How To Get Better Guitar Playing Much Faster

 

What’s your biggest obstacle to making faster progress as a guitarist?

 

Hint:

 

It’s not lack of talent.

 

Nor is it lack of practice time.

 

It's also NOT: your age or size and shape of your hands.

 

Give up?

 

The real answer is:

 

Lack of clarity.

 

Clarity means knowing exactly:

1. What is holding you back from reaching your musical goals.
    
2. What to focus on when you practice to improve as fast as possible.

How do you develop this clarity?

Watch this video to see what it takes:
 

Clarity is your greatest power as a guitar player. It gives you the ability to make maximum progress in minimum time.

To have more clarity, you need the right guitar practice habits that enable you to focus on the right things, at the right time, in the right way. You also need to avoid common guitar practice obstacles that slow down your progress.

 

 

 

Better Guitar Playing Obstacle #1. Aimless Practicing

Most guitarists practice with no direction and without a clear strategy. This is called aimless practicing.

Aimless guitar practice happens when you collect tab of random songs, solos or exercises you find online and try to practice them without clear objectives.

This often leads to overwhelm and frustration as you collect a lot of practice materials but never seem to master any of them.

You also have no way to measure your progress over time This means you don’t really know if your practicing is making you a better guitar player or not.

Here is how to avoid aimless practicing:

• Set clear long-term goals for your guitar playing.

• Identify what musical skills you need to reach your goals. (Use this musical goals page to help you.)
   
• Seek out the best guitar practice materials to develop the skills that help you get better guitar playing based on your specific goals.
   
• Track your musical progress each week to see how close you are to reaching your musical goals.

 

This process gives you clarity on what to practice to become the guitarist you want to be.
 

Better Guitar Playing Obstacle #2: Not Knowing How To Get Better During Guitar Practice

Knowing what to practice is only one part of your musical progress. The other part is knowing how to practice correctly for maximum results.

Correct guitar practice means:

Want to see an example of correct guitar practice? Download this free guitar practice checklist and learn what it means to practice guitar technique correctly. (It’s free and no email address is required). Print it out and use it to speed up your progress.

Tip: not everything on guitar takes a long time to improve. There are 5 tricks to better guitar playing you can learn in 10 minutes that make your playing sound better immediately. Download this free guitar playing eGuide to learn how to sound great, no matter what you play.
 

Better Guitar Playing Obstacle #3. Trying To Teach Yourself Guitar

Many guitarists try to teach themselves through online videos or pre-made courses, instead of taking guitar lessons with a teacher. This approach can feel more fun in the beginning, but it makes reaching your goals much harder. Here is why:

Online videos, tablature or pre-made courses cannot answer your questions, fix your mistakes, help you avoid bad habits, give you feedback on your guitar playing or support you when you feel frustrated. They also cannot tailor themselves to your skill level and your musical interests.

This means you are left on your own to figure everything out through trial and error.

An expert guitar teacher designs a step-by-step learning strategy specifically for you and holds your hand through every step of reaching your goals. This gives you the clarity you need to achieve better guitar playing fast, while enjoying the process.
 

Better Guitar Playing Obstacle #4. Unbalanced Guitar Playing

Many guitarists spend too much time practicing skills they are already strong in, while ignoring their weaknesses.

This causes your guitar playing to become unbalanced, as you improve in some areas and remain very weak in others. Your ability to apply your musical strengths is going to be severely limited by your musical weaknesses.

Read this article to learn how to avoid becoming out of balance as a guitarist.
 

Better Guitar Playing Obstacle #5. Not Knowing How To Fix Your Bad Guitar Playing Habits

Playing guitar with bad habits is like trying to run with your shoelaces tied together.

There are 2 challenges with fixing bad habits in your guitar playing:

Challenge #1: Not knowing what bad habits stop you from having better guitar playing skills. The solution is to get feedback on your guitar playing from an expert teacher. A great teacher can easily identify your bad habits, so you know exactly what to focus on during guitar practice.

Challenge #2: Not practicing slowly enough to fix your bad habits. It takes a lot of concertation to undo a habit you’ve played with for years and replace it with a new one.

Watch this guitar practice video to overcome bad habits in your guitar playing:

 

 

You now know more about improving your guitar playing than you have before. The next step is to learn easy ways to get better guitar playing without tons of guitar practice.

 

Download this free eGuide to get 5 easy guitar playing tricks & get better guitar playing in the next 10 minutes.

About Tom Hess: Tom Hess is a guitar teacher, music career mentor and guitar teacher trainer. He teaches rock guitar lessons online to students from all over the world and conducts instructional live guitar training events attended by musicians from over 50 countries.

Get the best online lessons for rock guitar players and become the musician you've always wanted to be.

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