Here’s Why You Don’t Get Results From Your Guitar Practice
Have you been practicing guitar for many hours every day but still getting results from your guitar practice? You’re not the only one... this same problem happens to many guitar players. There are many reasons why you aren’t making progress, but there are three that could be to blame.
Here are 3 huge reasons why you aren’t getting results from your guitar practice and what to do instead:
You Don’t Practice With An Effective Schedule
If you are practicing without an effective guitar practice schedule, you aren’t getting the kind of results you should be. Many guitarists practice this way because they have no clear goals set for themselves. Not having goals for your guitar playing makes it much harder to know what to practice, how to practice it and in what order you should be practicing it. This makes it very difficult to make fast progress in any area of your playing… and often causes guitarists to practice anything they can find, which leads to feelings of being overwhelmed.
The best way to solve this problem is to take lessons with an experienced guitar teacher who will evaluate your specific musical goals and tell you exactly what to practice. Then, he will help you put together a schedule to maximize the amount of progress you make every time you practice. Find a teacher by searching for someone who teaches in your style, has helped many students reach their goals and has teaching credentials.
You Practice Skills In Isolation But Never Integrate Them Together
Another mistake made by most guitar players is practicing everything in total isolation from everything else. This does not help you reach your guitar goals. For example, spending an hour practicing nothing but scale patterns. This approach works a little bit to help you understand the general muscle movement needed to perform a technique and reach your guitar goals. You begin losing out on all the results you could be making by integrating this skill with your other skills. For example, rather than practicing a scale run over and over, combine it together with an arpeggio… or use it to improvise over a backing track. By combining skills like this, you learn how to use everything together in a musical situation. Many of the things you want to do on guitar require different skills at the same time. For example, soloing, improvising, playing songs, etc.
You Don’t Closely Track Your Progress Every Week
Finally, many guitar players do not track their results from guitar practice. On the surface, this might not seem like a big deal. However, tracking your progress is crucial for both helping your practice become more efficient, and keeping you on the right track so you practice the right things.
Every week, take the time to evaluate every detail of your guitar playing. Look for any weaknesses you can find and determine what you need to do to strengthen them. The best way to track your progress correctly is to work together with an experienced guitar teacher. They will be able to spot cracks in your playing that you never would’ve seen on your own.
Now that you know 3 potential reasons why you don’t get great results from your guitar practice, evaluate yourself. Implement the changes discussed in this article and start making faster progress on guitar than ever before.