Tag: practice
Why you should apply the 80/20 rule to learning guitar
The 80/20 rule, also known as the Pareto principle, states that 80% of effects come from 20% of causes. In terms of learning guitar, this means that 80% of the progress you make in becoming a proficient player will come from 20% of the things you practice. One way to apply this principle to guitar…
How To Easily Predict Your Success On Guitar
First, let’s define success on guitar. Success to me is practicing 5 to 7 days a week with a record of doing it for at least 254 days which I will explain below. The practice must be quality practice, not simply noodling or doing what you can already do. You should be working on challenging…
Why do the most successful guitar students expect to fail?
But hang on a minute. Aren’t successful people positive thinkers? Weren’t we told that self fulfilling prophecies determined our outcomes? Well it turns out that a sign of a successful person is someone who is usually quietly expecting to fail. They don’t want to fail of course and its certainly not their plan to fail…
5 Ways To Optimise Your Guitar Practice
Not all guitar practice is equal. Optimising your practice can make a big difference especially over the long term. Developing the habit of optimising will at first, feel like an effort. Like most habits it will take time but stick with it. It may also go against your natural instincts and urges. Optimising can also…
Successful guitar students prepare to fail – What?
Hang on a minute. Aren’t successful people confident and positive about what they can achieve? Weren’t we told that if you expect to fail you probably will? The ‘Self fulfilling prophecy’ idea right? Well it turns out that a sign of a successful person is someone who is actually expecting to fail and this applies to…
PLAN your PRACTICE
One of the best pieces of advice I can offer any student is to plan your practice. Time is precious and you need to make every minute count. Start with short practice sessions of 15 to 20 minutes and break it down into 5 minute topics. Example; 5 minutes picking practice. Leave your left hand…
How’s your memory ? Musically speaking…
Musical memory is the ability to remember musical passages whether it be a melody, a chord progression, a rhythm pattern or a song arrangement. According to research our musical memory is encoded in a different part of our brain to language so needs to be developed. They also found that both sides (left and right…
Does measuring your practice make a difference?
Whenever a new student would begin lessons I would spend a portion of the first lesson asking them to fill in a daily practice log. Now most were happy to go along with my request but not all. Some students would feel it unnecessary, pointless or even over the top. Comments like “Guitar is just…
Satriani Drinking the Magic Elixir
Joe Satriani is much more than just a great guitarist. What I admire as much as his playing is his teaching. I only just found out by watching this series of video interviews that Joe’s mother was a teacher which makes sense. Joe was always comes across as a natural teacher and its probably due…
“How do I get my child to practice music without the tears?”
If you are a parent with a child who refuses to practice their musical instrument it can at times feel like a pointless waste of time. Most parents in this situation are left wondering what to do and whether there really is a solution. There are two common schools of thought in this debate. Lets start…
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