11 Guitar Practise Tips To Improve Your Playing Dramatically

Want to improve your guitar playing dramatically? Here are 11 guitar practise tips to put

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you on the fast track to improvement.

How come you and your friend are both practising guitar for the same amount of time

each week but your friend is improving so much faster than you are ?

One answer might be talent but even those who are talented still have to practise a lot in order to reach the top of the guitar playing pile.

The real answer lies in what your friend practises and how.

Here are 11 guitar practise tips that will get the most out of your guitar practise schedule.

Take Guitar Lessons

The first step to creating an effective practise schedule is to take guitar lessons from a local teacher.

By taking weekly guitar lessons your teacher will lay out a program that will improve your playing the best and fastest way possible.

In doing so you will have weekly things to practise and so your practise will become very focused.

Sure YouTube is great to learn from but more likely than not you will end up jumping from one style to another or learning a bunch of useless things without any structure.

A Little Every Day

Try and practise a little every day.

Practising a little every day allows your muscle memory to develop faster than if you practise for a longer session once or twice a week.

For those just starting out just 5 minutes a day would be good to get used to all the new concepts and to allow the finger tips to harden up.

For late beginner to intermediate students a half hour per day should be sufficient depending on your goals.

If your aim is to be a virtuoso like Randy Rhoads then you should be playing all day, every day.

Set Goals

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At the start of each practise session you should have specific goals that relate to that practise session.

For example you might want to change smoothly from an open G chord to an open C chord or you might want to play a cool rock lick at a certain speed.

If you are practising for longer periods it might pay to write these goals down so that you don’t forget them.

Stay Focused

Once you have written down your practise goals focus your practise time on these goals.

It may sound obvious but you’ll be surprised how often guitar players will lose focus and practise things which are not on their list.

If you’ve joined a blues band and have to learn 20 songs then focus your time on learning these songs. Not only will your band mates appreciate the fact that you’ve learned the song asap but you’ll become a better player faster.

The other scenario is that at the next band meet you’ve got 2 songs ready because you spend a lot of time dabbling with a bit of jazz chord melody, the Phrygian Dominant scale, thrash metal rhythm and various other types of p-laying which are secondary to your goal.

Take 5

If you have been playing for a while and are practising for longer periods of time the best way to practise is for 10 – 15 minutes per session.

After this time have a short 2 -3 minute break before resuming the next session.

After 3 – 4 practise sessions take a longer break of between 5 – 15 minutes.

During these breaks stand up, walk around, grab a quick bite to eat or a drink.

During each session you can practise each practise goal that you wrote down before your practise session.

Go Slow

Most people practise too fast.

Remember, the goal of practising is to play something perfectly without any muffled notes, buzz, scratches or other picking or fret hand noise.

Believe it or not but the very best players in the world practise a new piece of music very, very slowly so that their fingers will learn where to go without making any extra note.

Once you can play the first few notes, or chords, perfectly then you can add the next few notes.

Only play the piece as fast as you can play it perfectly, no faster.

If you play your music in this way you will naturally start playing faster perfectly

Isolate Trouble Spots

You will find situations where some bars of music are more difficult than the rest in a song.

If you can play the rest of the music easily but are having trouble playing these few bars then you should isolate these bars and practise these independently of the piece.

Once you feel comfortable playing these bars then you can stick them back in the music and play the whole piece.

Practising the whole piece and having a train wreck every time you come to a difficult part is just plain ineffective practise.

Be Prepared

To get the most out of your practise time make sure that all your practise equipment is within reach.

Your lesson material, metronome, a pen and paper, picks of various thicknesses, slides etc should all be easily accessible.

It’s a waste of time looking for things during practise time while you could actually be playing instead.

Record Yourself

You should record yourself playing guitar at least once a week if not more often.

By recording yourself you will hear your playing exactly for what it is.

You can fool yourself too easily by thinking things like ‘Oh, a fudged note, I’ll correct it next time’ or ‘My 16th notes sound out of sync. I must practise them one day’.

Record yourself, listen back with a critical ear and address any weaknesses that you hear by writing them down in your practise diary and incorporating exercises that will address these issues in your practise sessions for the next while.

Become An Excellent Player Not A Perfect One

Try to play to the best of your ability but don’t get hung up on playing things perfectly.

As guitar players we can be too critical of our playing but guess what?

What we hear and what people who are listening to us hear are two different things!

You might play one note a little softer than another and think ‘Oh, that’s terrible’ yet the audience or friends probably won’t notice.

If you have been recording yourself (as you should) then it pays to listen back to the recording again at a later stage. I’ll bet that you probably won’t even hear most of the things that you were critical of the first time you played the recording back.

Sing (or Hum)

Music is a hearing art therefore it pays to get your ear tuned up.

A simple way of doing this is to play a note on the guitar and sing it back (you may have to hunt for it but this process will become easier and easier).

Once you can sing one note try playing two notes (either melodically or harmonically) and sing them back.

Keep going with 3 notes then 4 etc.

Alternatively sing a note then try to find that note on the guitar.

As it gets easier sing 2 notes then 3 etc.

Use a Metronome

When playing exercises use a metronome.

A metronome will radically improve your timing which will make you sound much better.

For example try playing 16th notes sloppy and then perfectly in time. It’s a huge difference isn’t it?

Check out this Korg Metronome on Amazon.

Have Fun

Try and make your practise sessions fun pretend you’re Bob Dylan or Eddie Van Halen and try to put lots of feeling into your playing.

When practising exercises with a metronome make a game out of it and try to get to a new level (of speed) as often as possible (keep it clean though).

After your practise session take 10 – 15 minutes just to goof around on your instrument. Try to find new noises, play your guitar in an unorthodox way, play something that you like put doesn’t suit your practise session (ie jazz or blues if you’re a metal guitarist).