I'm posting each one as a comment.

Take the tittle as a dare, and try out these suckers.

It helps very much - in the same ways an audio recording helps, plus a few more:

1) If it's a new song, I can note-check their performance easily while it's stil slow, before any mis-readings become mechanized.  Also the rhythm.

2) Body tension is very clear - you can say "at 2 minutes and 13 seconds your right shoulder locks up in anticipation of the arpeggio section - practice getting there, stop, relax, and continue."

3) It keeps the student accountable between lessons, discouraging cramming.

4) It is a brutal reality check that can be done privately - it all but eliminates the tendency some students have to play material that is too difficult too soon.

What else? Any ideas?

I am just making the transition from recording to filming my own practice - I'll post my ideas as things work out.

But how do we do it? It depends on what you want to get out of it.

A simple way of starting off is playing through the music once, and then listening until something catches your ear.  Pause the playback and work out that section, then move on.  Don't dismiss any problem as a mere accident.  If it really was just that, you won't spend much time working on it.  Also, don't worry about sections that sound good in the recording, but that you've labeled as difficult in your mind.  Use the recording as a reality check.  Play slowly enough that you won't dismiss problems because it's so fast, or miss hearing them because it's too fast to notice.  

What to listen for?

Hesitations

Wrong notes

Little loops - when you go back and play something again, wether there was a problem or not

Noises - buzzes, rattles, squeaks

Heavy breathing

Cursing

Incomplete chords - you're going through the trouble of fretting and plucking 5 or 6 string, make sure the listener gets to hear all the notes!

Check the rhythms and the pulse.

Long notes and rests - don't cheat them and skip ahead

Another approach is more positive - listen for qualities you LIKE in the recording, such a specially nice tone, a clean fast run, a well-proportioned rubato.  Then pause the playback, and study the score for similar passages and spread the love - make sure the they all share those good qualities.

Remember these recordings are for your use only.  Don't think of them as recording sessions.  If you start to get "microphone nerves," I find it can be helpful to promise yourself you'll erase the recording at the end of the session.

Any thoughts?

First, it's good material and a great way to get back into top playing shape for the summer.

Second, Scott is coming to New Mexico to do a workshop and in case I can make it there, it would be great to be re-familiarized with his ideas.

My idea is to cover the whole book within the next few weeks, so I'll be posting the routines I'm doing.  Use them to cover this material too!  Take your time if this is your first time around this book - I've done this before a e times...

First set - I've been doing this for a couple of days and will continue with it for a little while:

1) Weight transfer chromatic scale - I also use easy diatonic scales fingerings for variety, keeping the same concepts

2) Hammer-ons and pull-offs, with neighbor fingers, repeated on the same string

3) Finger independence exercise 1 - three fingers "fixed" and one moving

4) Right hand "walking" with i, m, and a with rest- and free-strokes, and mi alternatinon with rest-strokes.

5) Tarrega arpeggios 1-4

6) Giuliani Group 1

Sign up by leaving a comment. But more importantly, leave comments as you go, with updates on your progress, support to others, and helpful practice hints.

http://www.douglasniedt.com/Tech_Tip_How_To_Give_A_Performance.html

I love his insight on the fight or flight reflex.

First, the basic stuff – things that will get you fired in the real world if you forget them:

Show up. Sober, alert, and focused.

Have all your materials: music, instrument, practice sheet, pencil, etc.

Be prepared. Your lessons aren't random. They are part of a well planned curriculum, and we build on previous lessons. If you play a lot between lessons, but don't do your assignments, you will miss out on the whole process. Being unprepared is as bad as not showing up.

Now some less obvious ideas:

Save your practice sheets.

Record your lessons: this helps so much, I believe it should be mandatory. Soon after your lesson, review the recording and take notes. I suggest adding instructions and details to your practice sheet, using language you will still understand months after the lesson.

Stay in touch and email questions.  Often a quick email question such as "how do I finger the chord in measure 36 so that it sounds connected to the previous scale?" can save you a bit of time.  Also, clarify any questions about details of form in exercises.

Schedule your daily practice time. If you never have to say “sorry, I can't – I have to go practice,” there is something wrong. If you only practice “When you can get to it,” this is not going to work. Written homework is not more important than practice for your lesson.

Teach the people in your life to respect your practice time, and if you avoid doing the work, take responsibility for it.

Be realistic about social life: as a music major, the amount of work you must do is unfair compared to the number of credits you get for it. This is specially true if you have little or no formal training: in that case the first few semesters have very steep learning curves - not only in your guitar lessons, but in your theory classes as well.

Run a “Performance Class:” regular meetings with a group of students to play through your new music and the pieces you are preparing for a performance.  Get some pointers from your teacher about the process of a group like this, but run it on your own - that way your lesson can work as a real goal for improvement.

Connect with other students: the practice room can be a lonely place, and knowing your friends are in the same boat helps. I used to schedule practice sessions with electric guitar master Joe Moghrabi – we would each go into our next-door studios, and come out in a couple of hours, have a little coffee (it was in Brazil...) and get back to work.

Don't spend too much time online, but use sites like this - get inspiration and tips.  Look at other people's practice routines and schedules, and post your own.

Share your works in progress: play for your colleagues, friends, and family, even if it's not quite ready - let them enjoy your progress. 

Materials you might need: instrument, sheet music, assignment sheets, pencil, recording or video equipment, mirror, good chair, room humidifier, earplugs, mutes, stopwatch, timer, tuner, and metronome.

Any thoughts?

What can we learn from it?

"The fame of Andrés Segovia, the Spanish guitarist whose name has been a prominent one of late years in capitals of Europe, had preceded him. An audience including many Spaniards and many more of the musical connoisseurs of the city greeted him when he made his first appearance yesterday afternoon in Town Hall.
But the appearance of Mr. Segovia is not that of the trumpeted virtuoso. He is rather the dreamer or scholar in bearing, long hair, eyeglasses, a black frock coat and neckwear of an earlier generation. He seats himself, thoughtfully, places his left foot on its rest, strikes a soft chord, then bends over his guitar and proceeds to play like the poet and master he is of the instrument.
Granting a knowledge far greater than this reviewer possesses of the technics of the matter, it would not avail to describe Mr. Segovia’s performance in technical terms. He belongs to the very small group of musicians who by transcendent power of execution, by imagination and intuition create an art of their own that sometimes seems to transform the very nature of their medium. Segovia could be if he chose the trick player of his generation. He draws the tone colors of half a dozen instruments from the one that he plays. He has an extraordinary command of nuances, he seems to discover whole planes of sonority. Although his instrument cannot furnish a genuinely connected series of tones he produces upon it, very frequently, the illusion of sustained song. When he play a melody of Back or Haydn he phrases it, slurring certain notes, detaching the others, according to the directions of the composer. He has, of course, the vibrato and the portamento to help him in expression. He is remarkable, almost unique, for not abusing these effects. His left hand is as amazing to watch as to hear, as it flies with an incredibly light, swift, geometrical precision over the keyboard [sic], or divides passages digitally in such a way that one or two fingers stop the strings while the others play various types of melody or figuration.
We have said that all this command of tone, technique and special effects possible to the instrument are only the vehicles of musical intention on the part of the performer. Mr. Segovia played many pieces from Bach, principally movements from suites, and a Haydn minuet for the classic part of his program. He played Bach like a consummate musician. The relation between the guitar and the old lute, for which Bach wrote some of his music—probably some of the music Mr. Segovia played yesterday—and the manner in which the instrument of plucked strings became the instrument of struck wires in the final form of the piano, was brought home with especial force of illustration. Nevertheless, the most remarkable of Mr. Segovia’s performances were not those of Bach, interpreted with so much taste and musicianship, but the pieces, principally by Spanish masters, composed for the guitar.
The first two of these pieces were the compositions of Sor, who is given little attention by the dictionaries, but who, as stated by the program, lived from 1778 to 1839 an wrote music excellent in style and dignified in invention. There was a haunting simplicity and sentiment in the performance, which was of a jeweled finish and gracefulness of figuration. And the eighteenth century flavor was emphasized by the idiom of the instrument.
More native in character, and of the Spanish genre, were the "Serenata" of Malats, the "Danza" and "Etude" of Tarrega. Each of these compositions made different demands; each revealed another side of the performer’s equipment. It was here that he proved beyond contraction the right of his instrument and of himself as a performer and creator upon it, to the attention and the respect of all music lovers. For with certain instruments, as with much music, the appearance of the master, with his handicraft and his vision, is required, before that which is inherent can be brought to life and become articulate for the multitude.
Saying all this, it must be added that Mr. Segovia did not and cannot succeed in removing the limitations which will always surround his instrument. he has stretched these limitations to the utmost. He has far outdistanced in his knowledge and his musical conceptions the ordinary twanger of strings. Nevertheless, the guitar remains the guitar, with limits of sonority, color, dynamics. These limitations make Bach less impressive through its medium than on the piano or harpsichord. They reach their utmost effect and their entire significance in music less sculpturesque and contrapuntal than Bach's and with warmer harmony and more elementary rhythms. Hence Mr. Segovia's audience was most enthusiastic when he played his own Spanish music in a way that revealed its essence of spirit and idiom.

This was an unusually significant appearance, and the first of concerts that Mr. Segovia will give here. His reception should have gratified him. A New York audience has seldom been quicker or warmer with its approval."

He has a short article about them at: http://musiciansway.com/blog/?p=1137

1) Ease

2) Expressiveness

3) Accuracy

4) Rhythmic vitality

5) Beautiful tone

6) Focused attention

7) Positive attitude

I like thinking of these as "improvable" rather than having a pass/fail attitude.  This means a practice session can be fulfilling and successful if you end up playing more accurately than before - even if it's not perfect.  You can make your tone more beautiful than before, even if it's not yet the best tone you'll ever have, etc.  Excellence, in this sense, is to continually, and happily, improve from where we are.  This does not mean settling for a lesser result, but rather keeping in mind that your practice is an ongoing, lifelong process.

How do we invite each one of these qualities into each practice session?