The Road To Being An Advanced Player

Being an advanced player is not about being better than other people or having more knowledge than other people and it definitely doesn't give you some type of special status symbol!  Believe me when I say, there is always someone better than you!  And guess what?  That's a good thing!  Now don't misunderstand me, you have to have a pretty substantial knowledge base in order to be able to play at that level.  That knowledge however only contains a small percentage of theoretical or academic knowledge.  The overwhelming majority of that knowledge is experiential.

Being an advanced player means being so creative and efficient with the knowledge you have and your technique that you can produce high quality consistently.  That definition is true professional grade musicianship.  That doesn't mean you aren't susceptible to making mistakes.  I don't care what level you attain, everyone is susceptible to making mistakes!  I've seen the best of the best screw up!  The big difference when they do it and when you might do it is that they don't make a big deal about it or let it bother them at all.  All the mistake amounted to in their eyes was just a learning experience.  It didn't end their career, they still got paid the same that night, and it gave them an opportunity to reflect a little.  Even if it did happen in front of people, they weren't afraid of it!  I've had it happen in a taping situation for television and trust me, that is a scary and crushing situation to be in!  But it didn't end my career and I'm definitely better than I was back then.  I'm still paying my bills as a professional musician!  See! No big deal!

Now enough about that, let's talk about a technique that you can use to push your playing toward an advanced level!  Remember, in order to be advanced, there is some prior knowledge involved, and in this case it's the Nashville Number System!  Even if you don't know it yet, you can still read on and start to think about the idea.  We cover the number system in depth in the The Road To Guitar course bundle! 

Now, onto the lesson!

An advanced concept for improving both your creativity and efficiency at the same time, now that you know the number system, is to hear and think of everything you play in a number format. Doing this allows you to compartmentalize everything in a manner that is a lot more manageable than just thinking about the names of chords and their notes. It essentially gives you the Big Picture view of everything you are doing while being able to maintain the creative elements and nuance of your normal writing and thinking process. It’s subtle, but it is a mental workflow tweak that makes a big difference once you are used to it.

Let's say you are in the key of G and you want to go to a D chord with an F# note in the bass.  What your mind might be processing is the hand movement and visual image of where your fingers are placed in order to make that movement.  Now, think about it for a minute, that is a lot of information crowding your mind in that instant!  Couple that with the idea that you are probably going to want to create with more than two chords and you are just asking for a bottlenecked or clogged thinking process!

Now, what if instead we change our thinking process to a refined more compartmentalized version of the music we are trying to play?  Instead of worrying about what G or D with an F# in the bass is or is about to be, we just decide we are going to play a 1 and move to a 5/7.  At this level, we can trust our technique, ability, and knowledge base to be pure instinct because we know what those two chords sound like and how to play them which means that we don't even need to register all that goes into them as thoughts!  They are just part of what we do and what we have always known.

Now let's go back to last week's lesson.  Remember what we talked about with pre-deciding what you are going to do even if the pre-decision happens just before the chord is about to occur?  Essentially you are always staying one step ahead so you know in which direction you are moving, which goes a long way toward eliminating hiccups in your playing.  Well, put that idea together with the idea we are discussing today and you have a recipe for an organized and precise thinking process that stays succinct and to the point while still allowing for all the creativity and nuance you could ever want!  When engaging with creativity in this way, you are taking a big picture mentally and painting it with sonic colors instinctually, literally no thinking involved in that regard.  As a musician, it's one of the ultimate uses of your musical ear.  Remember what I have said about there being no secrets whatsoever with music and just different levels of awareness?  This is exactly what I mean!  Think about it, I'm not telling you any information about chords or playing that you don't already have or that isn't available somewhere else.  What i'm doing is making you aware of a better way of using what you already know!  When you do that, it makes your playing better because you are training your body to act on instinct just like an athlete does with workouts and practice which then allows you to get creative with your instincts instead of information!  The information itself is literally on autopilot and it is much more efficient now because your mind isn't cluttered with it!  It's been processed, it's done!  There is no need to reprocess it everytime you play!

Now let's kick it up a notch!

Let's visualize ourselves in a band setting and we are doing one of two things:  We are either playing fills in a verse, or we are in the middle of the solo section and we are soloing.  Numbers only go in two directions: up or down.  You can mix and match them but you are either lowering them or raising them, that's it! That is an inescapable fact, so use it, because it is a huge advantage!  Also, scales are a mix of half steps and whole steps, but the entirety of our fretboard is only divided up by half steps, and what's even better is that the notes are all usable in any key if you know how to use them!  There are no bad notes, but you can definitely make bad decision by playing notes in a bad way!  Understanding this perspective, we can take what we play and hear our musical direction in a number format, and even more than that we can look at whatever scale knowledge we have as just guard rails instead of a formula or training wheels to stick to.  The reason for that is because now we could care less what notes we play, and at this zoomed in of a level like single notes, double stops, soloing etc. it's not even necessary to think about the number format itself.  It's only beneficial to know that numerically they move in either direction, so we have once again taken what was a simple process and made it instinctual because with just your ear alone you can create ways to lead yourself from one number to any other number such as a 5 down or up to a 1.  This is what barney kessel meant when he talked about "interval sense" not to be confused with "a sense of intervals."  He was absolutely right, because when you understand how to use this technique you become fearless when playing the instrument!  Now we only care about the rhythm and execution we play notes with!  It becomes just a matter of creative expression!  You can lead any "bad note" rhythmically to a "good note!"  That's part of the fun and what creates ear twisting moments in anything you play.  Jazz is full of it!  If you have never heard of or listened to Barney Kessel, I seriously suggest you go look up his lesson videos on YouTube and listen to his music.  It is extremely insightful!  This whole perspective I'm talking about is also why I'm not big on modes as you have heard me say before, because there is no need to ever redefine your scale, especially the scale intervals themselves, and the terminology is way too much to think about.  What any guitar player needs is wise, informed decision making in their playing which can be obtained on an instinctual level by your ear.  They don't need a multitude of decisions and explanations to choose from that bottlenecks their reaction time!  I hope you see the difference there!

Depending on when you are reading this, Musican's Pathway: The Road To Guitar course bundle is either about to be released or it is already available for purchase.  If you are even thinking about learning how to be a better guitar player,  I highly suggest you enroll in the program.  You have lifetime access to it once you purchase and it is and always will be affordable for everyone, plus it is always being updated with new material and resources and will always be organized in a way that students will find easy to navigate!  I hope to see you there!!!

God bless you and have a wonderful week!