THERE’S ONE PARTICULAR Eddie Van Halen quote that has stayed with me since I first read it as a kid in the November 1978 issue of Guitar Player. It was Eddie’s first appearance in the magazine, and then–assistant editor Jas Obrecht was trying to figure out just what made this legend-to-be tick.
“Sometimes people think I’m spacing off, but really I’m not,” Eddie explained to him. “I am always thinking of riffs and melodies.”
Here, the guitarist was likely referring to the time he spent away from the guitar. “I am always thinking music,” he would add. But what if we applied this same approach to the time we spend with our guitar, so as to actively explore, or “practice,” our creativity?
Sure, it can seem more comfortable to practice something technically challenging, in order to work it up to tempo, which is certainly worthwhile and time well spent. Often, this is because it’s much easier to gauge our improvement: one day we’re at 80 beats per minute on our
