So we have started a series of tips to help you improve your playing within the last few weeks. Here is the second part of the series:
20 MORE tips to improve your playing!
- Learn to play with a pick as well as your fingers.
- Watch guitar players you know are good and the ones you also like. Focus on what they do with their body as well as their fingers, the way a guitarist looks when playing is also an important thing.
- Store your guitar in a safe place. If you don’t have a stand, keep it in it’s case. Preferably in an area that doesn’t have huge temperature fluctuations.
- Play with other guitarists and/or musicians. Playing with other people will give you insight into your own playing.
- Don’t try and force yourself, it will only make it worse.
- Record yourself. This will give you some direct feedback. Remember, you don’t need a home recording studio, you can use your cellphone or your computer’s built-in mic.
- Check out guitar magazines and of course, guitar blogs. Heaps of information and interesting topics are always discussed there.
- Share guitar licks and riffs with your friends.
- Create your own exercises. This is pretty easy to do. You can also modify other exercises you find in books or online.
- Study music theory. I know music theory can be boring and also difficult, but having at least the basics will help you so much in creating your own music.
- Learn how to read guitar TAB.
- Learn about music history. Another thing that can be boring, read about musicians you like, read biographies, that will be interesting.
- Train your ear. Nobody is born with a musical ear; training your ear is the only way you can develop one. The benefits of ear training are immense. You will be able to hear chord progressions and solos and play them back note for note by ear.
- Build an extensive repertoire. Developing a repertoire involves memorizing dozens of songs, this of course includes chord progressions, solos and different parts, a great exercise to improve your playing and memory.
- Practice at a steady pace. Always learn slow, it will make things so much easier and you will understand much better.
- Learn a blues scale and then learn how to improvise with it.
- Learn different rhythms. Reggae, rock, ska, metal, blues…
- Learn barre chords and barre chord patterns. Altering the pinky on a bar chord can make lots of different chords, like sixths and sevenths.
- Buy a capo. Capos can be great if you get bored of playing in standard position all the time.
- Learn different tunings. If you get bored of your guitar tuning, try using different ones, Drop D is a very popular one and fun to play with but there are heaps more.
So there you are, another 20 tips that will hopefully help you somehow! Keep them in mind!
