By Michael Fletcher

Many of my recent articles have focused on information helpful to beginning and intermediate guitarists. These are the guitarists who, generally, struggle the most with musicianship, music theory, and technique. As a professional guitarist and instructor, I’ve logged approximately Forty-Eight years of experience on the guitar, the stage, the road, and in the recording studio. Music, to say the least, has been an enormous part of my life, as I’m sure it has also been yours. Therefore, teaching the guitar and helping others with music has always come naturally for me. I enjoy passing things along.

The story for many professional guitarists is, most likely, very similar. We have a passion for the guitar, music, performance, and the show-time atmosphere. For many of us, practicing the guitar wasn’t a chore, it was a pleasure. For us, learning or composing songs, writing guitar solos, and developing arrangements wasn’t time lost, it was experience gained. For the most part, we make the difficult sound and look easy. This, in short, is our job and our passion.

Recently, one of my guitar students asked how the professionals practice the guitar (out of the mouths of babes). This is a great question. Think about this for a moment. If you’re a professional guitarist (ten, twenty, thirty, forty years of experience), how do you practice? What do you practice? When do you practice? How is your practice time different than a guitarist with two years of playing experience? For me, the answer to my inquisitive student’s question was quite simple. All inclusive was my answer.

Yes, I still practice guitar scales when time permits. Scale practice, for me, is concentrated and intense. Usually, I’ll practice scales for hours at a time, resisting the urge to fly into a creative solo session or songwriting session. I’m generally looking for several results when practicing guitar scales. For instance, I reinforce my finger, wrist, and hand strength. This leads to enhancing my endurance. Coordination comes into play. Picking technique, timing, etc., it’s all there. In fact, there’s so much there, it’s almost mind-boggling. Believe it or not, my student’s question reminded me that becoming one with the guitar is exactly the way that I practice the guitar. For me, this is the only way to cover all of the aspects of practicing the guitar and at the same time, bringing music to life. Let me explain.

For the most part, I gain more as a player when I’m working on arrangements (tracks), perfecting chord changes, solos, feeling the spirit of the song, and visualizing the stage performance. In addition, theory and application is flying through my head at the same time. In other words, ALL aspects occur for me at the same time. I practice the way I perform.

It’s really a wonderful feeling to be in-spirit when playing the guitar. How else could we execute so many things on the instrument without even thinking about them (chimes, chime-picking, sweeping, muting, tapping, finger picking, chord work, dynamics, and on and on)? I’m always amazed when I think of these things. The guitar, for me, has become second nature. It is an extension of me.

It’s one thing to play the guitar. It’s an entirely different thing to make the strings breathe and come to life. It’s difficult to explain to someone who hasn’t felt this amazing out-of-body experience. For those who have, no further explanation is needed. We know that our emotions are being communicated with every note that we play. We feel it, and so do our audiences.

A Velvet Touch can only come from strength. I remember having one of my students extend his arm to resemble the guitar fingerboard (He had been struggling with guitar scales and wondering how much strength was needed.). I grabbed his arm, like I was playing the guitar. At first, I exerted a lot of strength on his arm with both the thumb and my fingers. I played a mock guitar scale on his arm using excessive force (similar to what he was putting out in order to practice scales). Then, to his surprise, I lightened up (like a speed demon Butterfly). I ran an incredibly fast (we’re talking very fast folks; pure speed) mock guitar solo on his arm. He was amazed at the super light touch I utilized. I explained that strength must come before the Velvet Touch.

Many of you know exactly what I’m describing here. Hopefully, I’m just reinforcing what many of you (the professional guitarists) already know. In fact, I’d suggest that as professional guitarists, we all stopped practicing (so-to-speak) a long, long time ago and just started playing. What a concept.

Once again, my answer to the inquisitive student was that my practice is actually playing guitar as described in this article. In other words, practice at performance level. Play for impact and delivery. Bring it to life and make it breathe.

©2008 Michael E. Fletcher. All Rights Reserved Worldwide.

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Becoming a better guitar player requires lots and lots of practice, that much is obvious. But figuring out how to practice can be a bit of a challenge.   I believe you will find the following post very helpful.  Below are 10 awesome guitar practice exercises that you can fit into your daily practice routine.

These guitar practice exercises target a variety of different areas including finger strength and dexterity, soloing, barre chords and more.  Some of the videos below are demonstrated on electric guitars, but you can do the same exercises on acoustic guitar.

Practice Exercise 1 – Justin Sandercoes’s  Finger Gym

The practice routine below is a brilliant one from Justin Sandercoe.  This exercise alone will greatly improve your guitar playing. This routine really works out your hands and fingers, so in the beginning, you may tire quickly. This is normal. The more you do this exercise, the longer you will be able to last.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cf7OTbl__aU

Visit Justin’s YouTube Profile Here for more great video lessons

Practice Exercise 2 – Chord Change Exercise

This exercise will give you practice playing and changing between your basic, but essential open chords.

Learn more about this guitar practice routine here

Practice Exercise 3 – 7 Strumming Patterns & Techniques for Acoustic Guitar

Learning how to properly strum your acoustic guitar does not come easy to all of us.  The video lessons on the following page will hopefully make you a strumming master.  Add these strumming exercises to your practice routine today.

Follow this link to reach this post on strumming patterns & techniques for acoustic guitar

Practice Exercise 4 – Pentatonic Scale Pattern Practice For Solos

This is a great practice exercise from Marty Schwartz that will show you how to get more out of your scales. This is great practice if you want to play lead guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lf_2eodyR_0

Practice Exercise 5 – Finger Dexterity Exercise

This practice exercise has multiple benefits.  It builds strength and dexterity and helps familiarize yourself with the guitar fretboard.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RkezJz_ibuk

Watch more of Anthony’s videos over at his YouTube Page

Practice Exercise 6 – Barre Chord Changing Exercise

Here is a great exercise from Next Level Guitar to help you practice those challenging barre chords.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bdofq_TQbZY

Practice Exercise 7 – Strength &  Dexterity Exercise For Solos

Here is another great exercise from Next Level Guitar for building finger strength and dexterity for soloing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IjwsLWBukzg

Practice Exercise 8 – Right Hand Picking Exercise

This exercise is great for practicing your right hand picking.  Its made especially for Bluegrass Guitar, but it will benefit any guitar player of any genre.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H598k-8ZtEU

See more of Adam’z guitar videos over at his YouTube Page.

Practice Exercise 9 – Collection of Great Warmup Exercises

Here is a collection of excellent warm up exercises for guitar. Several of these exercises are done without a guitar, so you can do them anywhere, which is a real plus for those of us who are on the go or don’t always have the time to devote to practice.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6H353MZ6dtI

See more of Rob’s videos over at his YouTube Page

Practice Exercise 10 – Paul Gilbert Speed Building Exercise

Here is a great exercise for building up speed on the guitar.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZURmRPQPjA

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) :

G Major , C Major,  E Minor,  C Major, A Minor ,E Major , A Minor , D Major, G Major, A Minor, C Major, G Major, A Major, D Minor, G Major, E Minor, C Major, D Major, D Minor, C Major, G Major

Play each chord above in the order they are listed using the following strumming pattern:

DOWN/UP/DOWN/UP

Go very very slowly at first so that you are playing each chord accurately and your changes are precise and not sloppy.  Do not rush through these chord changes.

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.”

You see, that’s an important distinction, simply practicing for the sake of practicing won’t cut it! You need to make practice time a time where you eliminate errors and fine tune your skills.

Remember, your fingers are not the thinking part of your body, they are the doing part … and they will keep on “doing it” the way they always have done (even it’s incorrect) until you make a conscious effort to correct the error.

Have you ever practiced relentlessly fifteen hours a day, day after day, driving yourself and your neighbors silly, only to totally botch things up on the day of the performance?

Well, you are not on your own, 85% of guitarists find themselves in the same situation! And, we all know how that feels, our confidence shot to pieces, all you want to do at the end of the night is crawl inside your guitar case and hope nobody notices you.

And so you begin a never ending cycle, poor performance means back to the practice room for more relentless practice, more “over practicing” to compensate for last performance disastrous results, burnout, and the inevitable … another poor performance and further loss of motivation and enthusiasm.

Here’s your escape plan:

Correctly diagnose the problem.

(a) Firstly determine in general terms if it is a motor skill issue or data memory problem?

(b) Then, dig deeper into the problem to find out specifically how we can overcome this glitch.

Let’s say, when you really get down to it, you find that it’s not a case of having fat, dumb, slow or old fingers (physical motor skills), it’s simply that you can’t seem to remember the chords for the songs (data memory issue).

Now, we are starting to get somewhere and you can probably begin to see why it’s essential to continually review the quality of your practice and the results you are achieving.

To give you an analogy, let’s image for a moment you were driving down the highway without a map and suppose you had to turn right to reach your intended destination, simply turning left and going as fast won’t get you there.

You need to focus on your prime objective and constantly design practice sessions that will achieve your goals.

Now, back to our problem of forgetting the chords for our songs, simply practicing writing the chords down on a data memory card.

Write the chords four bars to a line as follows:

C /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

There’s two reasons for this (a) firstly, it gives you clarity and it allows you to remember small amounts of information, (b) with only four bars per line many repetitious phrases become obvious where you can immediately recognize and associate current material with information you have already learnt.

For example let’s say the following 16 bars where from a new composition by your bass player, your problem is you have to learn the chord sequence for a performance tomorrow.

C /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |F /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

F /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |C /// | C /// | G /// | C /// ||

At first glance this looks tricky, when you split the project down into four bar units it becomes clear the there are sections that are repeated.

line 1:

C /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

Line 2:

F /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

Line 3: (same as line 2)

F /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

Line 4: (same as line 1)

F /// | C /// | G /// | C /// |

I know this looks simple, and it is, but you would be surprised to know just how many practice hours can be saved by breaking things down to very do-able pieces of information.

Never get caught again …

In a nutshell, it’s the quality of your practice sessions not the sheer quantity of practice time. Remember before you sit down for your next practice session, decide whether the problem is motor

skill problem or data memory problem.

Mike Hayes is a teacher, author, speaker and consultant. Get his tips and tested strategies proven to boost your guitar playing his membership site at http://www.guitarcoaching.com today.

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