Guitar Practice Routine – Chord Change Exercise
Guitar Practic Routine for Beginners
A difficult hurdle to overcome as a beginner guitar player is mastering your chord changes. You must be able to change from one chord to another quickly and without error.
You are likely to get frustrated in the beginning as your fingers won’t do what you want them to do. This is normal and it will take time for you to develop what’s called “Muscle Memory”. Muscle Memory develops from performing an activity over and over again. You perform an activity so often, that eventually it becomes second nature and you don’t even think about it. This is what will happen eventually with your guitar playing.
Here is an excellent chord practice routine that you can add to your daily practice sessions. This is a great way to improve your chord changes and develop that muscle memory. This is a wonderful exercise that will help you become better at learning how to change between all of your open chords.
What you do is play the following chords, in the order they are listed (I have provided links to lessons on how to play each chord) :
How to Practice Guitar Effectively
An Effective Guitar Practice Schedule
Feel free to practice these things in any order, but always do #1 first, the warm up. You also don’t have to do them all in one sitting either. You can do a few at one practice session, and next time you sit down to practice, you do the other items in the list you didn’t do the first time, etc. Also, feel free to change the number of minutes for each to suit your own needs. Maybe you want to practice for 2 hours; maybe just 30 minutes – it is completely up to you. You can view this schedule as a general blueprint, which you can modify as you like.
- Warm-up – 5 minutes. First of all – tune your guitar! Then, play anything you like, but don’t do anything that is really hard on the muscles in your hands. Let them get warmed up first.
- Scales – 10 minutes . Work on scales you don’t yet know well. You probably have scales tabbed out and printed. Take your time and play these slowly with the metronome. Play the notes of the scale in question in any order, random, sequential, etc. As you do this, try to visualize in your head the patterns this scale creates on the fretboard. Over time, you will be able to “see” the scale on the fretboard without thinking much about it.
- Arpeggios – 10 minutes. Do the same as with the scales mentioned above. An arpeggio is a group of notes which are played one after the other, either going up or going down, where the notes belong to one chord. Again, visualize and try to remember the patterns you play.
- Chords – 10 minutes. Learn new voicings of chords. Learn new chords. Practice chord progressions with some of the new chords you are learning.
- Theory – 5 minutes. Get a good book about music theory. There are many out there.
Alfred Essentials of Music Theory: Complete Self-Study Course (Book/2-CD) - Technique – 10 minutes. Work on things that need improvement or that may be new to you, for example – hammer-ons, pull-offs, bends, strumming, alternate picking, sweep technique, tapping, etc.
- Fretboard training – 10 minutes. Set the metronome at a low BPM. Start with any note you want. Find and play that note for every click of the metronome on every string, but start with 2 strings at a time. Once you have that down, move to 2 more strings, then practice finding that note on those 4 strings. Continue with the last 2 strings and finally do all 6 strings. Play the notes in any order and direction. The purpose here is to find the note in question as quickly as you can. It will become “transparent” with enough training – you will be able to find any note anywhere on the fretboard without having to think
- Work on a song – 10 minutes. Work on a song which has something challenging in it, something that gives you an opportunity to practice something new.
- Reading music – 10 minutes. Work on reading TAB and music notation. Practice reading rhythms, notes and sight reading.
- Transcribe something – ANY minutes. This is the best way to teach yourself, and it’s fantastic ear training. Listen to a few seconds of a song, over and over. Imitate best you can, try to figure out one note at a time. This means replaying the same sequence many times. After a while, you will be able to do this quicker, as well as picking out more than one note at a time.
- Play anything – ANY minutes. Noodle around and play whatever you want – playing should first and foremost be FUN!
When Playing Guitar, Don’t Forget Your Thumb
By Keith Dean
You can use it to hitch a ride. Roger Ebert has made a fortune using one or both – up or down. It’s universally recognized as the sign for a number of affirmatives – “okay”, “good job”, “looking good”, “it’s under control”, among others. It’s also the appendage that one would be inserting “where the sun don’t shine” in a well known metaphor for aimlessly idling one’s time away. We are, of course, referring to the thumb.
In terms of playing guitar, the thumb is like the “red headed step child” of the playing hand. More neglected than even the “pinky” finger (but that’s for another article).
Learn How To Play Guitar By Ear
Playing by ear is arguably the most joyful and expressive ways of playing the guitar. In its purest form a person can play anything they hear in their head instantly on the guitar. Whilst very few if any guitarists can actually play absolutely anything on the guitar immediately, there are some extremely skilled guitarists that come close. With consistent and appropriate practice, you can definitely expand your abilities to play by ear, moving closer and closer towards the goal of playing purely by ear. I can’t do the practice for you, but I can show you some very useful methods to help you learn to tune in and play by ear.
Playing by ear is very useful for a musician for several reasons. If you wish to learn a piece of music, then with this ability you can do so very quickly. A person who can play by ear can simply listen to the piece several times, and then play it easy! If you wish to write your own music, then you can play whatever sounds are in your mind, rather than fumbling around the fretboard trusting to luck. If you are playing live, then you are far less likely to forget the next note or chord because you can hear in your head what you are supposed to play next, and simply play it as you hear it. A person who has the ability to play by ear can also improvise much easier, and can spontaneously jam with other musicians, since they are far better positioned to think on their feet.
Accelerate Your Guitar Playing
By Mike Hayes
First, define your objectives and determine your approach. These objectives may change as you progress, but a goal is important before starting to play the guitar.
Begin by forming good study habits. Part of your study will be physical performance and part will be mentally engaged in the study of theory, listening to recordings, tapes and the radio, watching television, Internet and watching live performances. You will be talking to other guitarists, students and professionals, studying in classes and with private teachers and of course via online guitar courses, guitar training software etc. You will also be improvising. All of these activities will give you valuable information and experience, increase your skill, broaden your scope and develop your insights. Keep an open mind and learn something from everyone you meet …even if it is not what to do!
The following suggestions should help you in your study and practice:
Never practice or study when you are tired or worried. Relax a bit before you begin. If possible study in a quiet place where you can be undisturbed. Have a music stand adjusted to your eye level when you practice, and make sure that you always have good light. Form the habit of studying in a regular place and at a regular time.
Learn Guitar Online – Practice Traps & How to Escape Them
By Mike P Hayes
Over practicing for your next performance can be a trap because it can lead to information overload, physical burnout and decreased performance. Practice makes perfect right? We’ve all heard that phrase before from music teachers, parents etc., with so many people telling us it’s got to be correct.
Actually, that popular phrase is only half true. To achieve our performance goals we need to make an important distinction. Instead of that phrase.
Here is what we need to know …
“Perfect practice makes perfect.”
Guitar Lesson: What Is The Ultimate Way To Practice On Your Guitar?
Is there a best way to practice on your guitar? Of course you have to make your practice sessions effective but could there be a way to practice that is more effective than other ways?
There are many principles involved in an effective practice session and I think some of these are:
1. A motivation founded on a love and passion for the music you can produce on the guitar.
2. An acceptance of the fact that you must practice on that technical level you have reached.
3. A working knowledge of muscle tensions and how to minimize them when you play and how to work on reducing them when you don’t play.
Guitar Lesson: Practicing Or Playing Music?
By Peter Edvinsson
What is most important as you try to 
learn to play guitar? Technical guitar exercises or playing music? What areas should you focus on as you try to use your practicing time as effective as possible?
Could it be that both these areas are important and should go hand in hand?
Guitar Lesson: Help Yourself To Practice – By Peter Edvinsson
By Peter Edvinsson
What can you do to make it easy for yourself to practice on your guitar? In order to continue to learn to play guitar and not give up you have to create an atmosphere of joy and fun around this activity. Let’s see what you can do to make it as easy as possible to play guitar.
As a you boy I had a lot of interests at the same time. Reading, sporting, playing piano, playing chess, a lot of more things and, of course, playing guitar.
I developed a habit to always have my guitar laying on my bed. Always as I walked into my room my guitar was laying there waiting for me. It was very easy to sit down on my bed starting to play because of two facts:
1. I could see the guitar as I walked into my room which immediately reminded me of how fun it is to play.
Guitar Lesson: Play Country Licks In D – By Peter Edvinsson
By Peter Edvinsson
Have you ever wondered about how to get that ringing country sound from your guitar. In this guitar lesson you will learn some country licks based on a combination of fretted notes and open strings.
We will first take a look at a D-major scale in one octave:
0/4 2/4 4/4 0/3 2/3 0/2 3/2
How do you read this guitar tablature?
The first digit indicates which fret to play. The digit after the slash gives you the string to play.
2/3 means that you are to play the second fret on the third string.
We will now try to figure out a way to play the previous scale with some ringing open strings. Let’s try this one:
