Ricardo Iznaola On Practicing: A Manual for Students of Guitar Performance

Outstanding! It's very important to know how to practice. Playing and practice are two different elements of guitar study. Deliberate practice is key to developing and polishing one's guitar skills. This slim pamphlet contains a goldmine of information on how to effectively practice. Highly recommended!

Aaron Shearer is the traditional elementary guitar publisher. Teaching fledgling players the rudimentary aspects of study. Himself, an accredited educator at university. His lessons have taken me from the beginning to the level of entry intermediate. Subsequently, Ricardo Iznaola, another university educator of the guitar has published works with a different emphasis. Professor Iznaola's work reinforces the ideas put forward by Shearer. Iznaola's booklet How to practice Guitar tell's of professional coaches of performance arts, Stanislawski, etc. and what is important to perform comfortably and confidently. Iznaola's work is a must for continuing to develop proficiency on the guitar.

Excellent, though very brief, discussion of vital factors involved with practicing. I have read this book twice and continue to glean important insights. It's extremely dense, so every phrase is pregnant with meaning. I've read several books on practicing and this one is the most compact.

A good common sense manual on the both positive and negative effects of good and bad practice habits and attitudes. Especially interesting and important is the section on visualization and memory. Can really be enlightening if implemented. Highly recommended

This book is an extremely concise breakdown of exactly what should occur during practice. It has many little jewels of information, and general wisdom. It is primarily for classical style, and is written under the assumption that you are trying to learn to read music, or get better at it, and that you want every single thing you play to be show worthy, which is an excellent way to practice. It doesn't actually tell you what to do though, just how to do it so this book cannot function as your only repertoire.

Three stars simply for writing it; the fourth for making recommendations that are clearly based on experimentation and experience. One star off for the lack of (seemingly) systematic experimentation: what differences emerge from variations in mental rehearsal and performance practice? From mental representations of, e.g., sheet music compared to hand positions compared to being able to sing the melody, bass, and middle voices? An unfair criticism, I suppose, since (to my knowledge) no-one has done these experiments. Glad I bought it, and I apply his advice.

Principles succinctly laid out in this book apply just as well to vocalists (singers, actors, talkers working on their voice), and even provide a good mindset (and body-set!) to approach any difficult skill acquisition (e.g. writing, painting, life...). In addition to good content, the writing style is straightforward and the information is conveyed in only 20 pages of distilled wisdom. I wish all how-to, self-help, share-insight books were written in this way. The trend of drawing great core principles out into a 200 page redundant extraneous-examples-filled hardcover needs to stop.

This book clearly delineates the core problem facing musicians of all level - practice only works if we practice properly. Iznaola outlines the core issues and identifies solutions and processes to work through them.

Highly recommended! Although a small book every page is full of useful info and tips to improve your practicing.It's concise and to the point and I've found it of far more use than some of the big tomes I've bought over the years.I've read it a few times now and find practicing less stressful. Worth every penny!

A guru! Nor sure if I needed one.

I like this book although there isn't much of it. My guitar playing has improved since i got the book, because I now practice only the parts that I find difficult until I can play those parts quite well.

The exercises are so useful but one needs a lot of patience and discipline. But I think this book is a real gem.

A short book but with great advice for learning to play the guitar or probably any other instrument that you are learning.