10 Great Tips To Improve Your Guitar Playing Skills

There are many a secret techniques and methods that help you negotiate those hurdles that hold you back from reaching the top !

You need not be a guy with extraordinary skills and intellect to become a great guitarist. but you should possess these qualities for sure,

1) Willingness to put in your heart and soul for guitar or hard work &
2) Unrelenting dedication.
3) Willingness to take risks by challenging ones own skills
4) Resilience, the ability to pick oneself up from a failure without being demoralized

If you develop these qualities, then nothing can stop you from achieving your ultimate goal. No one is born with skills, you need to develop them.

Here in this lens I have discussed some easy to follow tips to drastically improve your guitar playing skills. These are the techniques that every guitarist must know. Don't just read, follow them and it will surely yield some great results.

1. Always learn new things - First and the most important tip is to always try to learn new things and update yourself. Come out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself with difficult riffs and solos, new concepts and techniques and so on.

It is highly recommended that you learn it from a tutor than learning it on your own. Believe me, it makes a lot of improvement in your playing. Join a course or a program, it's a great source of inspiration.

2. Set new goals and try to achieve them - The next important thing to keep in my mind is to utilize your practice time in the best possible ways. Do not just waste your time on messing around with your guitar. But always try to learn a new riff, solo or even a whole song, part by part on a daily basis, and also make sure you play it flawless.

Also make sure that you start practicing a new riff or lick in a slow pace and gradually develop the speed, this will develop your finger memory and make your playing perfect, confident and smooth. Do not hurry things.

3. 'Listening' is the key - Make sure you listen to the type of music that you love the most. This is one of the greatest motivational forces that will inspire you to practice your guitar more. Listen to various artists in that genre and try to learn their styles. Listen to them very keenly and learn the riffs and licks out those tracks and practice them to perfection.

Also listen to various styles and genres and try to learn them. Remember, listening is the key to becoming a successful guitarist.

4. Be with better players -If possible make friends with guitarists who play better than you and are passionate about guitar who are also good listeners and willing to share the time and space with you. It would be useless to waste time on someone who's got some stale attitude, no matter how great he plays.

Associating yourself with better guitarists can yield you great results in lesser time than you might think. You can jam with them, learn new things,get to know more better guitarists through them. So always try to build a network of passionate guitarists that you can count on.

5. Showcase your guitar playing skills - You must plan out how you would like to showcase your newly acquired skills on guitar. As i said earlier, this network will be a great help in finding you venues and platforms to portray your guitar playing skills.

The possibilities are endless, you could join a band, or directly record an album in the studios or just play at a restaurant or a bar. It's up to you where you decide to show off your skills. But make sure you play it out for others rather than just for your bedroom walls.

6. Share your guitar knowledge with others - Sharing your knowledge with others is one of the best services that you can do to the society. Let others also learn what you have learned. That way you will learn new things and also refresh your knowledge regularly.

If you have to teach someone, you need to be really thorough with that subject otherwise you will goof up, so naturally you are forced to learn and keep yourself updated with new techniques and skills.From my personal experience I have learned more new techniques and skills by teaching others than by learning on my own. Teaching is a revision of what you have learned and it makes your knowledge more deep rooted. This way you will excel more as a guitarist and ultimately become a complete musician.

7. Always be positive - A positive attitude is very important for your success. So believe in your talents and abilities be true to yourself. There may be a thousand people trying to pull you back or let you down. Do not ever listen to them. Always try to be with those people who likes and supports you. That's a great source of inspiration, believe me.

If you have decided to excel in guitar, do not ever give in, be confident and keep at it, no matter whatever discouragements come your way. This is one of the keys to your success as guitarist and a successful human being too.

8. Develop your own playing style - If you believe that every person in this world is unique, then you too are. Agreed ? So you should try to bring out the same uniqueness to your guitar playing too. May you sound different from all other guitarists in the world. Let there be no one else who plays like you. Gel your personality along with your guitar playing.

Let your guitar playing reflect what you think and feel (like blues or jazz). Then you wouldn't have a dearth of scales. You could develop your own scales and songs, if guitar playing becomes a way of life.

9. Adopt what really works for you - As I said in one of my earlier tips, having a network of guitar playing friends is like having a treasure. You would play more and learn more without your knowledge. Discuss what practice styles and genres worked for them, and try to imbibe them, I am sure you will surely find one that fits you.

This way you will enjoy practicing and playing guitar and won't feel monotonous at all.

10. Identify your improvement areas and destroy them - Never be content with your recent achievements, try to conquer various realms of guitar playing, different genres and styles. For e.g. If you think that you don't know finger-picking style, try to learn it and conquer that style.

Always be on the look out for where you lag behind and work towards it. This way you will never idle away your time and will be on the look out for destroying your weakness and learning new things. If possible jot down all the weakness areas and find ways to improve them. This will surely make you a more versatile and dynamic guitarist.

Tips remain tips unless you put them into action. So do not wait. Pick up your guitar buried deep down in your garage or attic, dust it off and start practicing. And finally, before I conclude I would like to expose few popular myths with you,

1. "You need to know all the genres to be a true guitarist" - It's impossible ! Just concentrate on any one style or genre and keep practicing it until you excel it. But I know it's foolish to mention that anybody can excel in even a single genre even if they spent their whole life on it, but surely you can attain a great level of excellence if you dedicated to one. So don't fiddle around with many styles and genres, concentrate and try to excel in any one that you love.

2. "Best equipments make you a better guitarist" - Its a myth that anyone having the best equipments and guitar can play better. It's outright foolish. So don't go for a $5000 guitar and equipments when you start off. But if you can afford it, please go for it, but for others I would recommend a modest guitar and equipment to kick start your guitar playing. A person who knows how to play well can make even the crappiest guitar sound fantastic.

But do remember to get a good instructor, without that your learning would never be structured and complete. I have learned guitar from different sources after my 5 years training with a private guitar tutor. From my experience, I have learned that, best method to teach yourself guitar in this modern age is from a good online guitar course or DVDs.

Some of the courses that I would recommend are Learn and Master Guitar and JamPlay.

Anyways its up to you how you learn it. Wishing you all the very best in all your guitar ventures.