Guitar Practice Tips You Really Need to Know
Written by admin on December 24, 2009 – 9:22 am -What are some of the most important aspects of a successful guitarist? Successful guitarists all have goals in what they wish to achieve, and remain disciplined and persistent with their guitar practice. The biggest pitfall that is seen in many beginners is that they give up after awhile as they think they can’t achieve the results they want. Keep in mind that becoming a great guitarist won’t happen overnight. Learning can be a lifelong process as you must continuously improve your skills from one level to the next.
First things first: you should ask yourself what you hope to achieve from guitar playing. Is your goal to learn just a few, simple songs and impress your family and friends, or do you dream of being on stage someday? What about the genre of music you wish to play? It’s important to identify your goals so that you can get the best guitar practice possible.
To really speed up the learning process, you need to set yourself a practice plan, stick with it and review it periodically. Now, you should set aside some time and commit yourself wholly. You need to be realistic about the practice time. Eight hours a day is probably not the best idea, especially if you’re a student or working adult. 45 minutes or so a day should be sufficient and reasonable.
Sometimes students try to make up for lost practice time by playing during really long practice sessions. They weren’t disciplined enough to maintain a routine and try to make up for it later with extra-long session. Would a world class athlete train for 16 hours in one day and then take the next few days off? The idea behind constant practicing is that the human brain takes time to learn and absorb new info. A guitar practice schedule of twenty minutes a day is a lot more effective than eight hours in one day a week.
So, do you need an example of a practice plan? It’s probably not possible for you to spend hours a day practicing, but you can still make full use of an extra 45-60 minutes or so a day.
Here’s an example of an hour long practice session:
1st part: ten minute warm ups
2nd part: practicing scales and chords for fifteen minutes
3rd part: ear training for ten minutes
4th part: various guitar techniques, such as alternate picking and tapping for fifteen minutes
5th part: learning songs for fifteen minutes
6th part: improvisation for ten minutes
If something comes up and you can’t spend a full hour on the aforementioned session, then you can still try spending five minutes or so looking over guitar practice tips and practicing warm ups to keep your fingers in shape.
The practice plan isn’t necessarily casted into stone. Each individual is different, so you can customize your own plan. One important point to take note of is that there is a difference between practicing and playing the guitar. Practicing involves an organized method of working on your weaknesses and trying to overcome them. To make your practicing more fun, part of your plan should include new things that you’ve never learned before while the majority of your plan should be all about “perfecting” the older stuff.
As you begin to learn the new stuff, it’s very easy to become frustrated because you don’t see the results that you desire, or because some aspects are too difficult. If this happens, take a short break before coming back to it at a later time. Don’t force yourself through difficult guitar practice techniques, as they will only kill your motivation and thus hinder your progress.
Remember this: if you fail to plan, you plan to fail!
Copyright Liam Gibson (Guitar Master)
Tags: best guitar practice, guitar practice, guitar practice schedule, guitar practice techniques, guitar practice tips
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