performance limit. If you let's say have to perform the piece at 120bpm you should be able to do at least 10 consecutive flawless repeats at 130bpm at home. You have to "over-practice" a bit.

Also the way you practice is crucial: when you practice you don't only practice the piece but also your environment and the situation. That's the problem with female singers for example - they practice at home with comfy clothes and get on stage with high heels and dress - and suddenly your body-feel is different. Same with guitar players: you practice sitting but perform standing. You practice with a cup of coffeee but the venue smells like beer.
Always try to bring yourself as close to the performance situation as possible so the body-feel doesn't change that drastically.
 
Stratoblaster said:
for as long as it takes, for everything to really settle in. There is no substitute for playing a solo a billion times until you get it ingrained into the brain and muscle memory.
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Yep. As as example of learning something, and practicing it a gazillion times, until it's so ingrained that you can play it right the very first time you go for it, (because that's what you need to be able to do, in a performance), I played this over and over and over....

And now, it has the added benefit, that whenever I come across a sextuplet across 2 strings with the next note on the next adjacent string, there's very little practicing needed.

1768213902547.png1768213930433.png

You probably need to break off certain licks/riffs within whatever solo you're trying to learn, and deal with them first.
 
Heinzi said:
You have to practice in a way that gives you plenty of enough "headroom" when you're performing. Never perform at your performance limit. If you let's say have to perform the piece at 120bpm you should be able to do at least 10 consecutive flawless repeats at 130bpm at home. You have to "over-practice" a bit.

Also the way you practice is crucial: when you practice you don't only practice the piece but also your environment and the situation. That's the problem with female singers for example - they practice at home with comfy clothes and get on stage with high heels and dress - and suddenly your body-feel is different. Same with guitar players: you practice sitting but perform standing. You practice with a cup of coffeee but the venue smells like beer.
Always try to bring yourself as close to the performance situation as possible so the body-feel doesn't change that drastically.
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Very good points indeed!
 
Heinzi said:
"at home i did so well, why did i fuck up now?".
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The opposite happens as well.
I used to think a lot, "I'm gonna f*** this up..." -- then at the gig it seemed to go effortlessly.
I think volume is a cause for two reasons: (1) makes playing easier; (2) may be hiding my mistakes.
One may also have more focus/adrenaline or become "more relaxed" on a gig.

Heinzi said:
Always try to bring yourself as close to the performance situation as possible so the body-feel doesn't change that drastically.
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That's why you bring a carpet! ;)
 
Just going off the OP and not read through the thread.

IMO, Itā€™s the intention behind the playing.

Practice is to improve, performance is to prove you can do it.

Practice is to be forgiving, performance is to give it your all.

Practice is to suffer, performance is to enjoy.

Of course you can flip the script on these and you can enjoy practicing etc but itā€™s the ratio of suffer/enjoy that makes the practice session worth it.

If you donā€™t ā€œsufferā€ and push yourself at the edge of comfort, youā€™ll find it hard to get better.

AKA as raising that BPM by 1-5 beats
 
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