Computer Safety TipsFind tips and tricks to keep safe while on the computer.

In this essay, I am going to apply a number of the Principles of Correct Practice to a technical area that is of major concern to players. For beginners, it poses one of the most challenging difficulties, and an incomplete appreciation of it’s difficulties dogs many an advanced player (sometimes without them being aware of it).

So you can barely squeeze in any time at all in a day to practice, huh? There are many of us that share the same dilemma, but by knowing what to practice in those short moments of time you can maximize your effort. For example, if you only have ten minutes in between jobs, or other things you need to do, here is a list of some of the things you can do:

After coming to an awareness of the existence of a “bad habit”, develop an understanding of how it got there. What weren’t you doing that allowed that situation to develop. Of course, it always reduces down to something you weren’t aware of that you should have been paying attention to, been more intense about during your practice.

Turn your musical frustrations into an asset in the form of a motivating force. I wrote a whole article called Musical Frustration. I don’t want to repeat here everything that I wrote in that article, so read it if you haven’t already. If you have read it, it may be worth your time to read it again now.

You should be a well rounded player and learn lots of different styles of music to become a good guitarist. This is one of the most ridiculous statements I have ever heard on the subject.

Segovia (the classical guitar master) wasn’t well rounded – he didn’t waste his time to master jazz or bluegrass for example. Yngwie Malmsteen didn’t study intense jazz guitar. Most great jazz guitarists don’t study classical guitar or heavy metal guitar.

Measure your progress. Document your practice time. Keep a record of how much you practice each day. For technique things, use a metronome to see how fast you are able to play a particular scale, exercise, lick, arpeggio, etc. cleanly. Write down the result, practice it all week and see if you can play it one or two beats per minute faster by next week (or next month).

They are masters of their style, they are specialists, not a jack-of-all-trades type of player. Don’t listen to people who say something like, You must learn blues before you can learn heavy metal or classical guitar.You do not have to be well rounded.