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3 Little Known Yet Powerful Guitar Practice Tips

By Mike Hayes | September 3, 2010

As I have mentioned in previous articles I don’t agree 100% with
the old saying; “practice makes perfect.” In reality it is only
PERFECT practice that makes perfect; this one distinction can
make all the difference in your musical progress on the guitar.

It’s possible to be playing something incorrectly and unless the
error is corrected immediately the mistake becomes ingrained and
will turn up when you less expect it (and less want it) when you
are under pressure, usually this occurs in a performance
situation.

No matter how a newbie guitarist might try to avoid the musical
‘facts of life’ eventually almost everyone comes to realize that
there cannot be any progress without practice; the trick is to be
aware of and avoid the common practice hazards that sideline 95%
of guitarists.

Tip 1: Reading music on guitar is a two step process:

How many guitar players do you know that can read standard music
notation? Not many I’ll bet.

How many do you know that have tried to read and given up in
despair … most likely quite a few; maybe you have tried to
learn to read and given up.

Well you are not on your own, reading music on the guitar is one
of the most mysterious and difficult skills for guitarists to
learn the trick is to understand that reading music on the guitar
is actually two steps.

Step (a) the ability to read music notation WITHOUT the guitar in
your hands.

Step (b) to know the names of the notes and their location on the
guitar fretboard

Solution: begin by practicing easy music exercises without the
guitar in your hands; say the name of each note while imaging you
are playing the note on an invisible guitar.

Your left hand fingers (presuming you are right handed) should
move as if they were playing the notes on the fretboard.

Use your thumb as an imaginary fingerboard making certain that
your fingers touch the thumb; the sensation of touch will
reinforce the note position in your mind; of course if you are
reading an open note your left hand fingers won’t touch your
thumb.

Tip 2: max of 4 to 6 notes

The master musicians learn four to six notes at a time! That’s
true, the world’s finest musicians break down their learning into
tiny little pieces, perfect those notes and then move on to the
next four.

Now that’s an insider tip if ever these is one!

Learning this skill alone will accelerate your playing beyond
your wildest dreams.

Tip 3: data memory cards

Write anything you want to remember, chords, scales, chord
progressions etc., down on small question and answer cards.

The concept is simple; write a question on one side of the card
and the answer on the other, the idea is to do your learning away
from the guitar.

Here’s how you use your data memory cards: create three piles,
daily, weekly and monthly.

Daily pile: As you answer your questions from your daily pile
place the cards that you answered correctly into the weekly pile,
any questions that you answered incorrectly go back into the
daily pile.

Weekly pile: At the end of the week check your cards in the
weekly pile, the cards that you answered correctly go to the
monthly pile any questions you answered incorrectly go back to
the daily pile.

Monthly pile: When you check you answers at the end of the month
any cards that you answered correctly you can throw away as at
this point you have internalized the information, if you answered
any questions incorrectly they go back to the weekly pile.

This card system is very important, it’s your own contribution to
your learning that will help you overcome any mental ‘blocks’
with your learning that way you can spend 100% of your practice
time working on the physical (motor skills) aspect of playing the
guitar.

Topics: Beginner Guitar Lesson, Guitar Tips | No Comments »

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