Practiced vs. Spontaneity. Do You Have a Love / Understanding / Desire for Both?

[arlum]

I'm writing this because it's something I thought about and struggled with during my early years in music. Practice makes perfect. Spontaneity during a performance, (when everything comes together), makes for something oh so much better than perfect. I've been to multiple clinics held by guitar superstars. I've listened to them explain how to note for note play this or that and have learned a lot. That said, invariably some one attending will ask the player to just lay back and play. Everything you've taught us is wonderful. Would you be willing to just to set a beat on your drum machine / backing track / whatever and just let the dogs out? We'd love to see what your mind comes up with "Spur of the moment". (OK. A lot of times I was the one asking). It's interesting. Some do it better than others. None score every time. Yes. I'm saying it. Sometimes even the masters fail. The point here is .... when everything falls into place ... they perform something better than anything they've practiced. They find the zone. They lay back and creativity is the front and center part of the performance. Plus ... the listener is treated to a "once in a lifetime" experience. It wasn't practiced or recorded. It was created "in the moment". All of the best guitarist performances I've ever heard were created in the moment. Not practiced. Birthed from who knows where. I understand. You could never make a high earning career if you couldn't repeat your best work but, if your best work is / was, as I've found to be in most cases of challenged guitarists, (that which you come up with on the fly in a moment of spontaneity). does this place your fame more on you or on an audience that has recognized this potential for god like performances but realize this won't always be the case.

This isn't a thread dissing practice. I believe practice is extremely important to a guitarists abilities. When I think of practice I'm thinking about technique. Practicing every technique to get them as close to perfection as possible. What I'm not thinking about is how to play a mirror image of a song I recorded 40 years ago and fans still like to hear. Jeff recently died. We all know. We've all heard his tunes. I can't honestly say I've ever heard him play one that was identical to the original or majority of past performances. Jeff had a way of slipping in and out of the zone to reproduce the main thrust of the original but allow for spontaneity in the current performance. I also assume Jeff practiced a lot.

This makes me think of Dead Heads who followed the Grateful Dead from venue to venue hoping for a night when Jerry found that special place in the zone. Maybe one in five nights they would go home having experienced an unrepeatable dream while the other four nights they would go home thinking "maybe next time". Yet. Their love of spontaneity and "in the zone" performances trumped the most practiced and rehearsed performances they could have attended. I've seen the same thing with fans of Willie Nelson, The Traveling Wilbury's, The Who, etc.

How many fans of The Who point to "Live at Leeds" as the greatest place to listen to a rendition of "Substitute"? It differs fronm the original release on "Meaty" in many ways and most fans consider it the best. On that night the band was "in the zone". They left the script behind.

How many fans of Peter Frampton think of "Frampton comes Aiive" as containing the very best versions of all the songs it contained? It was based on a handful of nights selecting the most "in the zone" moments of the tour rather than the most "as close to the practiced and known original versions of the songs performed.

So. What's your opinion? Rehearsed and performed to perfection based on the original studio recording or performed during that special time when the guitarist was "in the zone"?

 

[mixmkr 2023]

My opinion,.... you need the technical practice to be able to express yourself in improv.. But you need the improv practice just as much....whether to a drum machine, but preferably with others to feed back and forth.

 

[Mjark]

What it boils down to is you can't play well without a lot of practice and study. No matter how creative you might be spontaneity isn't enough unless you have the building blocks to make things happen. Are there happy accidents yes, sometimes.

 

[Jeru]

1) Good points and good questions.


2) So, what is this -- this practice that you speak of..?


3) Also -- My brother is fond of saying "Practice makes... better."

 

[Dik Ellis]

For me spontaneity comes from practicing. You hit a chord or a lick, and it's like "yeah, let's see where it takes me."

 

[Blackmore Fan]

My opinion,.... you need the technical practice to be able to express yourself in improv.. But you need the improv practice just as much....whether to a drum machine, but preferably with others to feed back and forth.

Exactly! Our team has just finished reading "The Talent Code". In it, the book points out that there's two types of "practice". A young violinist is expected to play Bach and Beethoven note for note. That type of practice is very "technique" driven--you can only play those pieces (if you want to play with others) in a very precise manner. The other type of practice is best exemplified by "Futsal". Its apparently a much quicker version of soccer. There's only 5 players to a side, the field is dramatically smaller, the ball is smaller and heavier, and its a much quicker game. That quicker game allows players to practice "improv" much faster, much quicker--every kick matters because the field is tightly compressed and the action is ten times quicker. The book asserts that the best soccer players have had LOTS of repetition at Futsal.

To those of us who play guitar, both types of practice would seem to benefit us. We need a strong base of "technique", and then the ability to act on the fly.

 

[teletail]

So. What's your opinion? Rehearsed and performed to perfection based on the original studio recording or performed during that special time when the guitarist was "in the zone"?

That's a false dichotomy. If you want to be a well rounded musician, you need to be able to do both.

 

[cometazzi]

IME, spontaneity is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but it is somewhat rare. You can't depend on it.

Practice builds up something you CAN depend on, and as others have said it can form a solid foundation and building blocks to launch the spontaneity in the right conditions.

 

[TokyoPortrait]

HI.

Really, I have no right to be commenting on practice...

But,

Practice makes perfect

"Practice makes... better."

I have heard from a couple of people involved with this sort of stuff, a saying that goes something like 'practice makes permanent.'

Used to highlight the perils of poor practice habits and point out that random / ill considered / poorly executed practice is often not only generally counterproductive, but can be harmful, as it sets these bad things in, and make them extremely hard to overcome later.

Hmm, perhaps I can spin this to make myself feel better - first, I have done no harm...

Pax/
Dean

 

[Cesspit]

In my years as a gigging musician I can say the band rehearsed a lot, to the point we could perform our set without really thinking about it. For me this meant that on occasions I felt I could really go for it, to improvise to reach a level beyond what I would call my normal ability. I got away with it maybe sixty percent of the time.I
I don't recall any outright failures and it didn't always work, but when it did, my God, what a feeling.

 

[loopfinding]

if you've seen someone live like two or three times in quick succession, you see them use the same moves in the same places. if you've ever been on tour with something that has a lot of improvisation, sometimes it can feel like "we keep playing the same set."

ever listen to alternate takes of jazz stuff? most players do not play wildly different lines on each take. in the extreme case, coltrane is almost spitting out prepared material on giant steps.

free jazz or free improvisation is an interesting example, because it’s implicitly assumed it’s to be entirely spontaneous. but the more you hear certain players, the more you hear prepared/stock material. usually when it’s truly spontaneous you either hear them almost not making it, or actual flubs.

things come out a little differently each time, but ultimately it's pulling from a pool of stuff. we all have habits. it's a matter of artfully disguising them or combining them in different ways, but doing the heavy lifting beforehand so you set yourself up. it's easy to miss that when you don't see all the iterations.

 

[BelindasShadow]

All we really can do is build and maintain the stage, as it were, to make it as fit for performance as possible, so when showtime hits we might be blessed with grace, or magic, or mojo, whatever.

 

[Kandinskyesque]

I saw practice as teaching the conscious brain to forget what the hands and voice need to remember.

Then in recent years I read Erikson's "Peak"; he's the guy who's research was misinterpreted by Malcolm Gladwell with the 10,000 hours theory.
I also read Mihaly Czikszentmihalyi's book on flow state.
Both confirmed my suspicions that I might be right.

The best stuff seems to come out in the no thought flow state. That takes a lot of deliberate practice to have the building blocks to achieve inspired moments.

 

[kbold]

Behind 5 seconds of spontaneity is 500 hours of practice.
(The ratio may be somewhat off.)

 

[notmyusualuserid]

You need a lot of practice to become spontaneous

 

[arlum]

That's a false dichotomy. If you want to be a well rounded musician, you need to be able to do both.

And yet many folks who identify as musicians can't do either. Unless I'm missing something the majority of music forum site members fall within the categories of "play at home". "play for the pleasure of it", "play to relieve stress", "play with or for friends and family", etc. The majority of musicians don't do it as their primary day job. Most fail to practice at a level that would be required to truly earn a living at it. Many go through their whole lives without discovering the zone much less playing in it. I think you can be a musician without getting a gold star in either category. The focus in this thread is on "when does a musician truly perform at their highest level"? I believe it to be when they practice all of the techniques required to perform their material to the best of their ability and then step out of the box to allow the magic of spontaneity to combine all of those well practiced skills into something new and special. Something you might only play once and, having been lost in the zone, may not remember enough of it to ever play it the same way again. I think of these moments of spontaneity that a skilled and well practiced musician sometimes slips into are both moments to be treasured as well as an example of the musician playing at their highest possible level.

I don't believe their are a hundred guitarists currently alive on planet earth who have truly mastered every possible guitar technique, (I know I'll never be one of them), and I've never heard of a single one who has mastered the zone, (having the ability to enter and leave it at will). The idea that to be a musician you need to be able to do both is truly beyond my comprehension. For myself .... I've been to the zone many times yet have no idea how I got there, what all I played while I was there or how to return there. I've come out of performance dazes to a crowd of dropped jaws and much applause having no idea what the fuss was about. Folks would tell me what I'd just done and, initially, these conversations were somewhat scary because they were telling me my conscious mind had totally left the room and that some one or thing had taken over. It's only been in the last six to ten years that folks have actually been able to walk up after a performance with cell phone recordings or videos so I could hear and see what they had heard and seen. The performer I'm seeing is not me. That guy is playing at a level I could never hope to play at. I'm seeing stunts I would never attempt and perfect runs I couldn't have played on my best day. Yet. There it is. Right in front of me. I don't know how I got there and I don't know how to go back. Every now and then it just happens. Sometimes weeks would go by and sometimes months would go by depending on how often I'd been playing. Now it's an extremely rare experience. If I'd ever figured out how to control the zone, well .... I don't know where it might have led but, no .... I never did and now don't believe it's humanly possible to control it. I've listened to dead heads explain why they followed Jerry Garcia from gig to gig. I just figure this zone thing might be the answer. It doesn't happen often but when it does you don't want to miss it. As a groupie or as a performer. You don't want to miss it.

 

[notmyusualuserid]

And yet many folks who identify as musicians can't do either. Unless I'm missing something the majority of music forum site members fall within the categories of "play at home". "play for the pleasure of it", "play to relieve stress", "play with or for friends and family", etc. The majority of musicians don't do it as their primary day job. Most fail to practice at a level that would be required to truly earn a living at it. Many go through their whole lives without discovering the zone much less playing in it. I think you can be a musician without getting a gold star in either category. The focus in this thread is on "when does a musician truly perform at their highest level"? I believe it to be when they practice all of the techniques required to perform their material to the best of their ability and then step out of the box to allow the magic of spontaneity to combine all of those well practiced skills into something new and special. Something you might only play once and, having been lost in the zone, may not remember enough of it to ever play it the same way again. I think of these moments of spontaneity that a skilled and well practiced musician sometimes slips into are both moments to be treasured as well as an example of the musician playing at their highest possible level.

I don't believe their are a hundred guitarists currently alive on planet earth who have truly mastered every possible guitar technique, (I know I'll never be one of them), and I've never heard of a single one who has mastered the zone, (having the ability to enter and leave it at will). The idea that to be a musician you need to be able to do both is truly beyond my comprehension. For myself .... I've been to the zone many times yet have no idea how I got there, what all I played while I was there or how to return there. I've come out of performance dazes to a crowd of dropped jaws and much applause having no idea what the fuss was about. Folks would tell me what I'd just done and, initially, these conversations were somewhat scary because they were telling me my conscious mind had totally left the room and that some one or thing had taken over. It's only been in the last six to ten years that folks have actually been able to walk up after a performance with cell phone recordings or videos so I could hear and see what they had heard and seen. The performer I'm seeing is not me. That guy is playing at a level I could never hope to play at. I'm seeing stunts I would never attempt and perfect runs I couldn't have played on my best day. Yet. There it is. Right in front of me. I don't know how I got there and I don't know how to go back. Every now and then it just happens. Sometimes weeks would go by and sometimes months would go by depending on how often I'd been playing. Now it's an extremely rare experience. If I'd ever figured out how to control the zone, well .... I don't know where it might have led but, no .... I never did and now don't believe it's humanly possible to control it. I've listened to dead heads explain why they followed Jerry Garcia from gig to gig. I just figure this zone thing might be the answer. It doesn't happen often but when it does you don't want to miss it. As a groupie or as a performer. You don't want to miss it.

Is there an abridged version?

 

[Marc Morfei]

Lots of good previous comments. I will add a couple things. Spontaneity needs to be controlled and properly in context to be good. Otherwise it is just wankery. The brilliance often comes in the way spontaneous creativity relates to the baseline. You need a solid platform to take off from.

I do a fair amount of public speaking. I have found the best method for me is to prepare a tight script, memorize the script thoroughly, then throw it away. This way I can be spontaneous when I talk, because I know what I want to say. I’m not trying to sort out my thoughts on the fly. I know it cold. So then I am free to improvise.

 

[NoTeleBob]

Mick Taylor is another one who comes to mind who always just improvised. He play similar riffs but live it was almost always different than the last time. It was definitely always different from the studio or the last tour.

In an interesting tangent to the original post, back when Taylor was with the Stones, Keith Richards commented "he's great live but he doesn't know **** about playing in the studio". Taylor was an improv guy like the others cited above.

For me personally, I don't have the desire or the patience to learn someone else's work note for note. I do typically study what they did and try to learn how they produced the temper sounds they gone or some key passages. But then I usually play something with a rough resemblance to the original and it often changes night to night.

 

[NoTeleBob]

I think "practice" is being used in this thread to refer to "the study of other people's work in order to produce it note by note".

I "practice" but I never attempt to produce something note for note. I don't even reproduce my own stuff out for note every time I "practice". But I still "practice" frequently.