Tony MacAlpine: guitar muse interview

Obviously you’ve had to put a tremendous amount of time in practicing both piano and guitar. You’ve talked before about good practicing versus bad practicing, but I’m wondering if you could give our readers any tips for maximizing practice time.

Most of the time when musicians have a tendency to practice something, well they say it’s practice, but it actually involves them going into a practice room and just doing what they can do and then they just come out and do it again.

I think that practicing is more of a self-discovery. Good practice habits means trying to develop things you might have found interesting or might not have been exposed to – so expose yourself to that. Maybe have some listening time and learn with your ears as well as your eyes and your hands. Reading is also important.

All these things are meant to educate your mind musically. That’s an important aspect for me. People say they have a practice schedule they get in and they do this or that. I kind of work with what I think really needs to be focused on. One of the things I’m very thankful for is that I play piano so I don’t have to practice guitar only. I can spend time practicing piano as well and that actually helps with my guitar playing. So I can play some pieces on one that I might not have played (on the other) so I can understand some pieces conceptually, theoretically and compositionally in the music and that helps me as a guitar player.


"Good practice habits means trying to develop things you might have found interesting or might not have been exposed to – so expose yourself to that."


Do you find that your practice is typically goal oriented? I imagine that when the record was being recorded you might be practicing and focusing on different things than when you’re about to go on tour with Steve Vai.

I really have to spend quite a bit of time when I’m preparing for something. [I'm] learning parts and perfecting those parts by playing them repetitively and just getting to the point where I feel it and can make some music out of it. That comes from just old-fashioned shedding. (laughs) Getting in there and hammering those things out. There’s nothing that replaces that. I look forward to being able to go inside a practice room and get results. Going in one day and coming out with a building block and knowing that when you go back in tomorrow that you’re not going to have to do the same thing again. more