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For more details, see the Seven Rules file. |
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| Warm up first. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Start your practice sessions with easy songs and exercises, then work up to the hard ones. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Combine songs and exercises in your practice session. Play a few songs, play a few exercises, play a few songs. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Late in the session, play hard things until you're tired and/or frustrated, then back off and play easy things. Once you feel better, go back to the hard things. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Once every week or two, pick a song and play it repeatedly, making each repeat faster than the last. Make sure you hit each note smoothly, and keep the tempo consistent. If you start to have problems, slow down and gradually work up speed again. | |||||||||||||||||||
| About once a week, jot down some things you want to do this week — practice some bar chords, play some Elton John songs, try to play a song by ear, . . . Then just keep the piece of paper handy while you practice, so you don't forget. The things you don't get to today, you can do tomorrow. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Don't give up. This is a cliche, but things that are difficult or impossible today can be easy in six months. You just have to figure out what to practice, in order to make it easier. Bar chords were impossible for me to do, for years. But I created some exercises to help me, and eventually I learned them. I still can't do them smoothly or quickly, so now I'm practicing that. | |||||||||||||||||||
| If a song is too hard to play, there are several things you can do. This also applies to chord progressions, riffs, and other types of exercises. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Learn the easy (or easier) parts first and practice them. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Memorize a few notes from one of the hard parts. Practice them over and over, at each session. After a while (weeks or months), memorize another hard part and practice that too. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Play the song, or part of the song, early in your practice session, going very slowly if you have to. Toward the end of the practice session, play it again. You should be able to play it faster then. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Convert a few notes from one of the hard parts to another key. See Table 2, along with the first and second tutorials on Music Theory. The Key of C is usually, but not always, the easiest to play. | |||||||||||||||||||
| Work on it (change keys, learn the easy parts, practice some of the hard parts) for a few weeks. If you're still frustrated, drop it and replace it with another song. A couple of months later, work on it again for a few weeks. | |||||||||||||||||||