Step 7) How To Teach Yourself Guitar – Set Practice Goals
It’s important when you’re teaching yourself guitar that you set goals. Practice goals are the key to success! We’re going to show you how to maximise your guitar progress.
Set A Main Goal
This could be anything that you want.
It could be:
- I want to learn to play a song.
- I want to be able to play on stage.
- I want to be play a guitar solo.
Once you’ve done this, you need to create smaller goals that will help you reach this goal.
Setting Sub Goals
When doing this, we need to think about what we need to do, to reach our main goal.
So for example, if you wanted to learn to play a song you may need to do the following:
- Learn the chords to the song.
- Learn a strumming pattern.
- Learn the song structure.
Set Smaller Goals
Once you’ve set your sub goals, you can set smaller goals which help you reach that.
For example, let’s say the song you’re learning has the chords D, A and E.
An example of a smaller goal would be:
- Learn the D chord.
- Learn the A chord.
- Learn the E chord.
By setting a series of goals, it allows you to structure your practice efficiently.
Step 8) How To Teach Yourself Guitar – Set Realistic Practice Time
Having structured practice time can really help you progress on the guitar.
Be Realistic About Your Time
When organising a practice routine, you MUST be realistic about your time.
It’s impossible to practice for 5 – 6 hours every day. Try and break your practice down into more manageable chunks.
It’s important to be realistic about this, so if that means 5 minutes a day for 7 days a week, that’s fine.
Just make sure you find something which works for you.
In your first steps as a guitar player, you need lots and lots of repetition.
Therefore, if you can practice little and often, teaching yourself to play the guitar will be a piece of cake.
Here are a few simple steps you can use when organising your practice time
- Fill out your diary with your daily commitments, this could be when you’re in work or at school.
Once you’ve done this, you should be able to see the gaps that are free.
- Fill these gaps with your practice.
Don’t overload yourself! Be realistic about what practice time you can fit in and make sure that you have regular breaks.
- Go practice!
If you’ve set your goals, you could assign a goal to each day of the week. This would be a great way to structure your practice.
For more practice tips, go here:Guitar Practice – 10 Essential Tips
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Step 9) How To Teach Yourself Guitar – Stay inspired
Learning how to teach yourself guitar can be a bit of a struggle.
It’s great fun, but there can be down days. However, don’t worry there’s a way to stop this.
It’s important to try and stay inspired when you’re learning how to teach yourself guitar.
Here are 3 essential tips that will keep you inspired when learning guitar.
1) Watch Your Favourite Artist on YouTube.
This is a great way to keep inspired. Watching your guitar heroes allows you to aspire to be just like them!
2) Discover New and Exciting Music
By discovering new music, it keeps your musical soul full of fresh new content. This works fantastically if the music is guitar related, as you can aspire to play new music.
3) Go Watch a Live Concert.
There’s nothing more exciting than watching live music.
This could be in an arena or your local open mic. There’s something about live music which can inspire you to a new place!
Step 10) How to Teach Yourself Guitar – Learn Guitar With a Friend
Learning with your friends is one of the best ways to learn guitar.
Learning the guitar can be difficult, so if you’ve got a friendly face to spur you on, it can really boost your progess.
Also it’s no fun to learn the guitar own, learning with a friend makes you feel like you’re not alone in this guitar journey.
Here a few simple tips which may come in handy when you’re learning guitar with a friend.
1. Pick Tunes To Learn Which You Both Like
If you both like similar kinds of music, this can be a fantastic way to learn!
2.Pick Songs To Learn Which Have Two Guitar Parts
This is a great way to learn stuff, as one person could take rhythm and the other could take lead. You can rock out to your hearts content.
3. Find Someone Who Is Slightly Better Than You
Although this may seem like a scary prospect, it can actually be really helpful when you’re learning guitar.
If your friend is slightly ahead of you in they’re guitar playing journey, it pushes you to better yourself.
We know this can be scary, however if your friend is kind and understanding, they’ll be able to help you out if you’re struggling with something.
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