10 tips to improve Guitar practice, FOREVER!

In this article I will be sharing my top 10 tips for good guitar practice!

I am a guitarist and I have been now for almost 6 years.

I know it may not seem like a long time, but I study Professional Musicianship at my university specialising in guitar, and I have learnt a crazy amount. And now I am here to share my top 10 tips for getting the most out of practicing guitar!

1. Always have warm hands - Personally I put this at number one as I feel it is so important and a lot of people don't take into account the dangers that can come with practicing with cold hands and fingers. When your hands are cold, you are far more prone to injury especially RSI, so make sure to always warm your hands up before you start playing your guitar.

2. Start slow - When learning a new song or new lick/riff, always keep in mind that it is much harder to go in at full speed straight away, take your time, slow the track completely down maybe even to half speed and gradually increase the speed after you can perform it perfectly while slow. This will improve your playing dramatically especially if you have never tried this before.

3. Metronomes can be your friend - Trust me, I know this sounds boring. I felt the exact same way when I used to be told to practice to a metronome. It can be annoying and painful, but just keep with it and your timing with your playing will improve rather quickly.

4. Clean, Clean, CLEAN. - The most common mistake when guitarists practice is that most of them feel the need to crank their guitar up full volume with extreme levels of overdrive or delay and reverb. I honestly used to do this myself when I first started, but the problem is, with all the added effects, you often don't hear your own mistakes. Practicing on a completely clean channel will enable you to hear every slight mistake you make and it will force you to be more focussed and work harder to improve your playing and get rid of all those tiny mistakes.

5. The 20 minute rule - When we practice, much like when we revise for an exam or do work in general, our brains only stay 100% efficient for 20 minutes at a time. A good rule to follow is that after every 20 minutes of practice, take a small one minute break, and then get back to playing. This also gives your fingers a tiny rest which is well needed and this will funnily enough improve the amount you can get done in a practice session.

6. Videos - Every time you go to practice, try to make a habit of going onto youtube or using a DVD and watching at least 10 minutes of a tutorial for something, whether it be a new riff or learning about a new scale/mode it is well worth it as every day you can add something new to your practice routine.

7. Improvisation practice - Improvising is SO important, and often in practices it gets ignored. Being a good improviser generally means you know your way around your instrument well and you have a good knowledge of what you are doing and how it all works. Learning to improvise effectively will make you a much better player, just trust me.

8. Record yourself - When practicing and running through a track, it can be easy to think you're doing amazingly and are nailing every riff perfectly, but a lot of the time this might not be the case. I would highly recommend recording yourself when you play through a song and really listen back to it so you can pin-point sections that went wrong and go back and fix it. This really does help and I can't emphasise that enough.

9. Have fun - I know this sounds like a bit of a silly tip, but a lot of people turn themselves into robots while practicing, and it ends up becoming this monotonous chore. This doesn't need to be the case at all, of course practice well and effectively and work hard, but have fun, play songs you like, learn things you like, and have fun improving!

10. Patience - Patience is important. Very important. You won't be amazing straight away, no one is. All of the greats, whether it be Jimi Hendrix, or Jeff Beck, or Guthrie Govan. They all practiced for years and years to be as amazing as they are. It is really hard work, but god does it pay off. It is a skill you will keep for life, so please, never give up.

I hope some of these tips helped

I hope you all enjoyed this and if you have any questions, please ask!!

JP