WatchSomeGuitar.com Presents: Essential Guitar Tips

Free Fingerstyle Guitar Lesson - Right Hand Exercises

Another Free Guitar Lesson from your Friends at WatchSomeGuitar.com.com

1. Don't spend more than an hour on any 1 thing.
There's plenty of scientific evidence that learning something new creates a physical change in the brain. Think of it like a gym workout, there is no part of your body that you should exercise for over an hour, unless you're a pro-bodybuilder. In fact, if, in your first week, you work out INTENSELY for over an hour on one body part you'll experience discomfort, pain, even injury!

If you want to practice 3 or more hours a day, that's really cool. And yes, professionals do tend to practice 3 or more hours a day. However, the time is divided up between morning, afternoon, and night. Also, you practice different 'areas' or 'skill-sets'. Example skill-sets: songwriting, singing, piano-skills, scales, improvising, sight-reading, left-hand exercises, right-hand exercise, rhythmic exercises, and cross-genre playing: Blues, Bluegrass, Jazz, Funk, Metal, Rock, Pop, Fusion, R&B, Rap, Classical, etc.
2. Stay in tune
You learn to speak by absorbing, analyzing, and repeating WHAT YOU HEAR! This process is automatic; you DON'T CHOOSE to do it. This process is what makes English people sound English, foreigners sound foreign, and accents sound like accents.

This same process applies to your musical development. Your ears, imagination, and hands will generate a REFLECTION of what you listen to, what you practice, and the musicians you play with.
3. Alternate through chords.
This tip kind of goes with ‘use it or lose it’. Most songs consist of Major, Minor, and Dominate seventh chords (A, Am, A7). Most of us outside of jazz don’t use Am#5b7#13 that often. So, once a day it helps to run through the chords you know or like but don’t use that often. You should aim to know at least 5 ways to play every chord.
4. Set goals
This might not be true for everyone but, people like to be happy. Having a goodtime is, well, a goodtime. When (1) you decid to strive for something new (2) you think you might fail but then (3) you develop and succeed, it will bring a new level of satisfaction to your mind.

You can create this satisfaction on demand by setting goals and reaching them. Notice the last part, REACHING GOALS is part of the happiness. This means set goals you CAN reach, a good idea is to set goals that have about a 50%/50% chance of success. If you don't reach a goal, YOU ARE NOT A FAILURE. You have simply set a goal a little sooner than you are ready to reach it. Examine your goal, re-evaluate your plan, and reset your deadline.
5. Vary your practice.
This will keep your mind and fingers sharp. Additionally, varying your practice routine or song order will make playing more fun. If you want more information on this you can google about bodybuilders and why they vary their exercise pattern. Remember, your fingers are muscles too!
6. Slow and even.
The main point of this tip is to play evenly. To say it another way, always play in correct time and rhythm. This seems to be the least followed tip of all. This is strange, because it is the MOST IMPORTANT. You are what you practice, if you don't play evenly in your house, then you can't expect to play well on stage. Nuff said.
7. Record Yourself
Wonder why so many musicians sound horrible? Here's a tidbit. Most musicians don't like to record, and the musicians that do record don't like to listen to themselves. Take the time to listen to your playing and you'll correct a lot of mistakes on your own. Hey, you might even LIKE to listen to your music!
8. Play with CD's
It's difficult to go hang out with Aerosmith, Metallica, or AC/DC. The next best thing is to play along with a CD. Great music, plus great musicians whenever you want em. You really can't lose on this one.
9. Play your scales.
Play your primary scales EVERYDAY. Major, Minor, Major Pentatonic, and Minor Pentatonic. Play those scales in every key, and every position that you can find. Music is ONLY SCALES & CHORDS!! If you think that songs are not just scales and chords, that proves you haven't played your scales and chords enough.

Example: Books are just words. Books are chapters, chapters are paragraphs, paragraphs are sentences, and sentences are, whammo!!, words. Songs are the same way...at their heart, they are scales and chords.
10. Discipline
Maybe this should be tip #1. All the tips in the world can't help you if you refuse to discipline yourself. Learn, practice, study, play, and create. All of these things are important, but keep them in the right amounts. Be honest with yourself about what you can improve on. Then, have the discipline to make those improvements.
11. Use it or lose it.
Do you remember gerunds and participles from English class? Most people don't. That's because most people don't run around talking about gerunds and participles. Same applies to music, if you don't actively use what you're practicing, you'll lose it. This applies to new chords, new scales, new songs, new anything.
12. Play Piano
Okay, okay, this one doesn't seem right. To improve my guitar playing, I should play piano?! Dude, it's true. The piano is the MASTER instrument. And No, I'm not a pianist. However, if you go to music school, you have to learn piano no matter what your primary instrument is. You hear that, IT IS REQUIRED OF ALL MUSIC STUDENTS TO PLAY PIANO. There's gotta be reason behind that. Study piano for 1 year and you'll know why.
13. Improvise All the time.
People say, "I just can't create anything cool." Well, how often do you create things? If you create 100 songs, at least 1 of them will be good. Three songs go on a record demo. Write 1 song everyday, and in a year you'll have something
14. Follow Greatness
This is the most pleasant tip. Listen to and Learn from the best players in the world. Find the people who have come before you, or the people who have come after you. Figure out why they are doing what they do, or why they did what they did. Imitate your idols until you are happy with what your sound, THEN DEVELOP YOUR OWN SOUND. Most mediocre musicians (or painters, writers, etc) think it’s the other way. I'll be ORIGINAL FIRST, and then I can learn other stuff. It doesn't work that way. You can't be original if you don't have any idea what has already been done.