21 Steps to Rapidly Improve Your Guitar Playing

1. Regular daily practice may sound boring, but set yourself a reminder, commit to 20 to 30 minutes five times a week and you'll be impressed with the progress you make!
2. Know the difference between "practice" and "play". Practice time is when you focus on things you can't already do. Yes, that new tune you should have learnt by now! Playing is just letting it flow, not working on or thinking about what you're doing, but just having fun.
3. Get a Metronome. Yes, the little item which bleeps! Working with one regularly strengthens the internal metronome you never knew was in there!
4. Listen and learn styles you wouldn't normally choose. If you're into pop/rock, go learn some country: it'll give you a new way of thinking, plus some new ideas.
5. Keep a practice diary. Write down what you learn. That way, you can look back and see if you can still play the songs you were working on a while ago. Great way to measure progress.
6. Regularly review what you learnt to see how far you have come.
7. Set goals. Find a song you can't play, set a date that you'll be able to play it by, and work hard to achieve your goal.
8. Play with more advanced players. You will learn the most by falling on your face live and getting your butt handed to you!
9. Have a practice buddy. Find a friend you can practise with, monitor each other's progress and point out mistakes you can see. It's far easier to see the mistakes of others than your own.
10. Find a local Jam. You might be nervous, but you'll meet some great musicians and get over your fear of just getting up there and playing something.
11. Record yourself playing your favourite song (without the song in the background) and then listen back. What works? What sucks? Be very critical.
12. Transcribe - learn how to work out songs, solos and licks.
13. Learn to just "hear it" - knowing where the music's going is a must if you play in a band, forget the music or are at a jam. If you can just "hear it", people will be lining up to play with you!
14. Keep a "to work on" list. If you hear something you would like to play, write it down, add it to the list.
15. Evaluate every gig. Assess what worked and what didn't. Work on the things that didn't.
16. Learn all your scales: each and every one of them, know them backwards, forwards, sideways and back to front!
17. Learn every chord and voicing. Work out every chord possible (there's a lot of them!), then learn all possible versions of that chord (voicings and inversions).
18. Work on your sound. Experiment with your tone, explore new sounds, borrow pedals to try out. Work on copying famous people's tone.
19. Start a folder. Jot down on musical/chord box/TAB paper everything you work out. Flick over this later and quickly get up to speed with what you learnt.
20. Tuning. We've all been to too many gigs where people have played out of tune. Make sure you always play and bend in tune. If you're at a gig, tune in between each song (or at least check).
21. Finally....enjoy: have fun!

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Article Submitted On: March 22, 2011