I had a really interesting discussion with one of my students this week. We were talking about what the most essential thing that a guitarist needs to get really good. Think about it for a minute. Is it a good teacher? Is it effective practice habits? What do you think we came up with?
Well, after about ten minutes of debating we came to the conclusion that desire is the most important thing. In other words, you need to feel a deep need to get good on the guitar. Without this strong desire you just won't do the work that it takes to get good. After all, you could go to a great teacher and learn the most effective practice strategies, but if you don't have the motivation to work hard you won't be getting good anytime soon.
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I've noticed over the years of doing one-to-one guitar lessons that the students who progress the fastest have certain qualities. And if I had to state what I feel are some of the most important, I would have to say these three…
Quality One: They work MUCH harder…
They simply do a lot more quality practice. Not just a little more. A hugely, vastly, larger amount more. And this makes total sense. With all other things being equal, the student who does focused and quality practice for two hours a day will progress much faster than the student who practices one hour a day. And the student who practices for four quality hours a day will progress a lot faster than the one who only practices two hours a day.
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Although every guitarist has their own personal reasons for starting lessons with a guitar tutor, you'll find that many guitar players starting lessons can be put into these general categories…
- Guitarists who have stopped making progress, and are unsure of what they need to do to get better.
- Guitarists who have never really made any significant sort of progress. They have played for years but haven't progressed past a fairly basic level of playing.
- Guitarists who feel that they could be progressing faster, but don't know what steps they need to take to speed up their progress.
And let's face it. These are situations where a good guitar tutor can really help. But did you realize that often many of these guitarists are focusing on the wrong thing? They are focused on information collecting rather than skill development.
What do I mean by this?
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An extremely important character trait to develop when improving your guitar playing is brutal honesty. What I mean by this is being totally honest with yourself about the results that you are currently getting from your guitar practice. In other words…is your current method of practicing guitar producing the results that you want? And if you're not getting the results you want…why not?
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Let's imagine for a minute that you are feeling really sick. In fact…you feel downright dreadful. You can't remember the last time you felt this bad.
Because you feel so sick, you decide to visit your local doctor. After the usual annoying wait, you go into the doctor's office. Before you say anything your doctor writes out a prescription for you…even though they haven't even tried to diagnose what the problem might be.
You then leave and stop by a pharmacy on the way home to get the medicine that was prescribed. You take the medicine for a couple of weeks. But it doesn't help…you still feel sick.
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I've noticed from my guitar teaching experience that many guitarists often feel immense frustration when it comes to their guitar playing. And while there are many potential reasons for this frustration, a very common one is having a short-term mindset. What I mean by this is that they are putting too much pressure on themselves to progress quickly. They want to get good, and they want to get good yesterday!
On the surface wanting to progress faster and faster may seem like a positive thing. (And there is certainly nothing wrong with being ambitious!). But unfortunately for many guitarists this all-consuming focus on their speed of progress can cause quite a few problems such as…
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One of the cool things about working on your guitar technique really hard is that you start to gain new insights. And these insights, although they may appear insignificant at times can actually make a huge difference to your playing. In fact, they often can make such a massive difference that you'll kick yourself that you didn't notice them sooner!
One insight in the realm of alternate picking is this…
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Have you ever noticed how guitarists who can alternate pick fast often make it look really easy? For Example: I remember watching a video of Tiago Della Vega setting the Guinness World Record for World's Fastest Guitarist. It was incredible to watch his picking hand as he played Flight Of The Bumblebee at a frightening 320bpm. Considering that song makes large use of sixteenth note rhythms, I think the tempo he played that song was otherworldly. (And it certainly inspired me enough to do lots of alternate picking practice for the rest of the day!).
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If you've been playing guitar for a while then you've probably come across the dreaded speed barrier. This is something that occurs anytime you can't reach a particular speed goal. And it can be a really frustrating experience. You want to be able to play something at a certain speed…but you can't. No matter how much you practice it, you can't get it faster.
For Example: Let's say that you want to learn a guitar lick by one of your favorite guitarists. So you practice it…and then you practice it some more. But what happens? Yep…you guessed it. You manage to build it up to 96 bpm. But unfortunately, the lick is supposed to be played at 144 bpm. You've hit the dreaded speed barrier!
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A common goal that crops up all the time when I'm teaching guitar is the goal of joining the band. And let's face it…it's a great goal. Being in a band will help you learn many musical skills that you just can't learn by yourself. Not to mention it's a fantastic way to stay motivated with your own guitar practice.
But here's the thing. Often guitarists are waiting to get "good enough" before they join a band. They want to get to a certain level of playing before they take the steps needed to be part of a band. Can you see some a problem with that?
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