The Most Misunderstood Guitar Practice Idea Of All Time
You’ve heard people say you should practice slowly to develop good guitar technique and build guitar speed, right?
And it’s hard to argue with the logic of slow practice.
But here is an interesting paradox:
If you’ve been around a while, you’ve probably also heard ‘some’ guitar teachers tell you that
1. Slow guitar technique practice “doesn't work”.
2. You need to push yourself and not be afraid to play fast if you want a lot of guitar speed.
(Confused yet? Lol)
And unless you are a student of mine, I bet nobody ever told you how to actually ‘find’ the “slow enough” tempo to do your guitar practice at.
Because here is the thing:
It is absolutely possible to practice guitar technique at ‘too slow’ of a guitar speed.
This happens when you practice at guitar speeds where nothing is going wrong and there isn’t anything for you to focus on.
But it’s also possible to practice at ‘too fast’ of a guitar speed.
This is where you have no control over your guitar technique and often create all kinds of bad guitar technique habits that you’re not even aware of... and that you’ll eventually pay a lot of money to some guitar teacher to fix for you later.
So, what tempo DO you practice at?
I’ll tell you.
Practice the fastest tempo where you can do “X” correctly. (Or right below it).
“What’s X”, you ask?
It’s the skill you’re trying to learn or problem you’re trying to solve in your playing.
If you practice much slower than this tempo, you’re wasting time (because you’re not being challenged enough).
If you practice much faster than this tempo, you’re also wasting time (because you have no control over your playing).
And here is the thing:
The speeds at which you practice... the increments at which you increase the metronome speeds and even ‘your top speeds’ will all vary depending on what skill you are working on.
So, find out precisely:
- what skills you need to develop to reach your goal,
- what problems you need to solve in your playing to reach your goals
- how to practice each skill (and fix each problem) the right way.
When you know this, finding the right tempos to practice at becomes really, really simple.
And if you don’t know those things?
My advice is: find a good teacher who specializes in turning ordinary people into awesome guitar players quickly.
Then do what your teacher says.
And my prediction is: you’ll reach your musical goals faster than you’d ever believe.
A great guitar teacher will save you way more time and money than you will spend on their guitar lessons.
Sometimes, just a single realization you get during a guitar lesson can shave years off the process of reaching your goals.
To see what I mean, take a look at this guitar lesson I had with a student of mine who struggled with an intricate string-skipping jazz lick:
And speaking of string skipping...
If that is a technique you struggle with, check out this string skipping guitar article that shows you how to make this technique easier to play fast and clean.
Become a better guitar player with proven rock guitar lessons online.
