The Art Of Guitar Practice
Mar 11th, 2010
If you want to become the next Robert Plant or Eric Clapton, there is one thing to remember about playing the guitar. There are very few times when the phrase, “practice makes perfect” applies so completely. The most effective guitar practice is simply strumming the chords until you have them down by heart. The chords are the backbone of the guitar player’s profession and when you practice guitar, you must keep this in mind.
The most effective guitar practice is the one where you simply let your fingers do the walking. Many people, when they are starting out playing the guitar want to constantly stare down at their hands as they play, strumming the chords slowly while they visually pick out the best way to pluck the strings. This is every beginner’s biggest problem, and the only way one can break themselves of that habit is to let the rhythm flow through them. The best guitar practice techniques involve playing as often as you can, and mastering a song before moving onto the next one.
While this may seem like a common sense solution, many burgeoning guitar players give up the activity because they want to be great right away, and when they are not feeling like they are spending too much time on the very basics of the craft. Certainly learning to play the guitar is no easier than learning any other instrument. There will be set backs, there will be times where the last thing you want to do is practice guitar playing because no matter how much you practice, the music never seems right. Sticking with it is the most effective guitar practice and sooner or later, you will notice a change.
It bears keeping in mind that even the masters, even the people who earn their living playing the guitar have to remind themselves how to play every now and then. Of course, the professional guitar player is getting his practice while he is performing. It would be totally incorrect to assume that the pros did not practice guitar every day, for hours at a time to get to where they are in the music world.
If you are looking for specific guitar practice techniques there are several drills that can be done, and those types of drills are generally posted online, free for anyone who wishes to give them a whirl. The difficulty of the drills will of course vary depending on the level of talent they are aimed at.
About the author - Corey Palmer has been playing guitar since the mid eighties and suggests that if you are just starting out, find some easy guitar songs to learn and use the internet or guitar teacher to help you out. Anyone can learn to play.
I’ve heard some coaches say “Perfect practice makes perfect”, which is what I thought of when I read your post.
Many times I end up spending so much time “practicing”, but when I look back on it I realized that I wasted time looking through tabs, or switching songs to quickly.
Great post, thanks!
Hi Joe,
I always tell my students 3 things: Pratice, practice and practice.
Funny I just read the same thing in your about-page.
Great post!
Klaus Tol
“If you want to be the next Rober Plant…” really? dude, jimmy fucking page played guitar for led zepp, Plant sung and wrote lyrics (beginning with thank you on led zepp II) get ur facts straight
I appreciate the idea that you should spend a lot of time on one thing before going tothe next, but at the same time you need to work on a lot of stuff if you really want to be good. Practice should revolve around several things, and it never ends. You need to get it good and then come back to it later and get it better.
And yes,2 Klaus, Jimmy Page was the guitarist for Zeppelin, but you don’t have to be so nasty about the correction. Sheesh!
Yes! I want to play guitar like Robert Plant! But do I have to play ALL the strings?
It’s not hard to teach one on one but students tend to get away from the “feel” on their own and bog down. Direct imitation with immediate feedback from me seems to work really well but all the abstract instruction on the web seems to make students over analyze it and forget that sympathetic motion is ultimately a feeling. Teaching it is much like teaching someone to roll their Rs – the technical information can actually get in the way of “getting it”.
stagedive
Everything I have learned by playing drums is by hearing drummers play, however, a major way to do what they do is by seeing how they do it. They may play drums in a specific way that suits your style. For instance, if a lefty drummer like myself was to listen to a drum solo, and watch it being played by a lefty, it would be hard to do it myself, however, if I watch someone like Carter Beauford from Dave Matthews Band, I can see how he plays, and learn tips of how I would be able to do it.
tsa-guiterfest
You can learn how to play the guitar with proper instruction and resources. It all has to do with being one with the music rather than just memorizing it.
I’m a windows user with a library of almost 40k songs. Songbird was never the fastest, but it’s been getting more and more unbearable with every update. It got to the point where it would take a few minutes for search results to come up, and I’m running a core i7 at 3.4ghtz with 8gb of ram! Sorry, I’m switching to foobar2000 until things change. It was nice while it lasted. Foobar2000 gives me instant results and speed.
Learning guitar is supposed to be fun. Don’t fall into the trap of putting yourself under too much pressure to be better, enjoy what you can play today and better will take care of itself with time. The more fun you have the more likely you’ll stick with the guitar and reach your playing goals.
This is a fantastic resource and I will definately point my students here for some much needed practice. Well done.
Just an idea, your readers may benefit from using flash cards like my site offers to help memorize all the chords used in these songs.
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Thank you.It is useful for me.