Category: How to Practice Guitar

December 13, 2009

How a Black Belt Lesson Improved My Guitar Playing

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Many years ago I discovered some very powerful martial arts techniques that can be used to improve your guitar playing.

One of the techniques that I have found to be very effective is called the 10 Method.

The 10 Method is best used when you are having difficulty learning to play a new song, chord, scale or technique.

The goal of the 10 Method is for you to be able to repeat the music (new song, chord, scale or technique) 10 times in a row without a mistake.  If you make an error on the 9th repetition, you must start all over again on repetition one.  In other words, you haven’t mastered a song, chord, scale or technique, etc., until you can correctly perform it 10 times in a row.

Let’s say you have been working on a song for while now but you just can’t nail down that second riff.  The first thing you should do is isolate the limiting factor of the riff.  In the riff is there one part that you find to be trickier than the rest?  Is there one fingering that is giving you problems? Or, is it that you are having problems memorizing the notes in the passage?

Once you have determined the limiting factor for the riff you want to focus on just that one part.  Let’s say that the riff is 14 notes and you have determined the trouble spot in the riff is a 7 note passage.

Using the 10 Method your goal would be to play the 7 note passage correctly 10 times in a row.  As you apply the 10 Method to the passage you will find that either you will be able to master the passage with a bit of work, or you will discover that there is something within the riff that is giving you some trouble.  You might notice that you are rarely able to get past the 4th note without making a mistake.  If this is the case what you should do is start to break the passage down into smaller chunks.

First, play just the first 3 notes with the 10 Method.  Once you can play the first 3 notes correctly 10 times through, you are ready to add in the 4th note.
After you can play the first 4 notes correctly, start to work on the first 5 notes with the 10 Method.  Simply continue this process by adding in the additional notes and  you’ve got the trouble spot licked.

Now add in the additional notes from the riff and apply the 10 Method to the entire riff.

This just scratches the surface of the possible ways you can use this powerful technique. Feel free to experiment and come up with ideas of your own.

December 13, 2009

How to Get Great Results From Every Single Guitar Session

categories Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Guitar Lessons, How to Practice Guitar | comments 0 Comments

Are you ready to get great results every time you pick up the guitar?

One of the keys to getting the most out of each and every practice session is: focus.

If you are not able to keep your focus during your practice session what kind of results can you really expect from your time?

To keep your focus during your practice session, you must eliminate as many potential interruptions as possible.  When you do this you ensure that your practice time remains your practice time, not time that can be easily stolen from you.

An interruption is anything that diverts your attention from what you have chosen to spend your time on—playing guitar.

An interruption may be someone knocking on your front door, someone calling you on the telephone, or if your computer is on all the time, it could be the little “ping” sound that says you have email.

If you share accommodations with others, let them know that you are not available during your practice session.  Turn off the ringer on your phone, and let your answering system handle any calls.

An interruption steals time from your guitar playing two ways:

1) The actual time of the interruption.  This is the amount of time it takes you to put the guitar down to answer the phone and then return to the guitar.

2) Once you are playing again you have to pick up where you left off. It can take quite some time to get back into the flow of what you were doing, or sometimes you just never quite get back to where you were.

Don’t let this happen.  Take control of your time and eliminate as many interruptions as you can before you start your guitar practice session.

Does this include the TV?

The best-case scenario is to have completed your guitar session before you sit down to watch television.  When you do turn on the TV, by all means, play some guitar if you feel like it.  Just don’t consider it to be a true practice session—look at it as being bonus guitar time.

Remember that anything that takes away your concentration will slow down your progress.  So it’s much better to play guitar for a half an hour and then put your guitar away and watch television for a half an hour, rather than play guitar for an hour while you watch TV.

If you want to watch TV and play guitar watch something that will improve your guitar playing…concert DVDs and instructional guitar DVDs.

Play your electric or accoustic guitar without interuptions for 30 days and see the improvements!

December 13, 2009

Kaizen and the Art of Guitar Practice

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Kaizen is a Japanese word that means “constant and never-ending improvement”.

Kaizen aims to make small and continuous improvements in all areas of life.

The power of Kaizen is that these small and constant improvements add up exponentially over time.

In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to apply this simple but powerful technique to improve your guitar playing.

The Power of  Micro-Goals

Let’s say you want to improve your performance of a new scale fingering.

If you are currently able to play the scale as eighth notes at 60 beats per minute, your Kaizen goal may be to play the scale at 61 beats per minute.  If you’re a more advanced player, you might want to move up to 62 bpm, or maybe 63 bpm, etc.

As you can see, the goal is not to jump from 60 beats per minute to 200.  The focus is on small consistent improvement.

“Small” is going to be relative your skill level.  If you’re already able to play the scale at 140 beats per minute, then this is where you would start.   You might be able to move up the metronome in increments of 5 or even 10 bpms at a time. Again, your level of skill will be the determining factor.

Now let’s say that you wanted to work on improving your performance of a song.

Let’s say that you have already learned the song and just want to improve your performance of it.  A great way to measure your performance improvements is to record yourself playing the song.  This means that you record yourself performing the song after you have warmed-up.

Next, continue to practice the song with a focus on the aspect of the song you want to improve.  For example you may decide that you need to focus on technique, phrasing, or rhythm.   Just before the end of your practice session, record yourself again performing the song.  Now you can compare your two performances.  Make sure that as you listen to the recording you listen for improvement in the specific aspect you have applied Kaizen to.

Now depending on your skill level, it might be tricky for you to actually hear improvements in your playing by the end of your practice session.  If this is the case, make your next recording after a couple of practice sessions, or maybe at the end of the week.

This short tutorial showed you the basics of how to apply Kaizen to your guitar playing.

Experiment with this.

Come up with your own Kaizen goals.

Think of creative ways you can apply this to your practice sessions.  And of course, have lots of fun with this technique.

Here’s something you can do to remember to apply Kaizen to your practice session.  All you need is a pen and 3 Post-it Notes®.

On the 3 Post-it Notes®, write the word “Kaizen”.  Now place one Post-it Note® on your bathroom mirror.  Place one on your guitar case and place the third on your music stand, book or amp.  The idea here is that every time you go to practice you will see the reminders and think Kaizen.

Remember that Kaizen is all about taking tiny little baby steps and improving with each step. Focus on getting a little better every time you play guitar and over the course a few months you will notice substantial improvements in your guitar playing.

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