PRACTICING VS PLAYING.

Part of my professional life as a musician is to teach the guitar. I love to meet people and share my knowledge and my passion of the guitar with them. It is easy to share the playing part because it’s fun and every guitar player I know love to play the instrument, but to maintain a regular practice schedule can be a challenge.

WHY PRACTICE.

We are living in a world of fast consumption, the faster the better but to play the guitar it takes time, you have to learn the chords and scales, those are the basics and if you are really serious about it, you need to learn theory and learn to read music. Those tasks are not easy to accomplish, but if you have a plan and take your time, you can do it.

BEFORE

Before making a plan, you need to know what you want to do with the guitar. For a beginner it’s easy, learn the basics and have fun doing it ; but for an experienced player, it can be hard to commit to a goal and stick to it. Almost every guitar student who struggle with the instrument has a problem focusing on an objective.

It is important to commit to an objective because it will give you direction and satisfaction of going forward with your guitar playing. After you decided on your objective it’s time to make a plan.

THE PLAN

For an example, lets say you want to learn sweep picking, don’t start with an Avenged Sevenfold’s Three octaves sweep picking lick, start easy with a two strings sweep picking lick and practice it every day until it is a second nature. After this achievement, you can evolve to three strings patterns etc. This approach is less glamorous at first, but it will get you there faster than you think. With a plan you don’t waste your time and you can monitor your progress everyday.

THE TRUTH ABOUT NOODLES

Noodling on the guitar can be fun but it can also be a big brake on your guitar progress. It’s why you need to find a goal and stay focus on your objective, you need a plan. How to do that? Start easy and when you mastered the easy part move to a more challenging exercise or song and continue until you reach your goal. As an example, your goal is to play a show with your band, your objective is to learn multiple songs. You stay focus on your goal and you learn your set of songs and rehearse them with the band after a while if you stick to your plan, you are ready to Rock.

If you want to be a good guitar player you need to practice and focus on your goals and your plan but don’t forget to have fun with the guitar. If you need help don’t hesitate to take lessons with an experienced guitar teacher. A good guitar teacher will help you manage your practice time with a practicing schedule. Until next time, have fun with the guitar.