You want to watch your favourite TV show when you’re supposed to be rehearsing? Don’t panic, a lot can be achieved by holding your guitar and constantly swapping from one chord to another or playing scales without plucking the strings with your right hand. What you’re doing is still training your left hand to play – it’s all solid practice. Good technique is locked-in habits when you’re playing. With your thumb on the back of the neck, remember?
Playing to a click track is really hard at first, but the advantages later on are immeasurable. Your sense of rhythm and timing will get an early boost, if you try using a metronome soon in your career. However, don’t stress about it too much and make sure you set the beats-per-minute (BPM) to something very slow. The idea is to get used to playing in time and at a steady tempo, but don’t rush this at the expense of learning technique. By the way, you’ll find heaps of metronome apps on the internet. And, here are 5 ways you can use a metronome to improve your guitar playing.
Playing some chords is harder than others. An F Major done properly, for example, requires a barre chord on the first fret and it’s a real challenge for new players. Trouble is, an F Major is a seriously important chord for many simple songs and unless you want to use a capo to avoid it (not a good idea, you can’t dodge it forever), you’re going to have to grit your teeth and learn it. The same applies for a B Minor, another barre chord (see below). Some seventh and ninth chords will tangle your fingers big-time and seem impossible.
Don’t shun the hard chords, just because they’re a pain to learn. Even though it can be really frustrating spend more time on them, practice these constantly and the musical doors will open to a lot more songs and some impressive playing. Trust me, you won’t regret it doing the “hard” yards.
Chord progressions are the patterns that music composers use to put musical notes and chords together. When writing music, chord progressions are critical that sound harmonious and have the desired tones. One can use four-chord progressions, five-chord progressions, two-chord progressions, or however many they’d like. It is possible for any one chord to progress to any one of the other chords in a key; However, certain chord progressions are used more frequently than others. Learn more about Songs chords.
Find one guitar-related thing a day that you didn’t know already and learn it-and play it. It can be a riff, a lick, a chord, a scale, an exercise, a song, a melody, an altered tuning, a strum pattern, the part of a song you know all the riffs to but never bothered to learn the “boring” connecting transition sections of, whatever.
The discipline of seeking out, playing and internalizing a new piece of guitar knowledge on a daily basis will feed your subconscious musical instincts, add new concepts to your muscle memory and ultimately aid in your ability to express yourself and perform effortlessly on the guitar. Make this a part of your day and you’ll find that as you continue on your journey, one thing will become two, then three, and on and on until you are devouring as much as you can absorb on the guitar, every day!