Disadvantage Exercises - Idea Starters

Question 1 - What If I Change My Playing Position?

Experiment with changing your normal playing position. If you sit while practicing, stand up and vice versa.

• What standard techniques become impractical?
• How can you compensate?
• What new approaches do you discover?

Notice how this change affects your posture, your feelings and how it might even influence your thinking process while playing.

Question 2 - What If I Hold My Instrument Differently?

Change the instrument's direction or the side you hold it.

Upside-down violin, left-handed positioned guitar as a right-handed person, snare drum on the right side of the kit etc.

You could use a strap or some other contraption for holding the instrument in place. Or get rid of such a device, if it's the "regular method" of keeping your instrument in position.

• Does it feel like a completely different instrument to you?
• What can you learn from this?

At the very least you'll appreciate the regular way more and might realize why it actually has become the standard in the first place.

Question 3 - What If I Only Use One Hand?

• What technical challenges are you confronted with when playing with one hand only?
• What solutions do you come up with to compensate?
• How much music can you create by using one hand only?

Question 4 - What If I Only Use One Finger?

The old, ingrained muscle memory patterns and licks don't work so well anymore, right? ;-)

Try recreating them and notice the difference in feel. Then go for completely new ideas by embracing the limitation and discovering the beautiful, uncharted territory in front of you.

Slides, glisses and "jumping around" on your instrument are your friends.

Also, slowing down increases the rhythmic value of each note. It literally counts more and this could (and should) influence your note choices.

Question 5 - What If I Only Use One Combination Of Fingers?

Like with suggestion #4, you won't be able to go on auto-pilot and play what you always play. The limitation will "force" you to play differently and come up with something you would not have considered otherwise. And that's a good thing.

Question 6 - What If I Only Use One Register/Region Of The Neck/Keyboard/Instrument?

We all have our fav places we like to hang out, musically speaking. That place on our instrument that we are familiar with and that we call home.

Guitarists and the 5th position, I'm looking at you. ;-)

Nothing wrong with that. But exploring those other regions won't hurt either. Familiarize yourself with the registers you've neglected so far.

• What do you need to change in your playing to make those registers work for you?
• Do you need to play differently - slower, faster, using a different technique?
• What are the unique characteristics you'll actually only find in that register? Those qualities could turn into a useful asset in your musical toolbox, enriching your palette.

Question 7 - What If I Only Use One String/Valve/Drum/Sub-Part Of The Instrument?

• What new and hidden nuances do you discover by focusing on such a small part of your instrument?
• Are there different, unusual timbres that you notice?
• Are there particular playing techniques that are especially advantageous to use?
• Do you think differently while playing due to this limitation? Ask yourself how, what and why for some interesting insights!

Question 8 - What If I Only Use The White Keys? What If I Only Use The Black Keys?

This question is specifically directed at keyboard players.

When you play the white keys keep in mind that you still have 7 different modes at your disposal. It's not just simply the C-major scale. There's D Dorian, E Phrygian, F Lydian etc. for you to explore as well.

And you could treat the black keys (F#/Gb major pentatonic) as 5 distinctly different modes as well.

Either way ...

• Do you notice the difference in sound?
• How does it feel differently?
• Using the white keys, do you lose orientation when suddenly there are no black keys allowed anymore?

Question 9 - What If I Only Use One Scale/Mode?

How about limiting your improvisations to exclusively one scale/mode?

Don't switch scales. Don't add chromatic notes. Stick to one color and really explore it. Dig deeper into the characteristic sound of the mode. Try to capture the essence.

• Is it a specific note that gives you that modal sound?
• Is it a note combination like a resolution from one note to another?
• What is it that gives you the mood of the scale/mode? Notice how even the words for "mood" and "mode" are related and try to clarify that connection for yourself.

Question 10 - What If I Don't Play Different Notes, But Rather One Note Only?

This is the perfect time to focus on your rhythmic phrasing to keep things interesting, since you don't have to think about your note choices.

Why not use the opportunity to (finally) work on some "odd" rhythmic values like quintuplets and septuplets? Those could come in handy occasionally, don't you think?

How about combining different sub-divisions for interesting rhythms?

Also, many players totally neglect their starting placement of notes. They always start their phrases on beat 1 of a measure. Obviously, this gets old and predictable fast.

Experiment with starting your phrases on different parts of a measure, like on the "fourth 16th of beat one" or on "two and". This way, you'll gain a lot of flexibility that will add variety to your phrasing.

If that's not enough for you already, you can also add dynamics (playing soft, playing loud, getting softer and getting louder) as well as articulations like staccato, marcato and legato into the mix.

Question 11 - What If I Only Use One Rhythmic Value?

Play only triplets or only 16th notes or only whole notes. It's up to you - and the tempo you've chosen.

Actually, this simulates a common practice for Jazz instrumentalists who like to play 8th notes exclusively when practicing Jazz standards. This approach lets them focus on making the changes and is a great technical exercise.

You just have to be careful to not get stuck in playing single-rhythmical phrases when improvising for real. But as an exercise it does have a lot of benefits.

Question 12 - What If I Only Use One Playing Technique?

Here are a few suggestions presented as a simple keyword list. Choose something that's applicable to your instrument and exclusively use this one technique.

• alternate picking
• legato
• sweeping
• tapping
• slapping
• spiccato
• triple-tonguing
• side-slipping
• tremolo
• circular breathing

I'm sure you'll be able to find lots of other techniques you can play around with.

Ask yourself:

• What challenges do you have to overcome when sticking to one technique?
• Do you get tired physically?
• Do you get bored quicker?
• Do you use the same patterns repeatedly (due to lack of vocabulary)?

Question 13 - What If I Only Play Every 2nd Measure?

"Space: the final frontier. These are the voyages of the advancing musician. His/her exercise-duration mission: to explore strange new emptiness, to seek out new phrasing options, to boldly go where no shredding guitarist has gone before."

My apologies to all die-hard Starship Enterprise fans. I know it's blasphemy, I just couldn't help it.

However, it does serve a valuable purpose. Space and breathing room is an important component of music. You need to learn to control it and this exercise will help you develop a feel for when to simply "shut up" and let your music breathe.

Question 14 - What If I Use No Vibrato Or Other Note-Embellishing Techniques?

Vibrato is such an important component of a musician's individuality and personal style. Most often, both singers as well as instrumentalists don't even think about it anymore. At least not consciously.

For this very reason this disadvantage exercise is actually more difficult than it sounds.

It "forces" the subconscious use of vibrato back into the spotlight of your consciousness. You'll really have to focus on not using vibrato - and you'll fail in the beginning, because vibrato will sneak in. You'll use vibrato at the end of a note/phrase before catching yourself doing it.

Just to get the point across ... In no way or form am I saying that vibrato is bad. What I'm suggesting with this exercise is to become more aware of it, to rethink your use of it, the frequency of when and where you tack on vibrato.

The more control you have over it, the better you'll be able to use it and the more impact the musical effect will have.