You practise on the edge of the bed,
or on a kitchen chair,
with the guitar resting on your leg.
That fast run is clean now.
You have played it a hundred times
and it has stopped
feeling difficult.
Then you stand up on stage,
the strap takes the weight,
and the run falls apart
in the first chorus.
Nothing about the notes changed.
Everything else did.
Sitting, the guitar rests
where your leg puts it.
Standing, it hangs
where the strap puts it,
usually lower,
and angled differently.
Your fretting wrist
bends at a new angle.
Your picking arm
reaches from a new place.
The neck points somewhere else,
so the frets you glance at
are not where your eyes expect them.
Your hands learned the run
in one position.
They have never played it
in this one.
And on stage
you are also moving,
breathing harder,
turning to look at the drummer,
none of which
the kitchen chair asked of you.
The fix is not
to practise more.
It is to practise
in the shape you will perform in.
Set the strap
the way you will wear it on the night,
and play the hard parts standing,
even at home,
even when you are tired
and the chair is right there.
If you like it low
because it looks good,
check whether your wrist likes it.
Lift it a few centimetres
and see what gets easier.
Then leave it there
for practice and for gigs.
Mark the strap
so it is the same every time.
Run the full set standing
at least once a week
before a show,
start to finish,
without stopping to fix anything.
Stand the way you stand on stage.
Look up at where the band will be.
Take a step now and then.
The same goes for singers
who rehearse sitting at a desk,
and for players who practise
with their music on a stand
and perform without it.
Whatever will be different on the night,
make it the same
in the room where you practise.
Your hands remember
where they were
when they learned.
Teach them in the place
they will have to play.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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