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The New Guitar Regimen: Feel Great, Superfit and Improve Your Playing Faster

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The New Guitar Regimen: Feel Great, Superfit and Improve Your Playing FasterTo improve your guitar playing you have to practice regularly. That’s a no-brainer. To make sure you actually do that you must have time, motivation, energy and focus.

Time is one thing (if that is not enough), but motivation, energy and focus are equally important and really need to be in place to make your guitar regimen rock solid.

For some this may look unattainable, but it can be done.

Let’s take a look at the key ingredients to make this work:

Prepare
Yes, prepare, prepare, prepare!
1 – Write down in your calendar at what days, what times and for how long you’re going to practice (30 or 60 min).
2 – Schedule another 30 min extra time before practice (I’ll explain in a minute).
3 – Inform family and friends your practice time is sacred and they can’t disturb you while you’re at it.
4 – Find or create a quiet and private practice space, where nobody will find you :)
5 – Set up your equipment, your guitar(s), sheet music, and necessary tools (pick,capo,tuners,etc.) the day before practice, so you are ready to roll.
6 – Make sure nothing comes in between you and your practice regimen. Make it so.

Table of Contents
Next, write out the table of contents for your practice workout. How are you going to spend those valuable 30 to 60 minutes of full blown practice?

Make sure it contains everything you love to play and things that drive you to get better and better. Choose, print and write down the scales, licks, exercises, chords, progressions and solos you want to work on. Get your nice blues jamtracks ready for improvisation, find some ear training exercises, and music theory to study, and above all, select the songs you love to play.
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How to Play Guitar and Improve When You Feel Too Tired

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How-to-Play-Guitar-and-Improve-When-You-Feel-Too-TiredYou are busy, you’re making late hours, you’re weekends are full, and you’re just too tired. The moment you finally can sit down to relax, it’s hard to pick up the guitar. You really love playing, but at the end of the day you’re worn out.

Feeling tired after a hard days work is a reality, no doubt about it, but somewhere in that tired feeling there is also a part of the story you are telling yourself. Often when we feel too tired to do something and we do it anyway the story and the feeling disappears.

Especially when you start doing something that will make you feel better when you do it like exercise or playing guitar.

So, along with this knowledge you also need a trigger that makes you want to pick up your guitar.

Again, it all has to do with the story you tell yourself.

The moment you come home from work and sit down, start to be aware of your thoughts and the inevitable excuses your mind is going to make up to escape practicing.

Stop those thoughts immediately! They are just lazy thoughts, banish ‘m.

It could also be that you aren’t thinking about practicing at all, because of everything else in your life that comes first, like making dinner, errands, kids, homework, temptations and distractions.
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How to Get Your Guitar Playing Back in The Saddle

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How-to-Get-Your-Guitar-Playing-Back-in-The-SaddleThere are times when life gets in the way of playing, and practicing is falling short. Real short. Like zero activity.

Don’t worry, that can happen. There’s no reason to panic.
Yet.

The trouble really starts when more and more time passes and your guitar is getting from dusty to rusty. That’s when the alarm bells need to go off.

At this time your mind is creating it’s own illogical explanation for not getting behind the instrument.

It’s going to rationalize your absence of regular woodshedding. You will start telling yourself these stories like, “I’m always late from work”, “I’m just too old for this”, “My fingers are getting sore or stiff”, “I have my kids to take care of”, “I just don’t have what it takes”, or “I’m just too tired”. There are a zillion of those you can come up with.

Just stop making those up! They are all worthless excuses. Don’t believe them for a second. They are things you choose to tell yourself, but they are not real.

They are lies that crawl up because you don’t play. You got to play to get back in the groove!

Here’s what you got to do:Continue Reading

Why and How to Practice a Solid Song Repertoire

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how to practice song repertoireAs a student of the guitar you play and practice songs for enjoyment and to improve your skills to become a better guitar player.

After a period of time of regular and serious practice you can probably play a couple of songs. If you’re lucky you can play a few songs from the top of your head but with most songs you probably need music sheets, chords or tabs to help you out. And even then you might need to look into some of the parts of the song again to refresh your memory before you can play it from beginning to end.

This is what distinguishes the amateur from the professional. An amateur can play a couple of songs (sort of) and a professional can play a solid repertoire of songs with total conviction.

What you want is to start practicing like a pro. Create the habits of a pro and a repertoire is becoming part of your skill set.

So why do you want to build and play a repertoire of songs?

  • Having a repertoire is an amazing asset and a profound goal for any guitar player.
  • Working on a repertoire will build your confidence as a guitar player and a human being.
  • You will work towards becoming an accomplished guitar player and musician.
  • You will practice and build skills like a real pro.
  • You’ll be able to play songs instantly from the top of your head, so whenever friends, family or anyone else asks you to play something, you are ready to rock.
  • You are working towards becoming not just a better guitar player but also a musician and performer.
  • You will be able to play with other musicians more easily.
  • You’ll be ready to perform with great confidence before any audience anywhere and anytime.
  • You will face your fears and crush them head on!
  • Being able to play songs from the top of your head will give a feeling of freedom, flexibility and independence.
  • Having a repertoire is a great musical accomplishment and continues journey that will set the path for a lot of new discoveries, possibilities and opportunities for you as a musician.

How to practice a song repertoire Continue Reading