GUITAR THE TRUTH ABOUT PRACTICE

What Should Every Guitar Player Know But Few Do

How to actually practice of course.

I know your sitting there thinking, "Dude, I just got through practicing!". But, did you, did you really. You sure you weren't playing? And no, while important, playing and practice aren't the same thing. Practice is a skill that needs to be learned and developed just as our skills on the instrument must be learned and developed. That is: We must actually practice practicing to be proficient at it.

Well, what is practicing then? To answer that let's take a look at what practice isn't.

• Practice isn't a big book of chords. What good is 800 plus chords you can't play and furthermore, they don't teach you how to actually play them. Oh, yea they may show you where your fingers go, but do they tell you how to go about producing clean/clear tones. Do they teach you how to best get the information into your mind and fingers. Do they teach you how to go about practicing transitioning from one chord to the next. Do they explain how worthless a giant book of 800 plus chords really is, because what you really should be learning is how to actually build the chords yourself.
• Practice isn't tons upon tons of information. Some people seem to think he with the most toys wins. Well, unfortunately he with the most books dosen't win anything but a cluttered house and a cluttered mind. There is such a thing as information overload. If you really want to learn you first must focus on the basic aspects of playing. We don't need 500 songbooks, we need one song. We need to take apart that song and work on every little thing that gives us trouble. Is it a inside picking problem? Do you know what inside picking is? Well then, how do you expect to fix it.
• Practice isn't gimmicks. Anything that tells you the less experienced player you'll master a song of average or above difficulty in a mere week is lying to you. Anything that tells you you'll master the guitar is a week is appealing to your fast-food fantasies. Anyone that tells you you'll be mastering chord changes and whipping through your favorite tunes in a few days is out and out lying to you. This is bad for two reasons: 1) They lied and took your hard earned money, smiling all the way 2) it sets up a false sense of expectation in a aspiring players mind. If you think I'm full of it consider this: If you've been playing 30 days or even 30 years and struggle to make smooth chord transitions in time, nothing will fix it in a few days. If you practice correctly and do the right things you'll see improvement, but improvement is not mastering, it's simply a necessary step in the right direction. If you keep doing the right things you'll eventually get there, and depending on where you are now and the difficulty level of what your trying to do you may very well profienctly make it through the song in a week or three. Master however takes times and persistant repetion of the correct things.Anything that tells you there's a almighty secret that only they know, is telling you a truth in a sense, only the truth is: They are ripping you off. There's only one real secret and it really isn't a secret it's simply something most don't want to hear and others really don't know how to tell you, it's called practice.

Well then, what is practice?

Practice is taking something you can't do and working on it over a matter of hours, days, weeks or even months until you can. Practice is learning the basic techniques of playing, be it chords/licks/scales, be it picking or legato, be it a theoretical concept or a real live song. Practice is getting to the nuts and bolts of the matter.

If you were confronted with an issue would you know how to go about fixing it in the most effective way possible?

• Is your timing bad? Do you own a metronome.
• Do you know how to use a metronome.
• Do you feel your speed is lacking? Do you own a metronome.
• Are your chords clean and clear? Have you ever practiced producing clean chords.
• Do you know how to train your fingers to produce clean chords?
• Are your chord changes slow, are you always missing the transitions?
• Do you know how to train your fingers so they nail the chord transitions?
• Do you own a metronome?
• Do you have trouble memorizing chords?
• Have you ever visualized?
• Do you know how to visualize.
• Do you own a metronome?
• Have trouble finding your way around the neck?
• Do you know what your notes are? Do you know your order of notes? Do you know your natural 1/2 steps. Do you know the really important information essential to practicing and playing efficiently.

Did we find ourselves in the above topics? I could have gone on and on, but I thik you get the point. Theses are some of the common issues that confront players. Problem is they never confront the issues head on.

If your problem is smoothly playing the Chord Transitions in say "Knocking on Heavens Door" are you the type who actually breaks down and focus on each transition, or do you try to bully your way through the song from start to finish with the same dismal results each and everytime. If so consider this: You play something poorly 1000 times in a row, why would you expect the 1001 time it to suddenly be perfect.

What you need to do is take the song apart and figure out how many chords transitions are present and breakdown and work o each one. If transitions gives us trouble practice the transitions! It's really that simple. Can we see the chord transitions clearly in our minds eye? If not, there's your first problem? Practice in your head first. Think about it, your mind tells your fingers what to do, not the other way around.

• First be able to see clearly in our head what we wish our fingers to do. If we can see it in our head wo things happen: 1) We actually know what each fingers suppose to be doing 2) We actually have it memorized. How can we possibly move back and forth between two chords we don't hve memorized, let alone in time?
• Next rehearse the movement without actually playing it just simply practice the actual finger movements making sure the fingers go exactly where we want them.
• Now do the same thing in time (very slow) with a metronome.
• Last and only last actually try to play the transition very slow with a metronome.
• Slowly speed the transition up over the next few days, weeks ect.
• Do this with each chord transition in the song that gives us problems.

See that is actually practicing, and it's one of many examples of things most aspiring players don't know, think about or even care about. Remember there's really no such thing as fast-food guitar. Hopefully, this has enlightened you to a few basic pitfalls and quite possibly got us inspired enough to re-evaluate ourselves and our practice routine.