| Enjoy What You're Doing | |||||||||||||||||||
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Here are my seven rules for learning and playing the guitar:
1. Enjoy what you're doing 2. Always learn something new 3. Have a repertoire of easy songs 4. Have a repertoire of difficult songs 5. Warm up before playing 6. There is no substitute for practice 7. Set reasonable goals |
If you don't enjoy playing, why do it? Presumably the reason you started playing is to have fun. So most of what you do should be fun for you. It's okay to do a few things that might be a little tedious (exercises to improve your speed or to help you master difficult chords), but life has too many tedious things already. You should look forward to your playing (practice) sessions. If you don't, you'll soon quit. And I said "fun for you" – not your parents, your teachers, your friends. You. If you ever find yourself dreading a practice session, skip it. Just play something for fun instead (see rule 3). If you find yourself in the middle of a session and not liking it, cut the session short and play for fun instead. And if you do exercises – and you should – don't do only the exercises (unless you find them fun). Play a song, play a few exercises, play another song, a few more exercises, and so on. |
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| Always Learn Something New | |||||||||||||||||||
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You'll probably become frustrated if you don't feel you're progressing, or if you feel you've fallen into a rut. One way to avoid that is to always be learning something new. But remember rule 1. That "new thing" might be learning to read music, learning some new chords, learning new songs, learning to combine chords and notes, learning new keys, working on an exercise, any number of things. Just don't make it tedious.
Learning to read music can be fun if you learn one string at a time and spend a few minutes daily, for one or two weeks, getting familiar with that string. Learning a new song, or trying out a new exercise, can be fun. But if you're struggling and becoming frustrated during a session, stop "practicing" and just play something for fun. This rule is particularly important if you're not able to take lessons. A good instructor will help you to learn what you need to do, at the appropriate pace. If you aren't taking lessons, you will have to figure you what you need to learn, and at what pace to learn it. YOU will have to figure out how to balance having fun with falling into a rut, and how to balance learning new things with stressing out. Mixing things up — easy songs, hard songs, new songs, chords, exercises — is one way to keep learning, while keeping it fun. On this site I often mention "learning" a song. That's not the same as memorizing one. The latter means you can play the song without looking at the music or tab. The former means you've played it enough to be comfortable with it (you may have even memorized parts of the song), so that you can play it smoothly, but you still probably need to consult the music or tab. Be careful about memorizing too many songs. When I was playing in high school, I ended up memorizing most of the songs I played regularly (which were relatively few — maybe a dozen or slightly more). So I didn't have to read music much, and my music-reading skills declined. I also got into a rut, playing the same songs over and over. This may have been part of the reason I quit playing when I went to college, and didn't start again for many years. So — buy a lot of music books, and continually play songs that you haven't memorized. |
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| Have A Reportoire Of Easy Songs | |||||||||||||||||||
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Once you've been playing for a few months, you can start to learn songs that you can play relatively easily (remember, "learn" does not necessarily mean "memorize"). This is important. If you enjoy playing them, and they're not too hard, you can always play them if you're frustrated or tired, and end up feeling good. Just remember to learn only a few songs at a time. If you read music, you'll probably start out learning songs in the key of C.
Get the music for the song (or the tab, if you don't read music), and play the song. Once you've played it a few times, you'll feel more comfortable. Once you have been playing several of these easier songs regularly, you'll feel comfortable playing them even if you still need to use the music or tab. And you'll automatically memorize at least parts of them, without even trying. (If you don't read music, and don't have tab, you may have learned songs by watching others play, or via playing by ear. In that case you pretty much have to memorize the songs.) Try to play the easier songs early in your practice sessions, or as part of your warmup. Later in your session, if you've played some hard songs, stop and give yourself a break by playing easy ones for a while. You can then go back and play the hard songs. |
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| Have A Reportoire Of Difficult Songs | |||||||||||||||||||
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The reason for learning (not necessarily memorizing) songs that are difficult is to stretch your abilities. It's a good idea to try something hard — maybe VERY HARD — at least once each practice session. Play a few of the hard songs toward the end of your playing session, when your fingers are thoroughly warmed up. You'll gradually see yourself getting better, and eventually many of these songs can be added to your list of "easy to play and feel good" songs. During a session, if you start to get frustrated playing the hard songs, stop and play easy songs. After a few of those, you might feel like going back to harder songs or exercises. If so, great. If not, just keep playing easy songs.
You need to find a balance. Your practice sessions should not be too easy; they should not be too hard. If they're too easy, your're not learning and improving. If they're too hard, you might get frustrated and quit. |
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| Warm Up Before Playing | |||||||||||||||||||
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This is a little like running a race — you wouldn't get up from a chair and sprint for 100 meters, would you? You'd warm up first. Likewise, your fingers need to warm up before you can play well. Now, maybe you won't injure yourself by not warming up (or maybe you will — ever heard of carpal tunnel syndrome?), but you'll definitely play better by doing so. It doesn't have to be a long process. I usually play a couple of easy songs (see rule 3), mixed in with some exercises. Then I'll gradually make the songs, and exercises, harder. After five minutes or so, I'll be ready to start playing harder songs and exercises. See rule 6 for some specifics.
You might want to try playing a hard exercise very slowly at the start of your warmup. At the end, play it fast. You'll find that something that was very hard at the start of the warmup will often be fairly easy by the end. That's the purpose of warming up! By the end of your warmup, it ought to be much easier to move your fingers quickly, and much easier to place them correctly, than it was at the start. |
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| There is no substitute for practice | |||||||||||||||||||
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You not only need to practice, you need to organize your practice sessions. Some people (I'm not one of them) have charts, by day or week, listing the songs they will play and the exercises they will do. You don't have to go that far. Just be sure, when you sit down to practice, you tend to play the easy songs at the start of the session, and the hard songs later. Mix in a few exercises. Make the exercises and the songs harder as the session goes along. If you start to get frustrated, go back to the easy songs or exercises or chord progressions.
The best way to be comfortable with a song is to play it a lot. The first time you ever play a song, go over the music (or tab) slowly, and be sure you get the notes right. Don't worry about the tempo. Just hit the notes. If you can play some notes at the right tempo, and others have to be much slower, don't be concerned. As soon as you have played it through, play it again. And again. Play it three or four times, straight through each time. If you can play the song well the first time through, of course, you don't need to do this. (If the song has multiple verses with the same music, you only need to play identical verses three or four times, rather than the entire song.) By now, you will feel more comfortable, and might even be able to get the tempo right, or nearly right. You will also see which parts are easy, and which hard. Now guess what you do. That's right — practice the hard parts! (Again, if the song is easy, there won't be any hard parts and you don't need to do this.) Practice each hard part three or four or five times. Then go back and play the whole song again. By this time you'll start to be tired of the song. So go on to another. The next one could be a new one, or an old one. It could be easy, it could be hard. Just do what you like. If you play a hard song this way early in your practice session, you might try playing it again later in the session. It's amazing how much better it will sound once your fingers are warmed up, and you're familiar with the song. Whenever you play a difficult song at subsequent practice sessions, start by practicing the hard parts first. (Unless you can play the song through, at the right tempo — then just do that.) Then play the song through two or three times. Each time will probably sound better (often, a LOT better) than the previous one. Occasionally, when playing a song in a practice session, play the song several times — each time faster than the last. Make sure you have a consistent tempo (don't play the easy parts at lightning speed and then slow down for the hard parts — keep the tempo the same throughout), and make sure you hit all the notes cleanly. If you can't do that, slow down! Over a period of weeks or months, you should be able to play faster and faster. It's also a good idea to — once in a while — do this kind of speed exercise early in your session, then come back and repeat it later in the session. You should be able to go faster, easier, the second time. Another thing: even if it's easy for you to play a song at the end of one practice session, it still might be difficult to play it at the beginning of the next. You need to be familiar with the song, and to be warmed up, to play it well. And if you haven't played a song in a while (a few months), it might be difficult for you — even if your skills have improved a lot over those few months, and it was easy when you played it before. If it's become unfamiliar, it may be hard to play. But even if I haven't played a song in a long time, playing it through three or four times is usually enough for me to get comfortable with it again. In some cases, you might have to learn a song one part at a time. I did this with the Stones' Last Time. I bought the music for it, and found the notes fairly easy to play and memorize. But the chord background was tough (switching from E to A, then A to D), so I worked on that separately. Then I combined the notes and the background. I start out with the chords, then play the notes. And after each verse of notes, I hit the chords again. I even throw a few chords in the verse in place of the notes. It sounds pretty good to do the song this way, but it took me a long time to memorize all the parts. I've also done something similar with Honky Tonk Women. You can even combine rule 4 and rule 6. If there is a part of a song that you like, but you find it difficult, memorize it. Then play it as part of your warmup. I've memorized the opening riff of Georgie Girl, and play it almost at every practice session, for this reason. I've also figured out how to play it an octave lower, and in a different key, and play those regularly as well. I regularly practice the opening riffs of Jumpin' Jack Flash, Birthday, Paint It Black, Day Tripper, Satisfaction, Sunshine of Your Love, and Pretty Woman. I've even written some of them out in different keys. You don't necessarily have to go to those lengths — remember rule 1 — but it gives you an idea of some of the things you can do. Just keep trying to improve (rule 2). |
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| Set Reasonable Goals | |||||||||||||||||||
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Unless you're extremely talented, it's probably going to take you between six and eighteen months before you start feeling good about your playing. It will take that long before you can comfortably read music and play a simple song reasonably well the first time through (assuming you've been reading songs from the beginning). It will take that long before you can play reasonably complex chords and melodies at all, even after multiple tries. It will take that long before you can read music reasonably well, for songs other than those in the key of C.
The point is, if you think you're going to be the next Eric Clapton or George Harrison, you may be in for a big disappointment. Even if you're capable of reaching that level, you won't know for many years. It took Clapton and Harrison years. You're going to have to be satisfied playing at a much lower level for a long time — maybe forever. Reaching a high level takes talent, hard work, and luck — many people have one, almost no one possesses all three. Lest this sound discouraging — you can play a lot of songs well, so that they sound very good, without being anywhere near the level of Clapton and Harrison. You will probably be pretty pleased with yourself within six months or a year. You should set short-term goals at first. And they should be simple — learning to play a specific song; playing a specific song faster; playing a specific song more smoothly; learning a chord or a chord progression — things like that. And your short-term goals should be set only a little higher than what you can do now. Remember Harvey Mackay's advice: "A goal is a dream with a plan." Dreams are fine, but don't expect to achieve them without a plan. After you've been playing a few months, you will see how fast you are progressing, and get an idea of what you can expect in the next few months. And you must practice. If there's something you want to achieve, figure out how to practice for it. I believed for years that I would never learn bar chords, but I eventually did (although I still can't play them smoothly). I believed for years I couldn't play by ear (play a song, not from music or tab, but by listening) very well, but I've improved dramatically. With practice and time, you can improve — often quite a bit. Playing with others can help you a lot — but it can also be discouraging if they can easily do things you can't do at all. Be careful. Concentrate on what you do well, and try to get better. If you do something poorly, and it's important to you, figure out how to practice to improve. And don't expect huge improvement in a few weeks. It may be that the hardest part of learning the guitar is having faith in your ability to get better. You have to work at the guitar for a year or so before you can play it fairly well; you may have to work months at other aspects of the guitar (bar chords, playing by ear, playing in a band) before you become reasonably proficient. Once you are happy with your playing, hold onto that. Try to get better, but don't get too ambitious (or too discouraged if you fail). |
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