Learning to play guitar is rewarding and fun. It’s also a commitment, so developing effective practice habits can turn your commitment into a passion, a strong hobby, or even a career! When you are taking guitar lessons and working on what your teacher assigned, you consider the following recommendations to make the most out of your guitar practice.
Consistency is Key
Practice every day, even if just a little bit. Make productive practice a habit instead of a sporadic event. Runners who run every day love it and begin to rely on it to feel good. It becomes less of an obligation and more of a necessity. Those who practice regularly say the same things. Get to the point where you crave practice time and you are going to be successful in it no matter what!
Have a Quality Practice Session
Quality over quantity. Don’t dwell on practicing for an allotted amount of time but instead focus on a particular section or choose something to accomplish in your practice session. Once you’ve accomplished it, go eat a snack and watch Tiny House Hunters. Then come back and try to accomplish another goal. Earn food and tv with productive practice.
Chunks Don’t Mean You’re Sick
Start towards the end, from the middle, or at a troublesome section. If you play from the beginning every time then the beginning will be the only part that sounds good! Switch it up.
Ignoring These Would Be a Mistake
The more you play through a mistake, the more permanent that mistake is going to be in your piece. Go back and slowly work through the section over and over until you can play through it correctly more often than not.
Go Slow Young Man
Just get over it now. You can’t play it fast yet. Break it down Barney style until it’s absolutely perfect, then and only then should you start increasing the tempo…which brings me to…
Guitar Lesson Practice and Metronomes Do Mix
Get a free metronome app and use it! Your teacher’s annoying clapping helps more than you realize. Start super slow and if you can play all of it (easy parts and hard parts alike) with the metronome without mistakes, you’ve earned the right to bump it up.
Express Yourself
Once you’re close to being done with a piece, a great tool for practice is performing. Whether it be for stuffed animals, imaginary friends, or real live people, the sensation of stage fright and nerves are good to work through.
Taking guitar lessons is fun so don’t let unsuccessful practice stop you in any way. Follow the Guitar Lesson Practice Habits above and make the most out of every session.
