3 Tips to Practicing Effectively

So let's jump right in.  We are going to work on creating a mindset where we want to play guitar.  Where we want to pick it up and practice.  How do we do that?

By working through a system that gives us immediate results.  The material we choose and the order in which we choose it needs to be challenging enough that we feel good about what we are accomplishing and how we are progressing but of course not so difficult that we get frustrated and don't want to practice or worse we quit.   And most importantly, it needs to be fun!

Here are the main points we will cover in Part 1 of this series:

Getting excited about practicing is sometimes changing the way we think about practicing.  I am going to tell you something very important and I am saying this from decades of teaching guitar to every age and level imaginable, you ready......?

You Can Learn How To Play Anything You Have Ever Wanted

It's true.  It just takes the right information and the right guidance.  And you have come to the right place 🙂

The breakdown is probably the single most important thing you can do to make the most of your practice time!

This part cannot be overstated.  You must break everything you practice down into the smallest part possible.  At first it will seem as though it will take forever to learn this way but I can promise you it is probably the single most important practice tip pros do every time they sit down to practice something new.  By breaking it down you will absorb the information faster and are more likely to retain it when you return to practice.

This is also where the mindset comes in because you have to think differently about how you practice.  Even though you have only done a small part of the riff or song, you probably are getting it.  Take pride in that and know you will come back and get a bit more next time.

Remember we are creating a mindset that makes us want to practice.  We will want to practice because it is fun and when it is fun we see results quickly 🙂

Note:  fun and results go hand in hand, getting results makes practicing fun and we have fun practicing when we are getting results.  So we will get results by breaking things down and we will  pick things we want to learn to make sure it will be fun.  That is what we explore below 🙂

Well this may seem quite obvious but it is easy to lose sight of the fun if things start getting frustrating.  By breaking things down and thinking differently about how we are practicing and what we are trying to accomplish with each session, we can see big results and zero frustration.

You will see the best results when you are having fun and learning in a positive headspace.

I think the two biggest keys to fun are learning songs and improvising and more specifically improvising using new material such as a new scale or arpeggio.

Songs

I think it is important to learn songs.  It is probably the reason most of us pick up the instrument in the first place.

Something I have worked to do with both the site and teaching students in person is to teach songs that add value to our overall growth.  Interestingly enough almost any song we learn is helping us in some way however the trick is tackling the right song at the right time.

We want songs that push us just the right amount.  We want to be successful.  Not feel defeated.  So finding the right song is part of the challenge for both myself as an educator and you.

Listed below are a few videos I have made that use the breakdown method we talked about above.    I would like you to pick one to get started on however there a few things you should keep in mind.

• Choose more then one if you like however I would recommend starting with just one
• Use the FB comment section below to let me know your level and I can help you pick
• You will have a choice from 4 topics: technique, songs to play and sing, riffs, chords and strumming

Don't mind me for the next bit, I am trying to figure out a nice layout for this material:

These two lessons are fairly easy lessons and both a lot of fun to play:

This section explores arpeggios, scales, pull off and bending.  You decide what sounds fun to work on.  You may want to check out the first few seconds of each video and decide what sounds like the most fun to get started on:

This section has songs that would be great to play and sing if that is something you are interested in.  You may also just want to work on them even if you don't have interest in singing. They are listed from easiest to hardest: