Have your guitar skills stagnated? Perhaps you have been practicing daily but have found you cannot get past your particular level. It’s understandably frustrating, as most people think that getting better at an instrument naturally happens the more you practice it. While this is definitely true, you can’t only rely on playing the same songs over and over again to develop your guitar skills – you need to try out different techniques. If you’re ready to take your guitar playing to the next level, consider these six useful techniques.
- Record Yourself Playing
You’ll often find it’s far easier to notice mistakes made by other guitar players compared to your own. When you’re busy playing, you won’t pay attention to the minor errors you may make along the way, instead ignoring them and carrying on as normal – in some cases, these mistakes may become part of how you play. To get better, record yourself playing and look closely at your techniques. Seeing yourself from an outside perspective in this way can be eye-opening!
- Use Guitar Tabs
If you want to learn a new song but are struggling, use guitar notes, also known as guitar tabs. This method is a little different from sheet music. While sheet music provides you with the chords you need to play, guitar tabs give you a visual representation of where your fingers should go. In this way, it’s a lot more like a real-life teacher. You can learn with these as slowly as you’d like, getting used to the movement before progressing to the entire song.
- Play to a Metronome
A metronome is one of the handiest pieces of equipment for anyone who plays an instrument, including the guitar. If part of your problem is that you struggle to stay on time with songs, practice guitar with a metronome. Not only will it keep you on time, but it will also improve your overall concentration.
- Break Songs Down
It can be challenging to motivate yourself when a song is too hard to play in its entirety. You’ll never be able to play a song from start to finish without practice, though. To make it easier and improve your skills, break songs down and practice each part separately before putting them all together and playing from start to finish. It’s a technique that’s especially effective for more challenging, complicated songs that have a lot of chords and swift changes.
- Try Alternative Picking
Alternative picking on the guitar refers to using your pick to strum both upwards and downwards while you play, which is endorsed by the great Steve Morse, who famously played for Deep Purple throughout most of his musical career. The reason this works well is that it teaches you more tone control. The more you practice it, the more efficient your movements become, and eventually, it will lead to you being able to play faster.
- Keep Your Guitar Set Up
It’s no secret that the key to getting good at guitar is practicing daily. Yes – that means every single day, without fail. That’s often easier said than done, especially with how busy life can be. A simple way to increase your chances of picking up the guitar every day is by always having it set up and within reach. If it’s easy to play, you’re more likely to do so.