GUITARHABITS

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Improve Your Playing Through Slow Thorough and Full Immersion

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Improve-Your-Playing--Through--Slow--Thorough-and-Full-ImmersionNowadays every song is at your disposal on Spotify and Youtube, and you can also find how to play these songs on guitar tablature and guitar lesson websites. Having access to everything instantly makes you want to hear and learn things quicker, easier, faster, better and have more of it.

The tricky part is we tend to forget to dig deeper into the songs. We move on to the next and the next and might not give it the time and attention it deserves.

I’m also guilty of learning songs fast, effective and efficiently for teaching and gig purposes, but there are also times I just want to dive deeply into a song and absorb every single detail.

It’s an immense joy to take the time to learn, practice, and figure out all the nuances and things that make the song what it really is. Total immersion.

You slowly digest the song and learn an incredible amount of craftsmanship that’s built into the song that you probably don’t hear at the surface. You will appreciate and enjoy the song a whole lot more when you take the slow and thorough approach.

You don’t have to do this with every song, but at least with the songs you really love. Start with one or two songs and enjoy the process.

Here are the keys: Continue Reading

How to Quickly Transpose A Song Without Capo

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How-to-Quickly-Transpose-A-Song-Without-CapoThere are many ways to transpose a song in different keys. You can use a capo, play a song in bar chords and then move all the chords up or down, or write down all the chords of the song in the appropriate key.

Those are good solid ways, but sometimes it’s just nice to transpose without capo, bar chords or too much hassle of writing things down.

You want to switch between keys instantly using mainly open chords, because they sound nice and are easy to play. We’re not going for any sharp or flat keys in this post. We keep things simple.

So how do you go about that?

First, you want to know how to build chords of the major scale. If you don’t know how to do that, you can check out this post. If you don’t want to get into the theory behind it, no worries, you can also read on and just memorize the chord sequences that follow. You can always read more about it after this post.

Now we start with deriving the 7 chords from the C Major scale:
C – Dm – Em – F – G – Am – Bdim
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The Intermediate Path to Learning Guitar

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The-Intermediate-Path-to-Learning-GuitarAfter a considerable period of time and regular guitar practice you will pass the stage of the beginner and move up to a more intermediate guitar level. You’ve acquired all the basic skills and you’re looking forward to take things to the next step. But what does that actually mean, intermediate level? What should you be practicing now to take it even further?

A lot of guitar players start out all excited in the beginning. They learn how to play songs, fingerstyle, some riffs and solos, but then lack the persistence to follow through. They lean back in their comfort zone, practice less and improvement becomes meager. The basics are solid, but it becomes difficult to maintain the same eagerness and passion to grow into an even better guitar player.

So how do you go from the beginner path to the intermediate path and keep walking? How do you keep that same spirit and pace of improvement to get to the next level? Well today, we’re showing you the intermediate path of learning guitar. The path of progress and becoming the guitar player you set out to be.

Here are the keys:

Level up your chords
Work on learning, memorizing and applying new chords. Learn slash chords to create smooth transitions between chords. Work on a vocabulary of jazz chords that are also often used in pop, rock and blues music like Maj7, Maj6, mMaj7, Min6, m7b5, augmented and dim7 chords.

Apply the chords to songs and keep using them so they are fully integrated into your playing. Learn the chords you already know and new chord types in different positions on the neck to become more versatile and free in your playing.
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How To Enjoy Your Guitar Practice The Most

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How-To-Enjoy-Your-Guitar-Practice-The-MostThere are times when practicing is a joy and everything falls into place, but there are also times we need to discipline ourselves to practice or we need the right motivation to start practicing in the first place. This is normal, we are only human beings. Don’t beat yourself up about it.

Once you’ve gone through a couple of solid guitar practice sessions you’re back in the saddle and you’ll feel the love and desire again to practice and improve yourself.

Today we’re going to give you the tools to make practicing enjoyable again when the going gets tough.

Let’s dive in!

1 – Reward yourself, set a fixed time
You’re a guitar player now so you need a fixed time to practice. Plan 30 or 60 minutes on your calendar (and don’t let anything undermine that). You don’t always have to plan a full hour, but if you can manage to do that once or twice a week you will really get into the groove.

Having set a fixed time means you have prioritised your practice and given yourself a chance to really enjoy playing your guitar. You deserve it. Don’t let the trivialities of life stand in the way. Reward yourself, you only live once!

2 – Get excited again
Why did you want to learn to play guitar in the first place? What is it that intrigued you about guitar playing? When did or do you love practicing the most? What song, solo, riff, guitar hero or dream goal makes you want to pick up your guitar? What can you do to make guitar playing exciting again? Find your spark in practice and implement it!
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