Pele on practicing

Tuesday Quotes are short explorations of music, life, and the daily endeavor of practicing classical guitar. Find more here. Enjoy!

“Everything is practice.”

Pelé

Okay…. everything is practice…sure. But how exactly is “everything” practice? And practice for what?

My suspicion is that soccer/futbol legend Pelé was always observing how things moved. I bet he was always playing with balance and motion. These were the raw ingredients with which he created his magic, so it makes sense he wouldn’t limit them to the field.

But what about us? As normal people living our lives, going through our days, playing some guitar now and then, what does the “Everything is Practice” idea have to do with us?

Or maybe the a better question would be, “How can everything become practice?” or, “How can my guitar playing benefit from other activities throughout the day?”

Much of getting better at guitar has to do with learning to use the appropriate amount of tension at each moment. We usually use too much tension in some places and not enough in others.

So one way we can turn “everything” into practice is to notice how much tension we use to perform our everyday tasks, like…

• Eating
• Grooming
• Driving
• Surfing the web
• Just sitting around

In each moment, we can observe how much tension we’re using in our hands, shoulders, face, wherever. And if it seems more than necessary, we can release some of it.

Over time, this will allow us to do the same while we play guitar. Before we know it, we have a different way of moving and being on the guitar.

Guitar is complex, with many different things to think about. Tension usually goes unnoticed until it hurts. If we choose, mundane activities can become the training ground for effortless, fluid music-making. If we decide, everything can become practice.