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Reinforce the Fun Factor to Guitar Practice!

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Guitar playing should be all about fun, but sometimes we forget in the midst of practice.

We tend to focus too much on achieving the end result and we get frustrated or irritated when the magic doesn’t happen overnight.

We lose the insight to enjoy our practice.

You might make a mistake on stage during a performance and get upset or embarrassed, instead you could stop taking yourself so seriously, just smile inside of yourself, simply move on and embrace imperfection.

Be there for the song, the audience and appreciate what is.

Let go of achieving, expectations, competing, comparing and all of those things. Those are negative thought patterns that hold you back from progress and feeling good. You want to feel good right? Then stop torturing yourself.

Be calm and kind to yourself, focus, enjoy the process and love the challenge. These are qualities that will bring the best out of you. To a great extent it’s all in the mind, but sometimes it’s also nice to indulge yourself to increase the fun factor even more.

When you’re having fun you don’t have to discipline yourself, you automatically get motivated. Fun is the ultimate motivation driver.

Let’s take a look at some of those fun factors:Continue Reading

Reward and Celebrate Your Guitar Efforts!

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We all want to practice at a regular basis. If only we could stick to it.

Sometimes we succeed in practicing on a daily basis for a few weeks or even months in a row and then life takes over and we move on to busier and seemingly more important things.

But don’t worry, it’s okay to pause once in a while, reflect on it and just let it be.

And then suddenly that moment comes again when we fuel ourself with inspiration and we get back to the game. Now this time you want to hang in there as long as possible. To do that you need to keep motivating yourself. Motivation is the key to success! One of the ways to motivate yourself is to celebrate your successes and reward yourself.

Let’s say you want to learn a particular song. Depending on the difficulty of the song you can attach an appropriate reward to it.

Or reward yourself for 10 daily practice sessions of 30 minutes in a row and another one for 30 daily practice sessions in a row. Reward yourself for building a 10 song repertoire and playing it in front of people, for writing or recording your song.

Keep the celebrations alive and make it fun!Continue Reading

10 Effective Ways to Memorize Song Lyrics Much Faster

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memorize song lyrics

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In my early twenties I went backpacking in Australia with my girlfriend. During that trip we spent three days on a catamaran sailing the Great Barrier Reef with a group of people. One of the best times of my life.

When I first entered the catamaran the hosts asked me if I could play guitar. I was dumbfounded and said “huh, yes I do” and thought to myself, “how did they know that?” Later I would find out they asked everyone the same question.

In the evening we would all come together for a drink and a laugh. And then suddenly one of the hosts came out with a guitar and started playing and singing songs to entertain everyone.

Then after a while they handed the guitar over to me and said “Now it’s your turn!”. I thought, okay I’ll play a couple of tunes (I had been playing for about ten years by then) and suddenly I realized I could play a whole bunch of songs and some pretty cool solos, but I couldn’t sing the lyrics to the songs because I didn’t got them memorized.

Luckily my girlfriend was with me who is a singer and it turned out to be a great evening. Everyone sang along and was really enthusiastic.

I was saved! I realized what a shame it was that I couldn’t sing a few songs myself. A missed opportunity, but also a lesson learned. I would focus on memorizing song lyrics!

Here are 10 effective ways to get the job done:

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How to Follow Through on a Fulfilled Practice Session Tomorrow!

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As much as I love playing guitar and making music, there are times that I have to pick myself up to start practicing again.

Although playing guitar and making music is the expression of your inspiration, it is guitar practice that contains the foundation and building blocks to those expressions.

Once I start practicing again every sinew of my anatomy tells me this is good for me. I get excited all over again, the train is moving, skills are improving and guitar vocabulary is expanding!

Here are some things you do can do to make sure you follow through on that fulfilled practice session tomorrow:

Plan and remind
Set a time and place to practice. Choose a convenient time and a quiet place. Set the alarm on your cellphone and write it down on your calendar. Put post-it reminders on stuff in places where you spend most of your time.

Visualize your day the night before
Before you’re off to sleep think about how you see your day tomorrow. What will your day be like? How do you feel? How will you start your morning and spend the afternoon? How will you interact with people? What will and won’t you do?Continue Reading