Over the past year or so I've been publishing various useful tips for guitar players over on my social media. These have all been tips that I either apply in my own playing today or that I have found useful at some point over the years. Some of them are established practices and pieces of wisdom that have long been passed down from teacher to student. But many of them are ideas that I have come to realise and understand through my own experiences as a guitar player and guitar teacher.
From tips on how to tackle specific techniques to general tips on how to stay motivated when learning, together they cover a broad range of topics. What's more, each of these topics is something that every guitar player will come across at some point during their own development. So given the breadth and prevalence of these tips, I thought it would be a good idea to compile them all in one place.
So in part one of this two-part post, I'll be outlining the first group of these tips. I'll also be accompanying each of them with their original social media posts published under the heading of Weekly Tips. If you haven't already, feel free to head over to my Instagram and Facebook pages where you can keep up with all the latest goings-on at Guitar Practice. Let's jump straight into the first of 22 useful tips for guitar players.
1. Measure your progress.
There are lots of things you can do such as listening back to recordings to hear your progress, count the number of new bars of music or the number of new chords you’ve learnt each week. Whatever it is, it will be the fuel to keep yourself motivated in your playing.
2. Be an honest version of yourself, not a version of someone else.
We often want to emulate others who we see having success. Whist this can be educational, following some else’s footsteps won’t lead to authentic results and you only deprive yourself and the world of your unique and individual approach. So be honest with your creative endeavours as there will only ever be one version of you.
3. Practice the guitar in a classical-style position.
Try this whilst using a footstool to elevate your leg as this will give you much better access to the full fretboard, as well as making difficult finger positions easier and limit the need for awkward hand stretches.
It will also help you maintain good posture and reduce the risk of injury and strain from long-term practice with bad posture.
4. Don’t forget to breathe!
A common cause of difficulty when practising is a build-up of tension. This is often the result of shallow or erratic breathing combined with bad posture.
Aim to feel relaxed when playing by drawing your attention to how you are breathing and your overall posture. Try taking deep and steady breaths when playing, and avoid slouching as this restricts your diaphragm and how much you can breathe in.
5. Practice your picking technique at the absolute limit.
Stay at the edge of your ability and get used to playing in this zone. It’s here where the most progress is made.
Building speed gradually is good for learning the mechanics of a lick, but to really improve you need to spend time pushing beyond your limit.
At higher speeds, you engage different muscles and your brain process the notes you play at a different rate, so it’s important to get used to this in order to improve.
6. Miss out the lower strings of a chord.
This is useful if you’re looking to expand your chord vocabulary but are struggling to move beyond basic barre shapes.
It will free up fingers on your fretting hand and allow you to experiment with adding different notes to create more interesting chords.
The lower notes you miss (usually root and 5th) will still be played by other instruments in a song, often the bass, so it won’t sound strange without them.
7. Squeeze, don’t press!!
A lot of beginners struggle with pressing their fingers against the string in order to hold down a note or chord.
A different way of thinking about it is to try and squeeze your fingers and thumb together through the neck. This can make a big difference as you will use the combined strength of your fingers and thumb, which makes holding down notes easier.
8. Target chord tones of the underlying harmony.
Try aiming for specific notes that fall within the underlying chord or harmony, either on the first beat of the bar or whenever the chord changes.
This is a great way to make a solo or improvisation sound more musically cohesive with the song or backing track that you are playing to.
9. Explore more than one style of playing
Whilst it's good to have a speciality, try not to develop this at the expense of other styles and approaches to guitar. It is exploring other styles and approaches, in combination with your speciality where real development is found.
10. Try licks in different fretboard positions
The beauty of the guitar is that you can play the same thing in multiple places on the fretboard. Playing in different fretboard positions can help you find better finger combinations or lead you to surprising variations on an idea.
11. Use the tip of your first finger to help with string muting.
Fretting with the flat part of your finger can allow your fingertip to rest gently on the string below and prevent it from ringing out. This is useful for fast picking repetitive note patterns where the right hand might not be able to keep all the lower strings muted.
So that's it for part 1 of this post. I hope you find some of these tips useful and are able to apply them to your own playing or pass them on to fellow players to promote the sharing of ideas and knowledge, so we can all become better guitar players.
Be sure to check out part 2 of this post, and whilst you're here have a sneak peek at my online shop for the latest lessons and tab packs. You can also subscribe to my newsletter on the home page to get a free download of the tabs and Guitar Pro files from my most recent video.
Thanks for reading and happy practising.
David