21 Great Ways to Improve Your Guitar Playing

By Don J. MacLean

www.TotallyUnderstandGuitarTheory.com

It's a common scenario.

You've been playing guitar for a while, you're making good progress and then out of nowhere, all of a sudden, it doesn't seem to matter what you do—you just can't seem to make any progress!

You practice, practice, practice, but don't see any results.

This is really frustrating.

The good news is it doesn't have to be this way anymore.

In my 25 years of teaching guitarists just like you, I have found 21 great ways to break through ruts and get the fire and inspiration back into your guitar playing.

So here are 21 rut-busting tips that will help you get your guitar playing back on track.

1. Put the guitar away for a day, week, or even a month.

Go for total and complete abstinence from guitar. You might even want to take it a step further and also avoid listening to music as well.

When you take a break from playing guitar and music, you will usually start to get those strong "gotta play" urges.

When you resume playing guitar you can look at it with fresh eyes.


2. Learn a song from a different style of music.

Let's say your favourite style of guitar playing is rock. Learn to play a jazz guitar song, a blues song, a country song, a reggae song, or a classical guitar song, etc.

You can either find something in a very different style than you normally play or you can learn something that is in a similar or related style.

If your ears are in good shape learn the song by ear. Otherwise, find some sheet music for the song.

Bear in mind that a great underutilized source for sheet music is your local library. If you live in a small town visit the closest major city's library. Also don't forget about college and university libraries.

3. Learn some guitar theory.

I remember when I first started to play guitar. You couldn't have paid me to learn guitar theory. All I wanted to do was learn my favourite songs and improve my technique. But then I realized that my playing could only go so far if I didn't have a clue as to what I was doing.

After more than 25 years of teaching, I can safely say that for most guitarists, the biggest breakthroughs and rut busters come from learning some guitar theory.

The great thing is that you don't have to go hardcore on this. Just learning the basics of guitar theory will have a huge impact on your playing.

When you don't know guitar theory, it's like wandering around inside a huge mansion with the lights off. With knowledge of guitar theory it's like you've found the switch and turned on the lights!

Here's a great guitar theory course:

How to Totally Understand Guitar Theory

If you want to know more about the benefits to learning guitar theory, check out these three articles:

What is Guitar Theory?

Does Guitar Theory Give You an Unfair Advantage?

The 3 Biggest Guitar Theory Lies

4. Focus on guitar technique.

Another great thing to do to catapult your guitar playing to the next level is to focus exclusively on your guitar technique.

What you do is set aside either an entire practice session, or a whole week of practice sessions and do nothing but work on technique.

So you would work on alternate picking, hammer-ons and pull-offs, tapping, sweep picking, finger-picking and stretching exercises.

You don't work on any songs, or anything else—you just practice technique.

After you have done this you return to your regular practice routine.

Here are some good guitar technique courses:

The Top 30 Most Powerful Guitar Technique Exercises of All Time


How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of A High School Shredder

How to Cut 1 Year Off Your Learning Curve and Play Guitar Like a Pro Now!

5. Do some string skipping exercises.

Still in the technique area, a great rut-buster is to work on string skipping exercises. These are exercises that most guitarists seem to forget to use.

String skipping exercises will improve your pick-hand technique, fret-hand technique and coordination.

The Top 30 Most Powerful Guitar Technique Exercises of All Time


How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of A High School Shredder


6. Learn to play horn parts on the guitar.

This is a great one. I'm not talking about learning to replicate the sound of car horns on your guitar, I'm talking about learning to play sax, clarinet, oboe, or trumpet parts on the guitar.

This is a total eye-opener.

The first thing you'll discover, especially if you learn some jazz pieces, is that most horn lines don't sit very well on the guitar. What I mean by this is that they don't sit very well under your fingers. So when you play a Charlie Parker sax solo on the guitar you really have to work!

The other cool thing to do with horn parts is to try to match the phrasing as much as possible. This will give you all kinds of fresh ideas for your lead guitar playing.


7. Learn a piano piece on guitar.

You have three options with this. You can learn the chords or melody for the piano part and arrange it for guitar, or you can create an arrangement in which you do both.

When you do that later you are doing what is called "chord melody" style. You create an arrangement in which you play both chords and melody together. Classical guitarists do this all the time and you will also hear solo jazz guitarists use this technique.

It's kind of like the "one-man-band" approach to guitar playing.  It's fun to play and always sounds cool!

8. Learn a violin piece and arrange it for guitar.

This can also be lots of fun. Take a Bach, Mozart, or Paganini piece and arrange the violin parts for guitar. These pieces sound really cool on guitar and you'll get a great guitar technique workout.

9. Learn some new guitar scales.

If the only scale you know is the minor pentatonic, it's time to look at the larger world of guitar scales. As you learn new scales you will give your fingers some new challenges and most importantly you will give yourself some new tools for creating killer guitar solos.

When you think about it, a guitar solo is just a melody that uses one or more guitar scales that work well over the chord progression.

So if you want more variety in your guitar solos, learn some new guitar scales.

Also be sure to learn multiple fingerings for these guitar scales. Different scale fingerings will give you different melodic ideas. The other cool thing is once you know multiple ways to play the same scale on the guitar, you can link them together and cover the entire fretboard in the key. This is one way to create those long fretboard-burning licks.

How to master guitar scales

How to Cut 1 Year Off Your Learning Curve and Play Guitar Like a Pro Now!

10. Practice guitar scales new ways.

Yes, learning new guitar scales is great but just practicing them forwards and backwards is pretty boring. Practicing scales in thirds, fourths, fifths, and sixths is good. But you should also practice scales using different and more elaborate melodic patterns and sequences.

How to practice guitar scales

Discover the Breakthrough Insider Guitar Secrets, That No One is Telling You...So You Can Turbo-Charge Your Guitar Playing Now!

11. Learn some new guitar chords.

Let's face it. In most popular songs, 80% of the guitar parts involve playing chords. This means that the vast majority of your playing, especially if you are in a band, is related to chords.

So spend some time working on new guitar chords.

Get a good guitar chord book if you don't already have one, and decide that you are going to learn 3 new chords every week. That means that you will learn 12 new guitar chords every month. As you can guess, this will add up fast. In a year you have added 144 new guitar chords to your vocabulary.

The key when you learn these new guitar chords is that you MUST find a way to use them.

If you learn a new chord and have absolutely no way of using it, it's like learning a new word and never being able to use it in conversation. In a short period of time you will have forgotten the word.  The same is true with chords, if you don't use them you will forget how to play them.

So use it or lose it.

See Guitar Essentials: Chord Master Expanded Edition for more info on how to learn the guitar chords you need to know.


How to Cut 1 Year Off Your Learning Curve and Play Guitar Like a Pro Now!

12. Learn more about rhythm and time signatures and compose something in 3/4, 5/4, 7/8, etc.

This is also a big one.

Let's be honest. As a guitarist it is very easy to get lost in the technical nature of the instrument.

You practice your guitar chords and guitar scales diligently.

You spend lots of time working on creating cool chord progressions and nailing that killer guitar solo note-for-note, but the million-dollar question is: "how much time (pun intended) do you spend working on your rhythm guitar playing?"

If you are like most guitarists, it's probably a very small amount of your practice time.

There are lots of great ways to improve your rhythm playing. And by this I don't just mean rhythm guitar parts. As you improve your sense of rhythm you'll also improve your lead guitar playing.

If you are only comfortable playing 8ths and 16ths, then this is all you are going to do in your rhythm and lead guitar playing. If you have a wider rhythmic pallet to use, you will be able to create more interesting rhythm guitar and lead guitar parts.

So how do you improve your rhythm?

First you should learn the basics of rhythm and time signatures. Grab a good guitar theory book for this.

You may want to work your way through a drum book.

Yes, I'm not kidding.

I work all of my serious guitar students through a drum book called Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer by Ted Reed.

All you do is set up your metronome and clap the rhythms.

Work on a few pages a week and you will notice huge improvements in your rhythm.

The other thing you can do after clapping the rhythms, is apply them to chord progressions. Either compose your own or find one you can use with the rhythm. Also create a guitar solo that uses the new rhythmic figures you have just mastered.

The other great thing you can do for your rhythmic skills is listen to a wide variety of musical styles. Listen to everything you can get your hands on—including music from different cultures—this will expose you to some really cool rhythms.

Once you have started to experiment with different time signatures, you should spend some time composing pieces in these meters. Write something in 3/4, 5/4, 7/8, etc.

13. Dust off the metronome.

This one of course is related to number 12.

Another great rut-buster is to practice everything with a metronome.

If you already practice with a metronome then turn it off for a week and practice everything without it.

Another option is to use your metronome as a measuring stick.

Let's say you are working on a new scale. Set up your metronome and practice the guitar scale with the metronome. Note the tempo that you are able to accurately play the scale. Make it your goal to increase the speed by one, two, or three beats per minute (bpm).  Do this every practice session, or once a week, etc.

Just make sure it's a realistic goal and be sure to remember that SPEED IS A BY-PRODUCT OF ACCURACY. If you play a scale or pattern faster than you can accurately play it, you are actually practicing your mistakes.


14. Get a DVD of your favourite guitar player.

There is probably nothing more inspiring than watching your favourite guitarist performing. Now it's easier than ever to do this. A quick search online and you should be able to find a concert DVD you will like. If you can't find your favourite guitar player, at least find a close runner up.


15. If you play mostly with a pick, focus on finger-picking. If you are mostly a finger-style player, spend some time learning some flat-picking songs.

16. Play some slide guitar.


17. Retrace your roots.

Remember back to what got you started on guitar. What guitar songs did you want to play? Relearn these songs.


18. Get a new guitar instructional DVD.

There are lots of great instructional guitar DVDs to choose from. Grab one that focuses on an area of your playing you want to improve.

19. Get a new guitar instruction book.

There are tons of great guitar lesson books. Grab one or two now.

20. Grab a guitar magazine.

Go to your local newsstand and pick up one or two new guitar magazines. You'll find some new songs to learn, and great articles and tips. 

You might want to take this a step further.

In tip 2, I mentioned that you should learn some music from a different style of music. 

Guitar magazines give you another way to do this.  Why not pick up a guitar magazine that specializes in a style of music you've never played before?


21. Crank it up!

Need I say more?

 

Well there you go. You've now got 21 great ways to improve your guitar playing.

I would highly recommend that you print off this article now.

Print it off and put it in your guitar practice binder. This way you'll always know where to find the article.

Pick one or two ideas that you like and put them to use today.

Every month or so, come back to this article and apply a new technique. Using these tips on a consistent basis will practically ensure that your playing will advance quickly.  Also, you'll blast through any plateaus you may encounter along the way.
 

Don J. MacLean is one of North America's leading authorities on accelerated learning methods for guitar. Don is the author of over 30 books including How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder, 21 Secrets to Learn any Guitar Song Super-Fast, 7 Secrets to Learn any Guitar Chord Super-Fast, Guitar Essentials: Chord Master Expanded Edition, The World of Scales, and the Absolute Essentials of Music Theory for Guitar.