Getting Out of a Rut

Your guitar playing will improve at a snail's pace until you learn exactly what holds you back from achieving your musical goals. Until you figure it out, you will always be frustrated whenever you try to practice and make progress.

Here are five major reasons why your guitar playing is progressing very slowly (and what you must do to improve much faster):

1. You Practice Guitar For The Sake Of Practicing

Everyone knows the old adage "practice makes perfect". You've probably also been told at one time or another that "perfect practice makes perfect". The reality is, neither of these statements describe the big picture when it comes to making fast progress on guitar. To make fast progress, you must first have a strategy, then execute it perfectly.

Here is the difference between practicing guitar with and without a strategy:

While practicing without a strategy, you slowly build a collection of tablature, exercises and random lessons. This is all done for the general goal of getting better. This leads to the following:

1. You feel overwhelmed by all the practice items you have. This is because all the materials, lessons or videos you accumulated do not share a part in helping you achieve specific musical goals ASAP. In other words, they are not part of an overarching strategy.

2. You don't actively track the progress you make, since you never established clear musical goals. As a result, you practice for days, weeks, months or years without ever accomplishing much.

3. Your musical skills are unbalanced (read below to learn more about this).

Note: having effective practice habits mean nothing if you are lacking a strategy. Knowing how to practice the wrong things correctly is equally as bad as knowing how to practice the right things incorrectly.

On the other hand, developing a guitar practice strategy begins with your highest musical goals. You need to understand what exercises to practice on guitar to achieve those goals, and not distract yourself with random things that do not further your progress toward them. In other words, your guitar playing goals should be like a filter that only lets the right items pass through into your practice sessions (while filtering out everything else).

2. You Don't Know What It Takes To Become A Better Guitarist Each Time You Pick Up Your Instrument

Understanding what you must practice is only part of the equation when it comes to progressing on guitar. To quickly make progress, you need to know what and how to practice. Even if you have the best strategy along with a list full of all the right practice items, it will be of no use if you:

1. Practice mindlessly on guitar.

2. Don't know how to quickly and effectively solve any guitar playing problems that occur.

3. Have not created an effective guitar practicing schedule.

The best way to understand the most effective approaches to practicing guitar is to work with a guitar instructor who A.) has achieved the same goals you are working towards B.) knows how to quickly take you from where you are now to where you want to be in your guitar playing and C.) has proven methods for helping so-so guitarists transform into great guitarists.

3. You've Only Learned Guitar On Your Own

Many guitar players make the decision to learn guitar on their own, because they believe they can improve just as fast by themselves as they would by working with a teacher. This belief is truly self-destructive! Here are only a couple of reasons why this thinking is completely wrong:

1. Random guitar practice materials or videos you find online can't help you understand when you are practicing ineffectively, reinforcing poor guitar playing habits or spending endless hours working on items that are pushing you away from your goals. They also cannot supply answers to your questions, give you instructive feedback on your guitar playing and cannot customize themselves to your exact skill level/musical interests. This leaves you to fend for yourself as you must attempt to improve your guitar playing through trial and error.

On the other hand, an experienced guitar teacher will create a strategy that is personal to your needs, hold your hand each step of the way as you reach your musical goals, and motivate you throughout the process. This helps you reach your goals much faster and saves you tons of frustration and hardship. This leads to point two:

2. Guitarists who learn alone, usually make much slower progress once they become unmotivated to practice (since they aren't seeing much results). Working with a great guitar teacher eliminates this issue. Not only does your teacher help you learn exactly what and how to practice, but he holds you responsible for the progress you make and will frequently push you to make the greatest progress possible. Without this kind of accountability, you experience a HUGE slowdown in your progress.

For example, think of improving on guitar like trying to lose weight at a gym. Learning guitar by yourself is like using an exercise video someone recommended to you and losing interest in a matter of several weeks, once you don't meet your weight-loss expectations. This is often very frustrating and causes a lot of people to quit going to the gym.

Compare this to a personal trainer who will:

· Make sure you stay motivated to go to the gym each week.

· Explain that your initial weight loss is normal, because your body is making adjustments to your new training program and that the weight you put on after exercising is really muscle (this is good!). Actually, something like this happens in guitar playing, when your skills momentarily seem to regress, as you start the process of eliminating poor guitar playing habits.

· Create a highly effective program that is customized to meet your goals, fitness level and personal motivation.

In the first situation, you prevent yourself from ever losing weight. In the second situation, you have the greatest possibility of not only achieving your goals, but having a good time doing it (while avoiding injury).

4. Your Guitar Playing Is Unbalanced

It is common for most guitarists to practice what they can already do well and avoid improving the weak areas in their playing. This will lead your guitar playing to become unbalanced. As a result, your overall guitar playing will be held back by your weaknesses, and you won't be able to take full advantage of your strengths.

I often get e-mails from guitar players who practice technique for hours every day, yet are unable to play killer guitar solos. I explain to them that technique is only a single part of playing guitar solos. To become a better lead guitarist, one must improve guitar phrasing, expand music theory knowledge, gain a clear visualization of the fretboard and make progress with various other skills. Even if you don't have an interest in lead guitar, it's likely that your skills are unbalanced in this same manner (from years of using poor playing habits).

5. You're Oblivious To (And Don't Know How To Correct) Your Poor Guitar Playing Habits

Once you understand what/how you should be practicing, poor guitar playing habits can still prevent you from making fast progress, unless you know how to diagnose and solve them.

Stop Believing These Lies About Slow Guitar Playing Progress:

Now that you know the 5 things that make it very difficult to improve your guitar playing, here are 3 things that truly have nothing to do with your lack of progress:

1. Not Having Natural Talent: Tons of guitar players think they can't get better at a faster pace because they aren't naturally gifted. Fact is, all awesome guitarists sucked at one point, and it was NOT natural talent that helped them overcome challenges to become great. They became great players because they spend every waking moment working as hard as they could to get better (and did not make any of the mistakes discussed in this article). When you do this too, you will get the same results they got.

2. Not Being Young Enough: Your age has nothing to do with your ability to transform your guitar playing. The fear of being too old to become a great guitarist is based on a total myth.

3. Having Only A Small Amount Of Practice Time: Regardless of much time you have to practice guitar, you CAN improve very quickly, as long as you don't make the mistakes mentioned above.

About The Author:
Tom Hess is a successful professional guitar player, composer and international guitar teacher. He also helps musicians learn guitar online and reach their guitar playing goals. Visit his rock and metal guitar lessons site to read more articles about guitar playing, plus get free guitar tips and guitar playing resources.

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