"Don't put too much faith in judges... It's mostly a matter of taste." - jmcgann
I entered my last contest in 1985, in Winfield, Kansas (National Flatpicking Championship). Before Winfield, I had been in several band contests with a bluegrass band called "Lost In The Shuffle"; I also had entered various mandolin and guitar contests. I won or placed as a contestant at the White Mountains Festival, Winterhawk Mandolin Contest, Topsfield, Ma. Fair, New York City Bluegrass Band Contest, Kentucky Fried Chicken Bluegrass Band Contest, etc. on to Winfield where I got 2nd place on both guitar and mandolin ('84) and 1st in mandolin ('85). I didn't place in the guitar contest at all in '85.
I developed some philosophies about contest playing during this time:
It seemed good to view the contests as forums for performing for a knowledgeable audience (a rare enough opportunity). I tried to develop arrangements of tunes that were interesting, using as a template the idea of the Texas Contest Fiddle style as developed by great players like Mark O' Connor, Texas Shorty, Benny Thomasson, etc. The criteria for this style revolves around playing a melody 'inside out'; coming up with as many creative variations as possible without losing the actual melodic content. If you are familiar with the tune, you should be able to tell within 4 bars what tune it is-what Mark calls "controlled improvisation". This is contrast to true jazz improvisation, where one creates a new melody based on the chord changes.
However you regard speed, it is tone and timing that are the foundation of good music. If you charge after speed and neglect tone and time, you'll impress no one. Speed really comes with good technique,and will develop naturally.
Putting on the metronome and working slowly on tunes, going for TONE and forgetting about speed. Click on beats 2 and 4 (like a mandolin). Pick a nice easy tempo (yeah, I know, it's more fun to push the envelope and play fast. Bear with me)- play the tune. Next time, try pulling slightly behind the beat. Next time, try pushing the beat (playing a little ahead of it).
It's the feeling of pushing the beat that you want- NOT RUSHING, but having your notes up there like a hood ornament, while the metronome beat is the driver's seat...in other words, staying locked in with the pulse, but relatively ahead of it (Being a little behind is great for swing and jazz playing; it's also where a lot of less-that-stellar bluegrass bass players put the beat!)
This feel can Make the Music Happen. Give it a try once you are comfortable just playing along with the metronome with the beat square in the middle (it's not easy, the first time I tried it I thought the thing was messed up, even though it was a quartz electric!).
Tony Trischka told me in the '70's that he practiced with a metronome an hour a day, and "no matter how long you've played, it's a good idea"; which was his graceful way of telling me that my timing wasn't as good as I thought (I'd sent him a tape). He was right, I was bummed, but this made a tremendous difference in my playing.
I think your human feel (of course music 'breathes' and it's not about staying in a rigid tempo) improves with this work, and it helps settle 'band discussions' about groove.
Which of these considerations are most important?:
1) tune choice
2) execution
3) difficulty
4) tone, timing, taste
5) speed
execution/ tone/ timing/ taste are the biggies. Tune choice is obviously important, that what you are playing means something to you. Difficulty will just run against you, if it's 'difficult' it's because there is an easier way to do it, or you haven't practiced it enough to get it nice and burned in.
< How do you (McGann, Kaufman, Brown, etc.) sit down to work on a
contest tune and what helps you decide "Yeah, this is the tune I'm going
to work on for the next 3 months and stake my chances on"? Or do you do
that?>
I always looked at these things as forums to perform arrangements for knowledgeable audiences- a rare enough event, eh? You have to be daft to be unaware of the 'competition' element, but just because someone you hear warming up playing speed triplets, trying to intimidate people (true story) doesn't mean they'll win. Some judges are more musical and knowledgeable than others (witness someone's post about someone winning by reciting Steve K's versions from the lesson tapes in their slow/medium/fast).
Stick to your ideals about what makes good music. If contests really meant anything, Doc Watson and Dan Crary would lose to Tony Rice, right? The whole thing is actually pretty dumb, if you look at it from a purely musical viewpoint.
There's plenty of finger exercises in fiddle tunes, Bach fiddle tunes are great too (Sonatas and Partitas), lots of that sounds amazingly beautiful on flatpick guitar. Whaddya, don't have enough tunes to learn??!
That said, warming up is important, and they can be useful for specific problems- my arrogant opinion is you may as well isolate tough things in tunes or whatever, and practice them...
The downside of finger Exercises:
1) Carpal Tunnel Syndrome; Tendinitis. Overuse Syndrome!
2) Mechanical repetition breeds mechanical playing
3) Your practice time is way better spent on honing your technique musically
4) Your practice time is way better spent on drinking than wanking (see #3)
5) Berklee College of Music is full of practice rooms with people diligently running scales and arpeggios for hours on end, in the sincere belief that it will make them 'better musicians'. Do you think that 'works'? Is that all it takes? Ah, yeah, a nation of typists...
Technique is the #1 overemphasized area of guitar. It is just a means to an end- to play with clarity. Don't get all messed up on scales and arpeggios. They are just the raw materials used to make tunes.
Picking Exercises are more useful than left hand exercises, generally, as your picking hand is your VOICE.
If you choose to use left hand exercises, just don't overdo it or you'll be in traction before you can say Winterhawk.
<Do you think that playing
<tunes provides enough "exercise" to strengthen the *pinky*, or do you
<think that isolating this finger and doing some specific stuff that
<utilizes it more than it normally would be in an average piece would be
<of benefit...? (was that as clear as mud...???)
If you need pinky work, Bach is great, it's got all the scales and arpeggios you could want, but it's real music in the bargain.
Playing up the neck (even 3rd position, 1st finger at the 3rd fret) will get your pinky out from your palm. Also, rhythm work and chords (you play lots of triads up the neck for fun and profit, right?) can also get you going. Swing and jazz chords often use all four fingers or three including the pinky.
How's about the 'English D' x54232 (read from low string to high)? Bump it up a fret and you have a fat Eb chord, suitable for Crazy Creek, Stoney Creek and other tunes that change keys without giving you time to put on your capo >:)
<Yeah, I stumbled on this last night: starting on the 6th string E,F,E,
<F#,E,G,E,G#,E, (on to the fifth string now...) A,E,A#,E,B,E,C,E,C#,E, on
to the fourth string...) D,E,D#,E,E(5th string now, all previous E's
have been on the 6th string played open),E,F,E,F#,E, etc, etc, etc, till
you wind up finally on the fourth fret of the 1st string, i.e. E(6th
open),G#.
Your opinion???>
It wags your fingers. It's easy. It exercises you going on and off the string.
A more useful one is keeping your 1st finger on the 1st fret, then 2132434. Each time you ascend, keep the finger down (after 3, play 2, leave it down,play 4, play 3 and leave it down, then 4) at the end, all four fingers should be down. The reason for this is to not have unnecessary motion by lifting fingers for no reason (SPEED TIP #1- Keep your left hand fingers down as you ascend the string).
Again, playing Blackberry Blossom up the neck (in a higher octave) will give you very similar results. My advice is don't waste too much time on pure mechanics. If you learn a scale, play it so you know where the notes are, be able to run up and down and play a few patterns on it, then leave it or improvise on it. If you practice running up and down scales, that's what you'll wind up performing, and who wants to hear it?