REFLECTIVE JOURNAL

I start my warm up in guitar at 8:00am every day, I start

with chromatic scales right from 1st fret to 12th fret on all
strings and I do alternative m(middle) i(index) on my
right hand and practice these chromatic scales with
metronome starting from 50bpm to 150 bpm and
sometimes even more, I try to keep my tone consistent
in all speed, once I feel comfortable in one speed I just
increase the speed by 5bpm, then after finishing
chromatic scales and I play my all major scales and minor
scales and sometimes I play modes of major scales as
warm up too, after my warm up , I listen to my piece
almost 5 times so that I get into zone of that composer
,and these really helps me with phrasing of my pieces. I
also like to read about the composer and piece which I
am playing so that I know what the composer is trying to
think about each phrase in the piece and sometimes it’s
really interesting knowing about the compositional ideas
he has used in the piece and these ideas you can really
apply in your own composition for example in Bach’s
fugue in gm from violin sonatas in gm , there are various
interesting counter subjects that Bach has used I really
did apply of his last phrases of his fugue in gm in my own
composition and indeed it sounded really cool.
Now, I start my piece, first thing I do I take my score out,
and with my pencil I write my right hand finger position
on some notes and then I do my fret board markings on
the score, I write these things, so that I don’t forget my
finger position and my right hand fingering, while I am
performing my piece. Personally I never liked this job,
but I do this because of my poor muscle memory, I really
research on the internet about improving muscle
memory. Now I go through my full piece at least 10 times
from which 3 times I play my piece very roughly i.e
without proper dynamics and articulations and I do this
because it helps me to know my piece better and it is
really fun to play around like that for example in my
piece “Capricho arabe” by Fransesco Tarrega there is one
section after the main melody , there I sometimes I
change the rhythm and play it in swing, giving it a jazz
touch, this thing really helps someone who is bored of his
piece and is practicing his piece for months and this also
relaxes your mind too and it helps you too remember
your piece better too. And now after I went through all
my piece for 10 times, I start practicing bar by bar ,I first
choose first 5 bars and then practice bars for 5 times and
 then I try different right hand finger position and finger
placements and see for which note sounds best and
accordingly I set my tone and this helps me explore
different contrasting and vibrant color patterns for
different tones, and then I practice my dynamics and
articulations given in each bar, here in this field I mostly
like to choose my own dynamics and articulations unless
I like the dynamics and articulations given in the score
and that’s because I just don’t want to perform the piece
on how the composer I want, I like to perform the piece
in my way because in this way I could combine my own
phrasing ideas and different dynamics ideas with the
composers music and which will also make me different
from other performers who are performing this piece
and this will also increase my bond , my inspiration and
motivation towards the composer but sometimes you
have to deal with the dynamics and articulations from
composers aspect too and these things usually happens
technical aspect pieces like my piece, Bach prelude in e
major from violin partita no 3 , the thing is the piece is so
well interpreted and it is all 16th notes with no rest u
have to maintain the same tempo throughout the piece,
so u already have so many things to do, it is really
difficult to think some good phrasing on the pieces and
 whatever you try it mostly ends sounding different or
bad so no matter what you have to follow what the
composers says.
Then after I finish practicing with my first piece I take
1hour brake, where I have my lunch then I just relax my
hands and close my eyes and I just think about the
practice which I am going to continue after the break, I
just think about different ideas that I could imply in my
piece and I think about how I will improve my piece.
And now I continue my practice, this time of my practice,
I focus more on different techniques like alternative mi ,
tremolo technique and some left hand techniques too,
practicing techniques is very important, if your technique
is not tight or proper you could get severe injuries
especially when you are dealing with hard pieces,
learning proper technique could actually help you and
could even make advanced pieces pretty easy to play, if
you find practicing technique boring, you can actually
learn the technique from a piece you like and practice
that phrase, that would make your practice fun and you
will enjoy learning the technique or you can make your
own finger exercise on the technique you are working.
After my midday practice gets over, I take a major brake
and straight continue my practice at evening 7pm.On this
time, I am mostly exhausted, so I don’t much proceed on
my piece or practice my techniques, I actually try to
apply music theory and explore different chords or
different voicing of chords, learn new scales and try to
apply them or I try to improvise using these scales on a
backing track, this helps me build musical ideas,
improves my basics and it also helps me to know my
guitar more. Sometimes I even get ideas for composition
and at this time I just try compose some short phrases
from the new scales and chords I have learnt.
After this time of my practice, and I have my dinner and
then I do my active music session around 9pm, so I will
explain what do I mean by active music session, since I
was a kid I always liked to listen to different music and
different genres and at this time, this is what I do I just
listen to music for an hour and this helps me to throw
metal stress, forget my all mistakes I did in my practice
and makes my mind calm , I do this because, I think
listening to music is the first thing done by any musician
before he/she decides to be a musician so it is the most
basic thing indeed.
This was my schedule ,I try to practice not only my pieces
but other things too like techniques and then application
of theory , improvising , composing and even the
listening.