Make A Game Of Your Guitar Practice And Surprise Yourself
By Jeremiah Thompson, Sat Dec 10th

So you want to be improve your guitar playing?

Well, like any thing, guitar skill progress takes time andpractice, but many of us have much difficulty practicingregularly because it is so easy to let other things takepriority over our guitar lessons.

First, you need to absolutely make up your mind that you want toimprove your guitar playing and then make sure that yourprogress is truly is a priority for you.

Make a list of the most important things that you need to focuson in your life right now and honestly assess where guitar fitsinto your list.

Ideally, you want to be engaged in a guitar lesson for at leastan hour a day in order to make any significant progress.

However, you may have to conclude that at this point you are notgoing to be able to devote even an hour a week to the task.

If that is the case, try to spend some casual time readingguitar-related publications or listening to your favoriteguitarists to nurture your love of the music. When yourpriorities change and you have more time, you will then at leaststill have a strong interest in becoming as good a guitarist asyou can. Listening to Eric Clapton or other greats will onlykindle your interest and may even cause you to reprioritize yourguitar lessons.

Once you see where your guitar practice fits in with the rest ofyour life, make a true appointment with yourself. Put yourpractice into your schedule. Get it in your planner or it won'tget done!

Okay, now that you are regularly spending time with your belovedguitar, what should you do?

First, make sure it is quality time. Don't have the televisionon or be hanging out with friends. Then, make sure you areworking on skills that you need to sharpen.

If you spend time strumming popular solos and cranking up youramplifier, you may have some fun, but you will not improve yourskills.

Think about the chords and scales that you struggle with. Gradeyourself on them on a scale (no pun intended) of 1 to 10 andthen re-evaluate every week or so. Re-grading every practice orguitar lesson is not appropriate because it is unfair to measureprogress that frequently.

No one improves in a straight line. You may hit a certain chordgreat one day and then have two of the strings sound veryunclear the next day. However, if you work diligently you willmake progress when measured every couple weeks or so.

Do the same thing with scales and even notes depending on yourcurrent skill level.

Once you have a way of measuring your progress, you will beinspired to continue with

your regular practice regimen andguitar lessons.

As an advanced step, after you have made progress with a certaingroup of chords and scales, you should find a song you like thatuses many of those elements and work on that as a way ofapplying your improved ability.

This can be very rewarding.

You may even want to start with the song and work backwards, butmake sure that you do spend a great deal of time on thefundamentals before you get serious about the song.

The key to all this is regular consistent work and a measurementof results. Achieve this, and you will enjoy your practice timemore and more. Challenge yourself to be at a certain grade by aspecific time.

Make a game of your practice efforts and you will surpriseyourself!

About the author:Jeremiah Thompson is an amateur guitar player and true lover ofthe instrument and its rich sounds. He enjoys writing about guitar chords and guitarpractice.