Vision Music

woland99 · Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 155 Location: Austin, TX

Last year I caught cycling germ and became at times quite obsessive
about biking. And any training manual will tell you that proper way
to get better is to use you body's ability to overcompensate for damage
done by hard riding - in other words you need to mix riding and
recovery. Or else you very quickly end up in diminishing ROI zone -
you work harder but you make no progress or regress.
I was wondering if a case can be made for over-practicing when it
comes to music - that perhaps taking frequent breaks - eg. to go out
and listen to others is more effective than woodshedding 8hrs a day.

nylenny · Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 291

Gorecki · Posted: Fri Nov 14, 2008 1:03 pm Post subject:

Seems like it leads to the old 'all things in moderation' sort of thinking. In any physical practice (something requiring muscle demand and recovery) rest is absolute. The human body must be allowed to repair and recover itself. Diversity is another element that helps any physical practice because the demands on the body often are diverse.

Example: I play soccer regularly and train for it regularly. Conditioning is critical to play 90 minutes and not run out of gas. Especially as I often play forward or winger, I'll do lots and lots of 50+ yard sprints during a match.

I found I need to run (jog) on a regular basis to keep the cardio ready to play and also to improve blood oxygen processing. At the same time, jogging slows me down, my muscle reaction becomes dulled from jogging so I have to mix in speed and agility training to balance the body.

Getting to the point of all of this....Guitar is largely different in that its demands are not as much muscle related as they are tendon related. So 'over doing it' with guitar has an even larger impact because what damage can be done is not the same. Muscle recovery can take a few days, tendon recovery takes months or more. So certainly frequent breaks and even timed (45min play, 15min break) is not a bad idea.
_________________

Forums Admin VisionMusic.com
Do you know where all of your F'n B flats are?

nylenny · Joined: 31 Mar 2007 Posts: 291

It is also useful to juxtapose stressful physical activity with motions that are less demanding. For example, it does not make sense to play scales for 5 hours in a row. Mix it up a bit. Transcribe. Sightsing. Compose. Memorize.