Overprepared?

By now my family members have gotten used to hearing loud music coming out of my room. Occasionally someone will enter to request that I use headphones, or to deliver word that there are burritos to be devoured. If anyone had walked into my room today between the hours of 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM, they would have seen me standing there with my guitar... and nothing else. I was completely naked.

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One of the reasons that I never get bored of playing guitar is that it is incredibly easy to keep my practice routine fresh and interesting. In addition to writing my own material, there are essentially three realms through which my journey progresses: drilling technique, learning songs by other artists, and practicing old songs. The fun begins when you realize how much variation there is within each individual realm.

I usually start each day with an hour of just drilling straight technique. First, there's the traditional (ie, boring) stuff: scales, arpeggios, alternate picking, economy picking, etc. Then there are the more unusual playing methods such as slapping, tapping, and harmonics. I'll take each of the techniques in my mental library and run them through different tempos, modes, time signatures, and hand positions. Sometimes I go through drills while listening to a metronome to make sure my timing is 100% accurate. Occasionally I'll mute the metronome and just rely on flashing lights to indicate the tempo. The first time I did this, I quickly realized how difficult it is to maintain a perfectly steady tempo. I'm tapping my foot, eyes glued to the iPad, and everything's going fine. I quickly look at the fretboard to make sure my left hand is in the correct position, and when I look back at the screen, suddenly my whole shit is completely off! "What the fuck!? How did I lose the beat that quickly? This is bullshit!"

I'm always learning new material, particularly songs written by Dream Theater. John Petrucci, their guitarist, is one of the most technically proficient musicians on the planet, so his songs always have a few challenging/impossible sections. At one point, I went through a very brief phase when I thought that I was good enough at guitar that I could keep improving without having to learn anyone else's songs. I snapped out of that pretentious phase in a hurry when I remembered that Petrucci can play so many notes per second that the general theory of relativity takes over, enabling him to travel back in time so he can abort my unborn fetus. I knew that I would need to be able to play fast enough that I could preemptively counter-abort him, which is why I continue to learn Dream Theater songs to this very day. Survival of the fittest.

In addition to learning hypertechnical metal masterpieces with an average of 37 brazillion notes per second, I also try to keep my repertoire diverse. Today I finished transcribing "Peril", an orchestral piece from the soundtrack for Halo 2, and a while back I learned the Christopher Parkening arrangement of Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring for classical guitar. I suspect I am the only human who has ever learned that piece who has also killed a seagull with a kayak paddle. In any case, the intersection on that Venn diagram has got to be pretty goddamn small.

Lastly, there is the ever-present need to play through those songs that I have finished writing or learning in order to keep them fresh. My long-term goal is to be able to accurately perform any song in my repertoire at any time, regardless of whether or not I have had time to rehearse for that particular performance. This is no small task when one considers that I currently have about 2 hours of music stored in my noggin, with more conspicuous junk being added to the heap every week. I break this process down into two modes: "problem-solving mode", in which I find and work on rough spots, and "concert mode", in which I play from start to finish without ever stopping for mistakes.

In order to keep the repertoire maintenance process exciting, I constantly look for little changes I can make to my playing environment so that I will be prepared to perform anywhere. I usually play up in my room, but sometimes I play in the living room so that my inquisitive Australian Shepherd can enjoy the fun. I prefer to play while sitting down, but I try to make sure that I can play everything standing up as well. Sometimes I play with the air conditioner on at full blast, sometimes I leave it off for hours and practice in jeans and a sweatshirt. I'll play uber loud with ear plugs to simulate a crowded arena, and I'll play with headphones to simulate a recording studio. Sometimes I'll play with headphones and ear plugs just to confuse the fuck out of my temporal lobe.

Today I took this idea to the next level by playing an imaginary concert while completely naked. Once my bare skin had acclimated to the freezing cold guitar body, I adjusted the strap so that the body hung much lower than I would normally prefer -- I wouldn't want the imaginary audience to be distracted by my dangling appendage poking out from underneath the bottom of the guitar.

While parading around buck naked may be a bit overkill, the point of these exercises is not to prepare myself for particular situations. The point is to be able adapt to any playing environment, no matter what kind of shenanigans I have to put up with to make it happen. I'm not going to be one those OCD shitbags that won't perform unless every little detail is perfect. I intend to be the kind of dude who just makes it happen. Sweating like an Egyptian porn star? No problem. Dressing room is a broom closet? No problem. Clothes got eaten by kangaroos? No problem. The show must go on.