From Zero To Guitar Hero - Progress And Motivation While Learning Guitar
I have found that with many of my students that the number one obstacle to learn how to play guitar is motivation. We begin to learn to play but it just seems too hard to do. It does not seem like we are ever going to make any progress. Our fingers hurt and hands are cramping up and it is just not fun to play yet. We are not playing any real songs yet because we are trying to just get a chord down and of course the instructor wants us to play scales or some song we’ve never heard of. Motivation is most definitely the key to success in any endeavor and learning how to play the guitar is no exception. There are a couple of effective methods that I have learned to use with my students when teaching guitar lessons in order to help with these motivation issues.
The first of these methods is recording practice times. You can get a simple tape recorder from the store and just hit the record button before you start playing. This does a couple of things for you. It allows you to listen to yourself and see what you really sound like and pick out the parts that you need to work on. In addition, it allows you to track your progress and become more and more confident as you play. Sometimes you may think that you are making no progress and that you are stuck in one place in your practicing when most of the time that is not true. It is difficult to see your progress when you cannot hear the difference for yourself. So, grab a tape recorder, or if you want a higher quality recording you can use an alternative method such as plugging into a sound board or into your computer using a kit that you can buy at most electronics stores.
The main thing is to make sure you record a practice session every few weeks and then go back and check your progress between two recordings. This will keep you going back to learn more and it will encourage you to practice more because you will be able to see the difference that working on something over time can make on your skill level. I play in a band that plays on the same day every week and we record every live performance by plugging the sound board into a standard tape recorder. This serves as a great way to hear our strengths and weaknesses and to motivate us to improve further. Apply this same technique to your practice times and you will see your improvement in no time.
Jam Tracks
Once you get some of the basics down you should start playing along with jam tracks. A jam track is simply a music track on a CD that leaves some part of the music out for you to play. This does a couple of things for you. It helps you to learn to do more than just play on your own where you have control of all the timing and rhythm. It helps you to learn how to play with a band with a steady rhythm and not stray off course from that rhythm. It is also very fun and encouraging to hear the band playing behind and with you and to hear yourself playing a real song. It gives you more confidence as you learn to play. You can of course even do this without jam tracks that are made to leave a part of the music out. However, it is more difficult to hear the music and play over the part you are trying to play. There are a few programs out there that are made to take a regular mp3 music track and slow it down or speed it up to make it easier to play and learn how to play guitar.
J. Garrett has been playing guitar for more than eleven years and is a guitar instructor in the Dallas area. For more information on learning to play guitar you can visit his website at learn2playguitars.com
Tags: guitar practice, learn guitar, Learn to play guitar, online guitar lessons, practicing guitar