Intermediate

When you pick up the guitar each day, make sure the first thing you do, is try to play is something you can't do. This is what what beginners do because they can't play anything yet.

You only improve if you are constantly challenging yourself to learn new techniques.

Have you listened to yourself play recently? Do you sound good to yourself?

It's reasonable to wonder why you don't sound as good as the guitarist on the record when you're playing exactly the same thing.

The challenge for you, is to recognise exactly why you don't sound as good as you should. The reasons might be too subtle for you to identify clearly - things like unconscious note muting caused by poor left/right hand coordination - or timing flaws that only someone with perfect timing will spot.

I haven't improved for years

So maybe you've been playing guitar for some time now but you don't seem to be able to maintain the same rate of improvement you had as a beginner.

Perhaps you've been learning from YouTube for years and you're starting to realise that it isn't getting easier.

Whatever the reason you're stuck in a rut, you will have to overhaul your practise sessions if you want to get good fast.

Learning how to practise is the best lesson you'll ever have, well certainly the most useful.

What is the first thing you do when you pick up your guitar? Do you always play the same thing? This is a bad habit you should break if you want to Get Good Fast.

Playing what you can already play is fun and self gratifying but in the end frustrates you.

Most of the one-to-one mature students I've taught have been playing guitar for years, 5, 10, 20 years sometimes. They believed that if they kept on playing, eventually they would get better and better. Of course, that didn't happen and eventually they found a guitar teacher who could help.

We all need to refine our techniques so that we sound like the professionals when we play, but this is one of the hardest things to do if you aren't an expert at practising.

One of the most common problems I've seen teaching intermediate players who aren't happy with the way they play or sound, is that they have learned too quickly without giving due care and attention to certain techniques along the way.

This is when you learn something using muscle memory - getting your fingers into the right places at the right time and kind of making it sound OK, then moving on without really making sure you know and understand what you're doing. You can play the same thing for years and years and it never really seems to get any better.

Sound familiar?

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