Is Your Guitar Practice Working?

To succeed at learning guitar, regular practice is essential. But even if you are diligent enough to make sure you practice regularly, you may not be getting as much out of your sessions as you could. Many guitar students find that in spite of spending hours practicing they don't seem to make much progress. What can be done to change this?
Before you start your guitar practice session, you should carry out a warm up. This can be just simply opening and closing your hands repeatedly. Then simply play a sequence of notes up and down the fret. Spend about 5 to 10 minutes on this. This will help you get your playing position and holding of the guitar comfortable and warm up your muscles before the serious stuff begins. As your learning advances, you can improve your warm up session by playing scales and arpeggios.
Make a plan or routine for your guitar practice sessions. An example plan might be to start with practicing a scale, followed by learning one or two new chords. Finally you could finish off by learning part of a song that you want to be able to play. Using a plan for your practice sessions allows you to get on with practicing rather than waste time wondering what to do next in your practice session.
Try to build into the session plan a goal such as learning two new chords. If you are being taught by a guitar teacher, they may set goals for your next lesson. If you are teaching yourself, it is even more important for you to set goals. Failure to set goals will allow you to drift in your practice session, and this will affect your progress. The goals could be for that session or could be for completion in three or four sessions depending on the difficulty of the goal. Try to be realistic when setting goals so that you don't undermine your confidence. Having a goal gives you a target, a challenge, and this helps to motivate you during the practice session.
When you are learning something new, a scale or chord sequence for example, make sure that you practice slowly. If you practice too fast you will make mistakes. As you repeat these mistakes in the practice session, you are simply learning to make mistakes. It is the accuracy of what you are playing that is important, not the speed. Once you can play what you have been learning easily and accurately, then you can try speeding it up. Practicing guitar too fast is a common mistake that beginners make. Try using a metronome to control the speed at which you play.
If what you are practicing is proving too difficult, don't keep trying and trying and end up frustrated and tired. Take a break and come back to it later. Be kind to yourself and practice something less demanding. You will often find that when you return, even in a later practice session, to what was giving you difficulty, it will play a bit easier. Slogging away endlessly at something you find difficult is a big motivation killer. Don't do it!
If you feel any pain aching or soreness while practicing, you should stop your guitar practice session. If you have warmed up and your posture and hand position on the neck are correct, you shouldn't suffer any pain during a normal practice session. The only exception may be if you are a beginner guitarist, when your muscles will have to adapt to the new prolonged positions that they hold and work in.
Try to stick to your practice schedule. There may be days when you simply can't complete a session, but this should be the exception. If you really want to make progress your guitar practice should be regular. Even if you only manage 15 minutes a day this will be better than one hour then no practice for a week. If finding the time is difficult try splitting your session into two parts. Do whatever it takes to keep your practice regular. Make sure you are giving your practice your full attention. Don't practice somewhere where there are lots of distractions. If you spend 30 minutes practicing, but your mind is wandering towards what's going on in the other room, your practice won't be worth much. Never practice guitar in front of the TV!
To make your guitar practice more successful, try to include music that you really enjoy in your practice session. Practicing a tune you hate is not going to get you very far. Sometimes you will have to learn a piece of music from your lessons that you just don't like. You will have to learn this, as there will be something about the piece, technique, chords etc. that it is important for you to try in the context of a song. When this happens add a piece that you enjoy to the session as well to compensate and lift you up again.
Finally, at the end of the session, just play around with your guitar and have some fun. This will help you finish in a good mood and will set you up in the right frame of mind for your next session. If you end a practice session tired and frustrated, you will not be looking forward to your next session and that is bad news. Aim to make your guitar practice fun and see just how much progress you can make!
By Ken Radwell
(published at http://www.goarticles.com)