If you really want to learn to play the guitar well, you must do one simple thing first of all. You must learn how learning occurs between your muscles and your brain. If you understand the process your brain must go through to train your muscles, your practice sessions will yield predictably effective results.
You’ve probably heard the term muscle memory. This is your brain’s process of learning and storing a set of precise instructions for each muscle group required for every little task that you want your fingers to perform on the guitar. When muscle memory is solidly established, playing the guitar well becomes an effortless and almost unconscious natural act.
These tasks should be practiced at speeds slow enough that you can perform them perfectly consistently. If you practice the guitar at a tempo that produces a lot of errors, you end up teaching your muscles to play the exercise with the errors included. Unfortunately, the muscles cannot distinguish between playing with mistakes and playing without them.
Here are 12 tips for having practice sessions that will support the development of good muscle memory:
1. Prepare your whole body for the practice session.
Practice while you are relaxed. Just like an airplane pilot checks the plane before taking off, you should check your body for tension, stiffness, stiffness, pain, or discomfort. Tight muscles can become more tense during practice, which can seriously limit the full range of motion required to master the guitar. Even the tension in the shoulders can travel to the arms and finally to the fingers. Stretch and warm your entire body before playing to keep yourself loose. Start practicing with slow and easy exercises to prepare your hands for more demanding new material.
2. Practice in a quiet, comfortable place where you are unlikely to be disturbed.
3. Commit to a specific time each day to practice.
Begin each day with a firm commitment to a practice plan that includes the specifics of when, where, and what to play.
4. Keep your practice sessions short, frequent, and very specific.
It is more effective to practice 20 minutes every day than to practice two or three hours once a week.
5. Always practice with a metronome.
Let me repeat that. Always practice with a metronome. It’s surprising how often even good guitarists break this rule. Training yourself to play at a steady pace will make your music sound professional. This is valuable if you plan to play just for friends at a party or in a stadium full of screaming fans.
6. Tune the guitar before each practice.
7. Determine your optimal practice speeds.
For each part of a scale, exercise, or song, find the fastest metronome speed you can play without making mistakes. Practice it for a day at 25% to 30% of that maximum tempo. Follow this with one day at 50% of the maximum and then another day at 75%. On the fourth day, practice at your old top speed. You might be pleasantly surprised to find that you have a new, faster top speed. However, keep in mind that this routine may seem ridiculously slow, but hold on because it will really pay off.
8. Don’t try to learn too many different things in each practice session.
Practice only small sections of an exercise or song at a time. Working on a completely new song, all on one stage, makes it harder for your brain to cement solid memories of the muscles. Just like a newborn baby cannot handle a full meal of solid foods, we need to practice only a few small musical spoonfuls at a time.
9. Work on the problem parts, not just what you already know.
This may seem extremely obvious, but new guitarists tend to play the easy parts over and over again while continuing to stumble over the trouble spots.
10. Spend the first ten minutes warming up, then divide the remaining time equally between new exercises and new songs.
11. Set aside some time to play the guitar.
Make sure to inject a good dose of fun into every practice session. If you’ve been working on blues scales, why not put in some jam tracks or even your favorite blues CD and try jamming a solo? Select a favorite song to work on at the end of each practice session.
12. If you plan to perform in front of people
perfect your songs in private and then practice playing in front of supportive friends and family. Create a practice environment that is as close as possible to the conditions of your next performance. If you are going to perform standing up, then practice that way. Tell your friendly practice audience to feel free to talk and laugh during your practice. This will help you learn to be comfortable in a distracting concert environment. Consider recording your practice sessions with a simple home video camera on a tripod.
Opening night nerves can disrupt your game no matter how well you know the material. If you’ve repeatedly practiced playing in simulated concert settings, then the real deal can be very straightforward.
The bottom line: To play well, you must recognize how your body is programmed to learn and then design practice sessions that are complementary.