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.

http://www.ultraguitarmethod.com/

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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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.