Make a Game of Your Guitar Practice and Surprise Yourself

Here's an interesting and unique way of practicing guitar. Check it out.

Make a Game of Your Guitar Practice and Surprise Yourself
By: Jeremiah Thompson

So you want to be improve your guitar playing?

Well, like any thing, guitar skill progress takes time and
practice, but many of us have much difficulty practicing
regularly because it is so easy to let other things take
priority over our guitar lessons.

First, you need to absolutely make up your mind that you want to
improve your guitar playing and then make sure that your
progress is truly is a priority for you.

Make a list of the most important things that you need to focus
on in your life right now and honestly assess where guitar fits
into your list.

Ideally, you want to be engaged in a guitar lesson for at least
an hour a day in order to make any significant progress.

However, you may have to conclude that at this point you are not
going to be able to devote even an hour a week to the task.

If that is the case, try to spend some casual time reading
guitar-related publications or listening to your favorite
guitarists to nurture your love of the music. When your
priorities change and you have more time, you will then at least
still have a strong interest in becoming as good a guitarist as
you can. Listening to Eric Clapton or other greats will only
kindle your interest and may even cause you to reprioritize your
guitar lessons.

Once you see where your guitar practice fits in with the rest of
your life, make a true appointment with yourself. Put your
practice into your schedule. Get it in your planner or it won't
get done!

Okay, now that you are regularly spending time with your beloved
guitar, what should you do?

First, make sure it is quality time. Don't have the television
on or be hanging out with friends. Then, make sure you are
working on skills that you need to sharpen.

If you spend time strumming popular solos and cranking up your
amplifier, you may have some fun, but you will not improve your
skills.

Think about the chords and scales that you struggle with. Grade
yourself on them on a scale (no pun intended) of 1 to 10 and
then re-evaluate every week or so. Re-grading every practice or
guitar lesson is not appropriate because it is unfair to measure
progress that frequently.

No one improves in a straight line. You may hit a certain chord
great one day and then have two of the strings sound very
unclear the next day. However, if you work diligently you will
make progress when measured every couple weeks or so.

Do the same thing with scales and even notes depending on your
current skill level.

Once you have a way of measuring your progress, you will be
inspired to continue with your regular practice regimen and
guitar lessons.

As an advanced step, after you have made progress with a certain
group of chords and scales, you should find a song you like that
uses many of those elements and work on that as a way of
applying your improved ability.

This can be very rewarding.

You may even want to start with the song and work backwards, but
make sure that you do spend a great deal of time on the
fundamentals before you get serious about the song.

The key to all this is regular consistent work and a measurement
of results. Achieve this, and you will enjoy your practice time
more and more. Challenge yourself to be at a certain grade by a
specific time.

Make a game of your practice efforts and you will surprise
yourself!



About the author:
Jeremiah Thompson is an amateur guitar player and true lover of
the instrument and its rich sounds. He enjoys writing about guitar chords and guitar
practice.