Best Way To Practice Guitar

Best Way To Practice Guitar

Is there really a Best Way To Practice Guitar? I’m gonna be showing you the things that you should really know in order to have the most effective practice session.

If you wanna be a great guitar player, you may want to pay close attention. All the great guitar players know what the best way to practice guitar is to reach a high level of playing in a relatively short time and it is these principles I will be sharing with you.

If you are looking for some magic formula or secret practice routine then you will not find this here. What you will gain at the end of this post is an understanding of what you need to do in order to play the guitar the way you want.

Principle One: Get Excited About The Guitar

When you get excited about playing your guitar, when you have the passion, that desire, this really is your best friend because this what will propel you to do the things you need to do to become great on your instrument. So how do you get this desire?

Well you can begin by drawing inspiration from your favorite guitar players. Study them as much as you can. Listen to their music, read about them even attend their concerts if you can. This great fuel to help propel you forward.

 Another way to increase your desire is by visualizing your guitar playing goals and imagining each practice session as means of achieving those goals. You must know what your ulti¬mate purpose for practicing is. This brings us to principle two; having clear goals.

Principle Two: Have clearly defined goals

How would you know what you need to practice if you don’t know where you want to end up? If you do not have clearly defined goals, take a moment right now and write them down. This very important so take the time to do it.

If you need help here’s an example: Long term goal – I want to play in a band. Short term goal – to play in a band I need to learn some chords, rhythm and learn some scales etc. By having clearly defined goals, you will only be focused on practicing the things that will help you achieve those goals giving you better results in a shorter time frame than practicing in a random way.

Principle Three: Be Consistent and Determined

This may be one of the most important principles. I wish that I had learned this earlier. Don’t use too many guitar instructional material especially if you are learning guitar on your own.

 If you want to see your practice sessions go nowhere in a hurry, then jump from one resource to the next without grasping the concepts taught in the first. Whatever path you choose based on your learning goals, be consistent with it, stick it out you will get better results, you will be the guitar player that you desire to be.

So how can you be consistent with the learning path that you have chosen?Well, you need to take stock of where your skills are; strengths and weaknesses. So here’s what you need to do.

Write down all what you know on the guitar and I mean everything, then write down whatever you are working on right now and finally write down what you need to work on. Then you will look for the most effective path to narrow the gap from where you are to where you want to be.

When you find that path be consistent, stick to it. Remain focused, don’t get sidetracked by all of these guitar courses out there.

Principle Four: Create The Best Guitar Practice Schedule

So this is where you break your practice session into sections. I use one of the best guitar practice tools I've ever used, a software called The Action Machine. I highly recommend it cause it keeps you organized and focused. Depending on what your playing goals are you will decide on how many sections you need. Don’t over complicate it though. Here is what one of my sessions look like.

If you don’t want to buy The Action Machine, then you can use a spreadsheet and a timer like Xtimer to keep you organized and monitor your progress. When making your schedule don’t forget to make time to warm up and focus the bulk of your time on practicing things you don’t know or don’t know very well. And get into the habit of scheduling time for practice. This is particularly effective if you are very busy.

Principle Five: The Best Way To Practice Guitar Is To Practice With A Purpose

So you have set clearly defined your goals , found the path and resources you are going to  use on that path and have created a practice schedule, but how do go about practicing the material?

Here’s a system to follow for the best way to practice guitar.
• Want to practice that lick or chord etc for the sole purpose of getting better. So your motivation for practicing the lick is not for fun or just jamming, it’s for improving your performance.

• Be a problem solver. You must analyze the lick, chord etc. that you are learning and break into smaller sections. The smaller the section the better. You could also break it down into right hand and left hand. If you find any part difficult, isolate it and find out why; maybe you should be doing hammers instead of alternate picking etc.

• Play slow. I mean really slow so that there are no mistakes. You don’t want to practice mistakes because it’s much harder to undo learning mistakes. Playing slowly will ensure that your get it right.

• Get some type of feedback regularly. You could use an instructor or record yourself on a regular basis.

 If you decide to record yourself, you could use audio, but I recommend using video because you will be able to spot any trouble spots. If you don’t know what to look for have a more skillful player go over it for you.

If you are really serious about getting the most out of your practice I highly recommend The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar by Jamie Andreas and if you really want to challenge yourself – Speed Mechanics for Lead Guitar by Troy Stetina. So this was my take on the Best Way To Practice Guitar – oh don’t forget The Action Machine. All the best.