Even if you are not as good of a guitar player as you want to be, you share the same goal as every great guitarist there is: you want to ‘play it right’. After using effective guitar practice methods for a long time, you will gain great excitement for your improving musical skills. The drawback is, once you begin improving (and want to start playing for others or recording music) you will often become very self-conscious of making mistakes. This is the beginning of many issues...
It's an unusual, but frequent occurrence that a guitarist who has made huge improvements to reach a high level in his playing is 'afraid' of making mistakes rather than 'excited' become an even better player. These destructive fears that guitar players have are the main reason why intermediate players don’t work hard enough to take their skills to the next level. These same anxieties can even ruin the potentially successful music careers of really great guitar players.
As a real world example of this, one of the students in my music career mentoring program recently had the chance to become a member in a band and tour throughout Europe. He had been dreaming of doing this ever since he was a kid, but almost didn’t take the opportunity because he thought he would be ‘good enough’. After I talked with him about this, I helped him understand why he was feeling these fears and coached him to practice guitar much more effectively than ever before. Only a short while afterwards he overcame his fears and toured with the band – having the time of his life in the process.
So how was he able to overcome his fears and succeed? And how can YOU do the same so that you get better and become a great musician?
Guitar players frequently feel ‘more’ insecurity in their playing as they become more advanced because they continually practice in order to ‘get it right’ rather than ‘never get it wrong’. Here is the difference between these two types of practice and how it affects your guitar playing:
Practicing To ‘Get It Right’ – everyone must go through this phase while working on something new. At first, your goal is to merely learn the notes and gain confidence in your ability to play everything correctly. The majority of guitarists get ‘stuck’ in this phase of practicing and think all their mistakes will just go away on their own after a while. This simply is NOT the case! You will only master something in your playing once you take it to a higher level of practice, such as the following:
Practicing Guitar To ‘Never Play It Wrong’ – Once you’ve learned to play something on its own in the privacy of your own room, you need to practice it ‘for the real world’. There are three main ‘real world’ situations you must practice for: playing on stage, recording music and integrating all your musical skills together. After you can ‘play it right’, you must answer this question: “what is the scenario in which I will use this item in my guitar playing?” This will tell you precisely how to practice in order to fully master the material and ‘never play it wrong’.
Here are some examples of how to practice guitar in this way:
Practice ‘Recording’ As A Separate Skill:
Many guitar players are afraid of making mistakes, so they avoid recording themselves. As a result, they never improve their skills in this area. Once you think you’ve mastered the ability to play something right, you go to record it and suddenly can’t stop making mistakes. Hey, we’ve all been there :)
To improve your recording skills, you need to do the following: Start working on ‘recording’ as a separate skill to be mastered in your guitar practice time (record using both audio and video). Work on playing/recording something ‘perfectly’ in only a few tries. This will drastically improve your ability to perform well in recording situations.
Additionally, learn all the ins and outs of making a great recording by mastering all the subtle nuances that most people don’t pay attention to. I discuss these subtleties in much depth throughout this free studio recording guide for guitar. Study it, and work to improve these areas on a continual basis.
Practice Guitar For Playing Great On Stage:
To become a great live guitarist, you must be familiar with the scenarios that occur most often while playing on stage and prepare for them in your guitar practice time. Common examples include: standing up and moving around while playing, playing without being able to see your instrument, playing with distractions, staying in control of your playing without worrying about making mistakes in front of others, playing guitar in different types of weather and playing with equipment you aren’t accustomed to. Of course, this does not cover everything – simply use these ideas to make your own list to work on while practicing.
When you take anything that you’ve merely learned to ‘play right’ and played it in the scenarios mentioned above, you will often begin making mistakes. This is a good thing, because it helps you understand what you should be working on in your playing to ‘never play it wrong’ in any given situation.
Practice putting yourself into each of the scenarios above and so you can gain confidence playing in them. The more you practice in this way, the better you will get at it.
Practice Using Your Musical Skills Together
Even if you aren’t going to be playing live or recording anytime soon, you still need to work on using your skills with other techniques as well as in ‘musical’ situations (such as guitar solos, songs, etc.). To do this, you need to stop practicing skills in isolation and start combining them together with other techniques. For instance, after you learn a new scale sequence, you should be practicing it together with other techniques, fast and slow, and with a variety of different rhythms. You also need to learn the best way to apply these sequences into a musical context. Study the ideas in this guitar practicing video to learn how this process works.
Note: You might have to practice a specific item in each of the above contexts (or possible just one or two) depending on your unique goals with each item in your practicing routine.
How To Use This Information:
Here are the steps you must follow to integrate the above elements of effective guitar practicing into your playing:
Step One: Clearly understand your greatest guitar playing goals. Begin by reading this column about developing big musical goals.
Step Two: Learn how everything you practice helps you reach your ultimate goals. (read this column on how to choose the right guitar exercises) Don’t waste time practicing things that don’t really matter!
Step Three: Don’t work without using a guitar practice schedule that will help you get the very most out of your practice time. Read this guitar practice article to learn how to practice without making mistakes.
Step Four: Always seek the answer to this question: “What is the main objective/scenario in which I will use this practice item or music in my guitar playing?” This will keep your guitar practice in line with your highest goals and help you make the transition from ‘playing it right’ to ‘never playing it wrong’.
When you integrate the ideas in this article into your guitar practice on a regular basis, you will stop being afraid of making mistakes and start practicing with confidence and excitement as you begin realizing your ultimate musical goals.
Create an effective guitar practice schedule and reach your musical goals fast.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a professional musician, composer, and highly successful guitar instructor who trains and mentors guitarists with online guitar tuition. Visit tomhess.net to get free guitar playing tips, guitar playing resources, mini courses and more guitar playing articles. Learn how to practice guitar using the guitar practice generator. Follow Tom Hess on Twitter for free daily musician tips.
