How To Play Guitar Fast – Free 14 Day Mini Course – Part 4
Welcome back to lesson 4 of the mini course on how to improve your guitar speed in a short period of time!
Up to this point, I have given you several strategies and practice methods that will speed up the process of learning how to play fast on guitar. As part of your assignment for this lesson, I want you to continue practicing the guitar speed building methods I showed you so far in this mini course. I will teach you more specific approaches for improving your guitar speed in the next lesson.
In this lesson, I want to step back from focusing too much on the 'physical' aspects of learning to play fast on guitar and address several important mental roadblocks that you will likely encounter as you practice guitar. The advice I will share with you in this lesson will greatly help you to get a lot more results from your guitar practicing in general and from your practicing to improve your guitar speed in particular. Understanding how to deal with frustration that inevitably comes when working to achieve ambitious guitar playing goals will help you to persevere through such times and come out a much more advanced guitarist on the other side.
If you are like most guitarists, you probably have periods in your guitar practicing when everything feels just great, the guitar playing feels easy and you are able to effortlessly play at tempos that are close to or even beyond your usual maximum guitar speed. This often happens on days when you least expect it. However, in contrast, on the very next day when you try to reproduce the same results in your guitar practicing, your guitar playing might suddenly feel totally different and no longer as easy as it felt just the day before. Such experiences can be very frustrating and disappointing, particularly when you put a lot of time into practicing and work hard on improving your guitar speed and guitar playing in general.
Instead of becoming frustrated, the best way to handle such experiences in your guitar practicing is to become EXCITED! Remember that the days when your guitar playing feels and sounds better than it ever has before are your body's way of reminding you that you 'are' on the right track towards reaching your guitar playing goals. Such moments when you are able to play better than usual are essentially a 'preview' of the next higher level of guitar playing ability that is just within your reach.
Any 'temporary' bursts of guitar speed that you experienced will continue to return more frequently in future guitar practicing sessions as you continue to work on improving your guitar speed. Over time, this new skill level becomes a more consistent and reliable part of your guitar playing as you improve your general guitar an musical skills. Think of such days as the first flickers of light at the end of the 'guitar speed practicing tunnel' and become excited!
Another similar problem that you may find yourself running into is an issue of a guitar speed plateau - getting stuck at a certain guitar speed for a long time with seemingly no progress. This happens to almost all guitar players during the process of learning to play fast on guitar. There are two main causes of guitar speed plateaus: one is physical (inefficient guitar practicing strategies) and the other is mental (lack of patience).
The good news is that you are in direct control of being able to avoid the first and most important cause of guitar speed plateaus which is due to poor guitar practicing strategies or inefficiency in technique. If you study with a great guitar teacher (or use effective guitar practicing resources such as this mini course) you will learn the most effective ways of avoiding guitar speed plateaus that most guitar players spend years (or a lifetime) being stuck on.
The most important thing to realize is that you ARE in control of the amount of time it takes for you to get past your current guitar speed plateau and move closer to reaching your goals.
Keep in mind that the more advanced you become as a guitar player, the more challenging it will become to improve your guitar speed to the next level. For example, it will take only a short amount of time to increase your guitar picking speed from 16th notes at 80 to 100 bpm (an increase of 25%) assuming your original maximum guitar speed was 80 bpm in 16th notes. However, it will take much longer (typically) to increase speed by the same 20 bpm, if your maximum speed is 200 bpm and you are trying to reach 220 bpm (an increase of only 10%). When we start practicing guitar as beginners, there is so much wrong with our technique that it is easy to refine our playing and rapidly improve guitar speed. But the closer you get to perfection, the harder it becomes to isolate and refine the very small remaining flaws in guitar technique that will allow you to improve guitar speed by only a small amount.
Although a great guitar teacher will certainly help you progress much faster than you can on your own, you must also remember that big results take time. Sometimes that time is longer than we may like, but as long as you are applying the most effective guitar practicing methods and receive the best guitar technique training, you WILL reach your goals. Your favorite guitar players did not become great over night. They too went through the same learning process and had to overcome the same frustrations that you are going through. If you want to reach the same level of guitar playing as your favorite musicians, you must learn to be patient while also doing everything in your power to reduce amount of time it takes to improve your guitar speed and reach your musical goals.
Between now and the next lesson of this guitar speed mini course, I want you to continue practicing the scale sequence you have learned in lesson 1 and applying the practice strategies you have learned in lessons 1-3. In addition, from now on when you face a guitar speed plateau or feel discouraged because your maximum guitar speed playing feels inconsistent, think back to this lesson and review the concepts described above that will help you to battle this frustration.
Another effective way to overcome guitar speed plateaus and minimize frustration is by incorporating intelligent variety into your guitar practicing. In other words, make sure that in addition to guitar speed and technique you also focus on other musical skills that will prevent burn out from focusing only on guitar speed and will make you a better musician overall.
This is why, when I teach guitar players online, I focus on a variety of skills in each lesson to help my students learn how to go beyond simply 'playing guitar' and on to 'making music'. If you want to become the best guitar player you can be, watch this video about electric guitar lessons online.
I will see you in the next lesson in 2 days!
Go here to review Lesson 1 of this mini course.
Go here to review Lesson 2.
Review Lesson 3 here.