To become a better guitar player, you should not stop your practice once you've completed your training. Whether you have done a diploma or a degree program from a music school or learned under a professional guitarist, you should continue to practice playing the guitar daily, using the techniques that you've learned. This will help you to improve your skills. Once you get better with the techniques, you will be able to improvise them and develop your personal style of playing the guitar.
Playing your favourite songs is a good way to keep the enthusiasm alive. If your friends love music, you can play it at get-togethers. You can even think of forming a band with your friends if you have good vocalists and musicians among them. Playing at small parties and local concerts will definitely make you a better guitar player. To help you get going, the most important steps have been listed out below.
Continuous Learning & Practice
Once you have spent around a year acquiring all the basic skills and you want to take it to the next level you have to get deeper into your practice. Usually, most guitar players begin their journey with a lot of excitement. But once they learn how to play songs, they don't persevere to follow through. They don't spend enough time practicing and lose the passion to evolve into a better player. So to keep the momentum going, here are some things that you can do:
Learn New Techniques
The best way to progress is by learning new chords and applying them to play songs. Work on learning how to play slash chords to create smooth transitions between chords. Practice playing the new chords and the ones that you already know in different positions on the neck of the guitar. This will help you to improvise and bring a lot more versatility to your playing.
In addition to the regular strumming patterns that you play to produce various rhythms, try to pick up advanced strumming patterns. This can include combining mute strumming techniques along with rhythm playing in various tempos. To acquire these skills you must invest time in listening to songs that have employed similar techniques.
Improve Guitar Playing Skills
The faster your fingers move, the better you will get at playing guitar. Your finger muscles need to be extremely flexible and in shape. To achieve this, you need to play scales daily. This exercise is beneficial to keep your fingers pliant and in shape. Ideally, you should practice for 30 minutes a day.
Playing to a metronome will improve your speed. It will positively impact every aspect of your playing. Your ability to play chords, riffs, and high-speed runs is bound to become better. You should also work on increasing the range of your scales from pentatonic and major scales to major pentatonic, Mixolydian, harmonic minor scale, etc.
Study Music Theory
It's not enough to simply learn guitar-playing techniques. It is also equally important to study music theory and implement put your knowledge to practice if you wish to become a better guitar player. Studying theory will help you in answering a lot of questions that are bound to come your way while you training to be a guitarist. You will get answers to questions like what scale has to be played, why a chord is named in a certain way, how to play a particular chord etc. Your overall understanding of the subject will improve if you study music theory.
Gaining First-hand Experience
The best way to improve your guitar playing skills is by undertaking various practical exercises that will give you a taste of what it is to be a professional guitarist. You will notice a steady growth in your learning curve. You will feel more confident about your ability to play the instrument and that will motivate you to keep working on your skills and perfecting them. Here are some of the things that you can do to become a better guitar player.
Collaborate with Other Musicians
A great deal of learning happens when you collaborate with others to play music. Learning and practicing on your own is fine and so is playing solo. But when you play with others, you gain many new skills. Step out to find other musicians and play with them. Joining a band is one of the best ways to learn. But getting entry into one may not be easy. In that case, look for fellow musicians with a similar skill level as yours.
You can build your team by adding one member at a time if it feels too exhausting to find everyone at one go. You can start with a drummer, then a bass player, and so on. Playing in a band is all about collaborating and synchronizing your guitar with the drums, keyboard, bass, etc. You have to play and perform as a unit. This gives a great sense of accomplishment and thrill.
Be Creative
To improve guitar playing skills, make sure to explore your creative side. You should make your music and this exercise will let you put your learning to practice. Initially, it might feel confusing and difficult. But you need not start with anything complicated. Begin with a basic chord progression, write a few short lines, and hum a simple melody for those lines. It's a great practice exercise.
Record Your Music
Don't stop with making music. Take a step forward and record it at home using recording software on your computer. Doesn't matter if it is a riff or a small solo. The idea is to evaluate your skills. Listening to the record will help you to understand your strengths and weaknesses. The record will tell you where you need to work. This is one way of perfecting your skills. Plus, recording your own music is fun. You can share with friends or fellow musicians. You might end up getting constructive feedback from them. You'll also learn to use various software for programming, producing, and mixing music. This is great for your ear training.
Building the Right Attitude
Having the right attitude is important for finding success in any field. As a musician, you have to be friendly and easy to approach. This will bring you opportunities to collaborate with other musicians. You also need to be open to feedback from peers and the audience. Having an open mind will help you to take these positively and use them to improve your skills.
Find good guitar lessons here on Superprof.
Stay Motivated
The way to keep yourself motivated and inspired is to listen to the works of your favourite arts, read about how they have found success, watch music documentaries and also listen to new music. You should attend concerts, performances by popular bands and music festivals to keep yourself immersed in music. Work on your networking skills by interacting with musicians and finding out how they land their gigs. You can ask for their advice on how to improve your skills.
Practice Daily
Simply having a passion for music is not going to turn you into a better guitar player. You have to devote time to practice. Successful musicians, even at the prime of their careers don't stop practicing. That is the only way to get better at this. You must practice regularly to grow as a musician. Working hard is the only way to find success. Try not to skip your daily practice. Tell yourself it's as important as eating and sleeping.
Have Patience
Don't expect overnight success. It will take time to gain the right set of skills. It takes years of practice to be successful in this field. Every day is an opportunity to learn something new. Hone your skills through daily practice. There'll be times when you'll feel like giving up. But if you are truly passionate about music, it will be easier for you to work towards your goal. It takes time to play chords with perfection, hitting the right notes is not always easy. But patience and resilience will take you where you want to reach.
It's not always possible to achieve everything on one's own. Taking lessons from an experienced guitar player can be very helpful. You can easy guitar strumming techniques and get introduced to the best guitar chords guide through your mentor. Portals like Superprof can help you find guitar classes near me. You will be able to progress fairly quickly with professional help. It's time to get going with your lessons!
Find a teacher today for guitar classes online.
Enjoyed this article? Leave a rating!
Loading...
Cool and true cues or advises , good to hear it all I mean read it all. Finally got motivated to practice more to be a better star tomorrow. Thanks a lot and love from myself. Tada….