By
T. Hess
Submitted On February 15, 2016
Countless guitarists ask themselves and others all the wrong
questions when trying to fix the issues in their guitar playing. These
questions are usually ones built from past "conventional wisdom" that
never really got results to begin with. When you ask yourself these same
questions, you will make things ten times harder for yourself when it
comes to improving your guitar skills.
The following are five examples of the most frequently asked (yet incomplete) questions I hear from guitar players and what you should be asking instead to speed up your progress as a guitarist:
Common Guitar Playing Question #1: Where Can I Find Neat Guitar Licks To Add Into My Guitar Solos?
There is a false conclusion rooted in the foundation of this question, and it is that playing good guitar solos requires simply using the right notes of licks. Truth is, you can play awesome guitar licks and solo ideas just by knowing how to play any licks/ideas you are already familiar with in much more expressive ways. Improve your guitar phrasing and you will always have tons of options when it comes to creating interesting guitar solo ideas.
Here's a couple ways to do this:
1. Make up a small guitar lick and practice transforming it into 12 or so guitar phrasing variations. To really get as much emotion as possible out of every note choice, utilize guitar techniques such as vibrato, bending or legato to intensify specific notes in every variation.
2. Try to play highly memorable solos by thinking like a singer. This can be done by improvising a slow vocal-like melody and putting bursts of fast notes in between to connect each melody to a new one.
Common Guitar Playing Question #2: How Do I Become A Faster Guitarist?
Guitar speed is built only once you have mastered the various guitar technique elements that make playing with speed possible. Unless you master these things, playing guitar with speed will be very hard.
To finish this question you need to ask the following: "What parts of my technique are slowing me down and how do I master them so that playing fast feels natural?" Here is just one hint: you will not become a faster guitar player by just moving your hands faster (in most cases).
Many guitar players use way too much tension in their playing. This is an example of a flaw in technique that holds them back.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #3: How Do I Get Over Stage Fright?
Becoming nervous and anxious while playing live is a symptom of a very solvable root problem. When you experience this, you can know for sure that you are simply not practicing enough for "real life" scenarios (such as playing up on stage). As soon as you begin practicing more often to make your guitar playing dependable in any scenario, your stage fright will go away.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #4: How Do I Find Motivation To Practice Enough To Become A Truly Great Guitarist?
Know that lacking motivation for guitar practice is a symptom, and sign of a greater issue. The issue in this case is that you aren't getting much results from your guitar practice. To solve this core issue, you'll need to practice guitar more efficiently. Once you can observe and track your guitar playing progress, you will become infinitely more motivated.
Here are a couple of approaches you can use to become more motivated by making your practice a lot more effective:
1. Use a highly effective practice schedule at all times, and never settle for mindless practice. By doing this, you will make a lot more progress in less time, even if you only practice for a little bit each day.
2. Track every single area of your guitar playing progress on a consistent basis. Once you are familiar with the elements of your guitar playing that prevent you from moving forward, you can simply change your practice focus and make faster progress.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #5: How Long Will It Take To Achieve _______ (Insert Specific Musical Goal Here)?
There are two key problems with this question:
Problem #1: You can't really answer this question. Why? Guitarists will always progress at different rates. This applies even if they start with the same skills, knowledge, tools, materials and level of support for accomplishing their goal. You could study with the best guitar teacher alive, but 50% of your progress would come from your teacher and 50% through your own dedication, work ethic and desire.
Problem #2: This is a very dangerous question to be asking. Thinking too much about the amount of time needed to achieve a goal takes your focus away from actually working to reach that goal.
This what you should do to achieve all your musical goals as fast as possible:
1. Don't waste your time trying to learn guitar alone. You will make much faster progress by finding a great guitar teacher who understand how to create a strategy that YOU can easily follow to reach your musical goals. By focusing intensely (and only) on what is needed to reach your goals, you will become better at guitar in much less time. But don't study with just any guitar teacher - search for one who has a solid reputation of helping guitar players just like you.
2. Make sure you do precisely what your guitar teacher instructs you to do, then do it on a consistent basis for a long period of time. When you do this, you WILL get big results. Give 100% total effort to this process and don't let yourself to become distracted by things that don't really matter.
When you do this, you will accomplish your musical goals as fast as possible.
The following are five examples of the most frequently asked (yet incomplete) questions I hear from guitar players and what you should be asking instead to speed up your progress as a guitarist:
Common Guitar Playing Question #1: Where Can I Find Neat Guitar Licks To Add Into My Guitar Solos?
There is a false conclusion rooted in the foundation of this question, and it is that playing good guitar solos requires simply using the right notes of licks. Truth is, you can play awesome guitar licks and solo ideas just by knowing how to play any licks/ideas you are already familiar with in much more expressive ways. Improve your guitar phrasing and you will always have tons of options when it comes to creating interesting guitar solo ideas.
Here's a couple ways to do this:
1. Make up a small guitar lick and practice transforming it into 12 or so guitar phrasing variations. To really get as much emotion as possible out of every note choice, utilize guitar techniques such as vibrato, bending or legato to intensify specific notes in every variation.
2. Try to play highly memorable solos by thinking like a singer. This can be done by improvising a slow vocal-like melody and putting bursts of fast notes in between to connect each melody to a new one.
Common Guitar Playing Question #2: How Do I Become A Faster Guitarist?
Guitar speed is built only once you have mastered the various guitar technique elements that make playing with speed possible. Unless you master these things, playing guitar with speed will be very hard.
To finish this question you need to ask the following: "What parts of my technique are slowing me down and how do I master them so that playing fast feels natural?" Here is just one hint: you will not become a faster guitar player by just moving your hands faster (in most cases).
Many guitar players use way too much tension in their playing. This is an example of a flaw in technique that holds them back.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #3: How Do I Get Over Stage Fright?
Becoming nervous and anxious while playing live is a symptom of a very solvable root problem. When you experience this, you can know for sure that you are simply not practicing enough for "real life" scenarios (such as playing up on stage). As soon as you begin practicing more often to make your guitar playing dependable in any scenario, your stage fright will go away.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #4: How Do I Find Motivation To Practice Enough To Become A Truly Great Guitarist?
Know that lacking motivation for guitar practice is a symptom, and sign of a greater issue. The issue in this case is that you aren't getting much results from your guitar practice. To solve this core issue, you'll need to practice guitar more efficiently. Once you can observe and track your guitar playing progress, you will become infinitely more motivated.
Here are a couple of approaches you can use to become more motivated by making your practice a lot more effective:
1. Use a highly effective practice schedule at all times, and never settle for mindless practice. By doing this, you will make a lot more progress in less time, even if you only practice for a little bit each day.
2. Track every single area of your guitar playing progress on a consistent basis. Once you are familiar with the elements of your guitar playing that prevent you from moving forward, you can simply change your practice focus and make faster progress.
Incomplete Guitar Playing Question #5: How Long Will It Take To Achieve _______ (Insert Specific Musical Goal Here)?
There are two key problems with this question:
Problem #1: You can't really answer this question. Why? Guitarists will always progress at different rates. This applies even if they start with the same skills, knowledge, tools, materials and level of support for accomplishing their goal. You could study with the best guitar teacher alive, but 50% of your progress would come from your teacher and 50% through your own dedication, work ethic and desire.
Problem #2: This is a very dangerous question to be asking. Thinking too much about the amount of time needed to achieve a goal takes your focus away from actually working to reach that goal.
This what you should do to achieve all your musical goals as fast as possible:
1. Don't waste your time trying to learn guitar alone. You will make much faster progress by finding a great guitar teacher who understand how to create a strategy that YOU can easily follow to reach your musical goals. By focusing intensely (and only) on what is needed to reach your goals, you will become better at guitar in much less time. But don't study with just any guitar teacher - search for one who has a solid reputation of helping guitar players just like you.
2. Make sure you do precisely what your guitar teacher instructs you to do, then do it on a consistent basis for a long period of time. When you do this, you WILL get big results. Give 100% total effort to this process and don't let yourself to become distracted by things that don't really matter.
When you do this, you will accomplish your musical goals as fast as possible.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is an online electric guitar teacher, recording artist and virtuoso guitarist. He trains guitar players from around the world how to reach their musical goals in his correspondence guitar lessons online. Visit his website tomhess.net to receive many free guitar playing resources, mini courses, guitar practice eBooks, and to read more articles about guitar playing.
Article Source:
http://EzineArticles.com/expert/T._Hess/369989
Tom Hess is an online electric guitar teacher, recording artist and virtuoso guitarist. He trains guitar players from around the world how to reach their musical goals in his correspondence guitar lessons online. Visit his website tomhess.net to receive many free guitar playing resources, mini courses, guitar practice eBooks, and to read more articles about guitar playing.
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