Cool Guitar Practice Hacks That Make Other Guitarists Envy Your Guitar Playing
Could you increase your guitar practice time by 4 hours every day?
Yeah, I couldn’t either.
However, you certainly can do this…
You can make your guitar practice 4 times more efficient than it is now…
This gives you much better results in the same amount of practice time.
Good news too: this is very easy.
These 5 guitar practice hacks help you make progress at lightning-speed by making it more efficient:
Guitar Practice Hack #1: Make Micro Goals
You know how some people set goals that can be reached quickly, some that take a while and some that take years?
Another great approach is setting micro goals.
These are very small goals you plan on reaching each time you practice.
You can set micro goals for all areas of your guitar playing regardless (including technical or theoretical practice items).
For instance — check out this video about lead guitar playing and soloing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sikJPt5n6oA
A great micro goal (seen in this video) could be to:
Practice delayed vibrato for 20 minutes while making the vibrato speed consistent for every note you play.
Productive micro goals are always:
*Extremely-specific (the more specific — the bigger the result).
*Realistic to achieve in a single practice session.
Want to know more about creating micro goals and getting big results from your practice time? Take this free guitar practicing test and see how to get more results from every moment of practice.
Guitar Practice Hack #2: Put Yourself On The Right Path
How can you make your guitar practice time unbelievably effective?
It’s easy:
Make a plan about what you are going to practice before you even touch your instrument.
…and think through your guitar skill practice routines a few days in advance.
Here’s why this is effective:
Different guitar playing items need to be practiced in various ways.
For instance:
*Guitar technique is good to practice every day, in moderate amounts of time.
*Non-playing skills like aural skills & fretboard knowledge are best worked on multiple times per day, in small blocks of time.
*Creative skills like guitar solo phrasing or songwriting are best practiced less frequently, but for extended periods of time per session.
There is no great way to practice all of these skills in a single practice session.
When you plan out your practice schedules a few days in advance, you can include all the skills you need to work on so nothing is missed.
This is how you get the most benefits out of every minute of your practice time.
Download this free guitar practice cheat sheet to learn how to create effective practice schedules.
https://tomhess.net/files/images/PracticeGuitar/Guitar-Practice-Schedule-Cheat-Sheet.pdf
Guitar Practice Hack #3: Free Up Space In Your Brain
What is the energy core of your guitar practice?
(Hint: it’s not your arms/hands.)
It’s your brain.
That’s right.
What your brain focuses on determines the amount of progress you make in each practice session.
Your objective is to:
*Free up your brain from all the distractions that slow down your progress.
*Focus your thoughts like a laser on the things that help you develop your guitar playing.
Use a timer while practicing to free up your brain.
Set it to count down for a specific amount of time for each item, then get started practicing.
This is how this helps you:
- It’s easier to focus on practicing (rather than worrying about how much time you have left).
- You feel more dedicated to following through and practicing for the whole time you set.
- You stop practicing items too much or too little.
Want to know another awesome way to free up your brain?
Totally master the motions in each hand.
Meaning: don’t rely on the motions of one hand to tell the other hand what needs to happen.
You’d be surprised at how common (and destructive) of a problem this is.
This video explains what I mean:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iacQvKMSx6A
Guitar Practice Hack #4: Prioritize Process Over Outcome
The more you have fun practicing, the more likely you will keep doing it.
The more consistently you practice, the more quickly you reach your goals.
The faster you reach your goals, the more fun you have practicing.
It’s not complicated.
Use the following advice to make guitar practice more enjoyable:
Tip #1: Strive To Get Better, Not To Play Perfectly.
Focus on making your playing much better when you practice rather than worrying about playing perfectly.
The improvements you make with consistent practice add up to making you play things perfectly over time.
Thinking like this makes practicing guitar much less frustrating and more effective in the long run.
Tip #2: Improve Your Creativity.
Creativity is a skill that can be improved and mastered just as much as any other guitar technique. Schedule time to work on it in the same way.
The more creative you become, the more your playing feels musical rather than just like you have mastered a bunch of isolated guitar skills.
Don’t be like many guitarists by only practicing technique/scales/speed, but never learning how to use these things musically.
Want to learn an easy way to develop your musical creativity? Watch this video:
Embed video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBWNQZptHXg
Tip #3: Consistently Track Your Musical Progress
Tracking your progress transforms guitar practice into a game where you keep score every week.
It shows you what is and isn’t working in your practice, so you know what to do to get better next week (while creating your next practice schedule).
Guitar Practice Hack #5: Focus On All 3 Layers Of Practice
Mastering something on guitar involves focusing on these 3 layers:
Isolation practice — practicing something outside of any musical context.
Application practice — using an item in a musical context.
Integration practice — combining something together with other skills you already know.
What does this mean for your practice?
Focus your guitar practice on all these layers simultaneously.
Don’t wait to master something in isolation before applying and integrating it.
Start applying what you are practicing before you have mastered it in isolation.
You will make mistakes at first, but this is not a problem.
This is what else will happen:
Your mistakes show you what to improve on during isolation practice.
This speeds up your progress helping you master the item super-fast.
Now you know how to make your guitar practice routine incredibly effective. The next step is to build a guitar practice schedule that takes the guesswork & frustration from your practice. Take this free guitar practicing test and see how to get more results from every moment of practice.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, touring musician and composer. He teaches electric guitar online lessons to guitarists around the world. Follow Tom Hess on Facebook for daily guitar playing tips and links to free guitar resources.
