Transform Your Guitar Practice: Overcoming Common Mistakes for Real Progress

Unlock the secrets to transforming your guitar practice from frustrating to fulfilling! Ever find yourself stuck in a rut, wondering why your skills aren't improving despite hours with your guitar? We're here to help you sidestep those common pitfalls and hone your practice routine for real progress. Say goodbye to aimless noodling and hello to focused sessions that emphasize quality over speed. We'll show you how to set clear goals and eliminate distractions, turning your practice time into a powerhouse of improvement. Whether you’re aiming to master chord changes or perfect your scales, this episode promises to equip you with practical solutions to elevate your musicianship.

Feel scattered trying to learn new skills? We've been there, and we understand the frustration. That’s why we've dedicated time in our discussion to address the importance of a structured practice routine that aligns with your personal goals. Learn how to balance technical prowess with creative expression in a way that keeps you motivated and on track. Plus, discover the Guitar Zoom Academy, a fantastic resource for those struggling with organization and goal-setting. With expert instructors and a variety of tailored classes, your path to guitar success has never been clearer. Get ready to transform your practice habits and achieve the musical aspirations you've always dreamed of.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Chapters

• 0:37 Common Guitar Practice Mistakes & Solutions
• 7:40 Organizing Guitar Practice for Success

Transcript

Steve: 0:37

All right, in this video we're going to be talking about five common guitar practicing mistakes that I think are fairly straightforward and easy to fix, so let's just talk about those a little bit.

Steve: 0:46

Number one is going to be not focused when you're practicing. Being distracted this is something I find very common when people practice is that you know they're watching TV or their phone is on or you know whatever it might be. Sometimes, when we're dealing with a limited amount of time to actually spend practicing, the most important thing that we can do is really give 100% of our concentration to what we're doing at the moment with the practice of the guitar. So avoiding, you know, distractions, staying focused. I again, I've always taught it as focused practice, making sure that when you do grab the guitar, even if it's for 10 or 15 minutes, you're giving everything that you've got in concentration to those 10 or 15 minutes Okay. Number two is going to be practicing with a goal in mind. Now, there's nothing wrong with random practice, meandering, if you will Right and again this would go to you know the TV's on and you're just kind of noodling on the guitar. There's nothing wrong with that. I just don't consider that a practice. I just consider that holding the guitar and doing stuff and there's nothing wrong with that, and noodling or meandering is perfectly fine as well but you have to understand that you're not going to accomplish a particular goal if you don't have something specific to work on. So you want to set yourself up with some sort of a plan, right? What are the goals that you're trying to focus on? Maybe you're trying to make a chord faster, or you know chord changes better, or you're trying to develop your bar chord, or you're trying to learn a particular scale or a particular position on the guitar, or you're trying to work on a particular technique. Have these ideas, have these goals in mind when you're doing this, and that way, when you sit down and actually practice, you know, you know exactly what you're going to work on. And I always tell people one thing that's really important to do, which is going to be number three, is develop a practice routine.

Steve: 2:40

Now, you could develop a daily practice routine, but I think what works really great is developing a weekly practice routine. So, let's say, your goal is to get better at your technical skills, right? You want to get faster, or you want to get more articulate with the things that you're learning maybe some licks or the way you move across the fretboard, you know the positions of a particular scale, whatever it might be. That becomes something that maybe you'd want to practice on a daily basis. You might develop a routine, a 20 or 30 minute routine of just, you know, running through a particular scale or a particular lick or pattern that you're working on, or a particular technique, whatever those things might be, and not overwhelming yourself, but thinking about what are the, what are the core basics that I need to practice on a daily basis. That will benefit everything that I do on the guitar.

Steve: 3:29

You know, sometimes we find like you know some little lick or you know some sort of thing, and there's again, there's nothing wrong with that. But if you think about holistically trying to improve on the bigger picture things that you need as a player, let's say it's not technique. Let's say it's creative guitar soloing, improvisation, right, in a melodic sense, or you need to develop your phrasing better, or whatever it might be. Again, that might become something that you need to do on a daily basis and maybe your technique isn't something that's high on your, on your priority list, relatively speaking. Right, everybody needs a little technique. But, but just saying that you know you're not trying to die hard with your technique, you just need it to supplement the way that you like to play.

Steve: 4:12

Well then, maybe your technique is something that you focus on, you know, two or three or four days a week, but every single day you work on creative practice, right, or songwriting. Or maybe you're learning songs, right. You don't want to learn new songs every single day. You're gonna have to develop certain songs that maybe you play with a band, or you know you're gonna be doing a recording with somebody, or whatever it might be. So this weekly practice routine might consist of one or two or three things each day, but the things that it pertains to or the things you're going to practice on that day might change, you know. So you kind of hit multiple different things, from technique to visualization, your fretboard to music theory, to creative practice, to, you know, memorizing, developing songs, to songwriting. There's all kinds of different things that you could do, but having a plan in mind, ok.

Steve: 5:00

So the fourth one for me is practicing things too fast. We don't have a lot of time or we're just not paying attention and we practice things too fast and we're not really developing the quality of what we're doing, and so, again, it's not a matter of I've got 20 minutes, so I'm going to try and pack 15 things in in 20 minutes. It's be aware that, whatever it is that you've decided, from the last thing we were talking about, you're going to spend quality time trying to focus on that and develop that and you're going to slow it down as much as you need to and try and be very articulate about it and develop everything about it so it's cleaner, it's more accurate, that sort of thing. So it's not just thinking hammer through as much stuff as I can in the shortest amount of time possible. But if I don't have a lot of time that day, I'm not going to get to everything, but I'd still like to do a focused practice on this thing that I really need to develop.

Steve: 5:52

Okay, and then just another one would be overlooking weaknesses. Like this happens a lot, where people find that they're really good at pentatonic, for instance, or whatever it might be, and they're really developing that and it's coming along and it's great and they're practicing and I think that's wonderful and you want to keep trying to, you know, develop that further and further, absolutely. But you also want to be aware of the other weaknesses you're having, or maybe there's weaknesses within that practice structure. You know, maybe moving between positions is a problem or certain fingers are a problem. You know your pinky is really weak and you don't use it a lot. Become aware of what your weaknesses are and then you want to make sure that you're practicing those as well. All right.

Steve: 6:37

Another thing is just not setting realistic goals is another one. This is one that just gets people really, really frustrated is you know, I've been playing this long and I should be able to do this. Well, that's. There's nothing further from the truth. Just because you've been playing a long time, or you've been on a guitar a long time, or it doesn't mean you're going to just be good at something because you've you've been playing for a long time. If you focused on that thing in a focused manner and you've really spent a lot of quality time and you've assessed it and, just like we talked about you, you slow it down, develop what you need to do and then start building it back up. That's what the process is. But measurable goals are things that you say okay, three months from now, being realistic, being honest with myself, this is where I am and what I want to be able to do three to six months from now is play this thing better. Play this thing cleaner. Play this thing faster. Memorize this thing cleaner. Play this thing faster. Memorize this thing better. Understand this concept more. Whatever this is, and that becomes a priority for your daily practice routine. You see where you're just.

Steve: 7:40

What happens a lot is, people are just kind of all over the place and they're just learning all sorts of random things, and then they wonder why they're not really getting anywhere.

Steve: 7:48

Now, again, I'm not one to tell you that you do or don't have to do anything.

Steve: 7:52

You can do whatever you want, as long as it's making you happy, but if you're feeling like you're not achieving your goals, these are some things that I think could be really important for you to start thinking about a little bit, okay, and I also want to remind you that you know, if you do struggle with trying to organize yourself, get your goals set, how to practice properly, what kinds of things that you need to actually be working on to achieve these goals that you have, you can always check out the Guitar Zoom Academy.

Steve: 8:19

It's a new thing that we've got, where it's basically an entire guitar ecosystem with a bunch of different instructors and class times where you're able to just show up and we work through everything. We build a framework for you and of what your practice goals are, how you're going to get show up and we work through everything. We build a framework for you and of what your practice goals are, how you're going to get there, what kind of things you need to work on, and then you've always got different points of contact to to help develop all of these things that you're. You know that you've always wanted to do so check out the Guitar Zoom Academy and see if it's something that you might be interested in. So, take care, stay positive and I'll talk to you soon, okay,