How To Get Faster At Playing Guitar By Eliminating 5 Mistakes That Make Your Practice Time Extremely Wasteful

It’s a common misconception that you can’t get faster at playing guitar in a short amount of time. Usually guitarists are making various common mistakes that make their guitar practice inefficient. Correcting these simple mistakes makes a world of difference towards helping you quickly become a faster guitarist.

Double check your guitar practice habits to make sure you aren’t making any of these common mistakes:

Mistake #1: Not Having A Practice Schedule And Tracking Progress

Practicing guitar without a schedule is an inefficient approach that might slow down your progress by many years! Not only does using a schedule make practice more efficient, but it makes it more fun because you always know you are getting close to being able to play guitar exactly how you want.

Don’t just practice guitar to get faster in a general sense, set specific speed goals.

For example:

·         Playing a specific guitar solo X times in a row without making a mistake.

·         Being able to play a certain scale at a specific tempo while making less than X mistakes in a minute.

·         Being able to improvise at a specific tempo while making fewer than X mistakes, and only being able to use 16^th note rhythms.

Note: These are just examples. There are countless goals you can have for your guitar speed. Invest time into thinking of what you want to achieve for yourself, then write down your goals and build a guitar practice schedule around them.

Mistake #2: Practicing When Tired And/Or Not Prioritizing Energy

You get the most benefits out of your guitar practice when you do it at times when you have the most energy. This could be in the morning before work/school, in between lunch and dinner or whenever you feel you are the most energetic.

The reason why this is important is that you are able to practice with more focus. This means you retain the information you learn better, such as the mistakes you made, how you fixed them and how to fix them efficiently in the moment.

Tip: A great way to increase your energy before guitar practice is to watch/do things that get you motivated. For example: watch a live performance by your favorite band and think about what it would be like for you to play on stage someday.

Mistake #3: Practicing With Distractions

Nothing kills the effectiveness of guitar practice like constant distractions. This could be having your TV on, videos on the internet, talking to other people or countless other things. Constantly going in and out of a focused state causes everything to break down and you barely make any progress at all.

Commit yourself to practicing guitar without distractions by turning off any devices, closing the door to your room and having your practice schedule prepared in advance and ready to go.

Mistake #4: Practicing For Long Periods Of Time Without Focus

It’s a common myth that guitar players only get great when they practice for many hours every day. Fact is, we can really only learn with intense focus for 45 minutes to an hour at most. After this, our focus sharply declines, making the practice exponentially less effective.