Why Rhythm Guitar is More Fun

I'm very happy announce a guest post telling you Why Rhythm Guitar is More Fun over on the Rock House Blog today. The Rock House Blog provides regular tips, artist news and support for Rock House music products.

I'd like to give a big thank you to Curt and the Rock House crew for inviting me over. Click on over to read my post Why Rhythm Guitar is More Fun.

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Taking Stock of the Guitar Year

Here's a simple guitar journal exercise to help you review your playing and prepare your next step as we approach the end of this year. Below you'll find a series of prompts to get you thinking about what you do well and what you want to improve. The focus is on improvement and the last prompts are designed to get you to decide on your next actions and put them into practice.

Take your time to think about the answers. A good way to do the exercise is to copy the prompts onto a sheet of paper now and then leave some time to think about your answers. Come back later and write down all the things that have come to you. You might like to note down answers as they crop up if you keep your piece of paper handy.

Here are the prompts. Write each one on a sheet of paper and continue with a few sentences or a simple bullet list of the thoughts that occur to you.

1. "I am happy with the way I play guitar because..."

2. "My guitar strengths are..."

3. "My guitar weaknesses are..."

4. "One thing I'd really like to do better is..."

5. "Five ways that I could make that happen are..."

6. "Today, I will do..."

This last one is important, don't stop at writing it down - you have to do it. Only taking action will help you improve your guitar playing. Repeatedly taking little actions to move forward will ensure that you'll be able to look back at the end of the coming year and feel satisfied with your progress playing guitar.

Are you serious about improving your guitar playing in the coming year? Online guitar lessons from WorkshopLive are an excellent way to create your own learning program. Choose from hundreds of video lessons from top guitar teachers. Free 7-Day Trial!

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Instant Guitar Practice Routine

Here's another post to help those who said they don't know what to practice in the Guitar Learning Challenges survey. If you enjoy it you might want to catch up on other responses:

• How to Fix Stupid Guitar Fingers
• Guitar Practice: Never Be Stuck For Ideas Again

Do you wonder what to practice when you sit down with your guitar? If you do, you could be wasting valuable practice time. Maybe you just sit and twiddle and play a few songs you know. This is fine relaxation, but it won't make your playing much better.

The best way to counter the problem is to plan your practice in advance, say a week or so at a time. But we all have those busy weeks when we just don't get around to it, and that's when an instant guitar practice routine comes in useful.

Just copy the instant practice routine below and keep it near your guitar. It will be ready for you to pick a couple of things to work on every time you practice.

Practice What You're Stuck On

Maybe there's a chord change you can't make fast enough, or a bar where you always go wrong. Focus on that problem and practice until you solve it.

Learn Fretboard Notes and Intervals

Pick notes, say them and play them in different places on the fretboard. Combining these actions reinforces your learning.

Play a Chord Progression in Several Keys

Take a chord progression you know and practice it in unfamiliar keys. Aim to play in all twelve keys if you can, you'll need some movable chord positions to do it.

Play Chords You Know in New Orders

Build your chord changing skills with this easy exercise. Take a sequence of chords, the chords of a song you know for example, and play them in different orders. You should be able to change to and from all the chords with equal ease. Can you?

Practice Strum Patterns

Add more to your strumming bag of tricks, the more strums you know the better. Use a chord progression you know and make up new strums over it.

Practice Arpeggio Patterns

Again, take a chord progression you know and create an arpeggio pattern over it. Practice with a metronome to build accuracy and speed.

Make up Bass Runs between Chords

Take two chords you know and experiment with bass lines to link them. You can use scales, chromatic lines or just pick notes randomly to see what they sound like. Practice lines you like until you are good enough to add them in your songs.

Practice Intervals

Take an interval such as maj 3rd, min 3rd, 4ths, 5th, etc., and play them all over your fretboard. A good way to do this is to take a scale and play each note of the scale with the chosen interval.

Work out a Melody

Choose a nursery rhyme, Christmas carol or some other melody you know by heart and work it out on your guitar. Don't worry about getting the right key, start from any note and try to find what comes next.

Practice Hammer-ons, Pull-offs, Vibrato, Bends, Slides

Brush up on your basics by playing some notes using these common guitar skills.

Make up Licks

Pick between three and five notes and see how many interesting licks you can make up with them.

There you have an instant practice routine to ensure you do something valuable every time you pick up your guitar. If you are serious about improving your guitar playing then copy it now and keep it with your guitar ready for your next practice session.

What about you, what would you add to this instant practice routine? Share your ideas by leaving a comment.

Not Playing Guitar is taking a Christmas break for the rest of this week. I'll be back next week with more guitar practice tips. Meanwhile, let me wish you all a happy and musical Christmas, thanks for reading.

Read more answers to the Guitar Learning Challenges survey:

How to Fix Stupid Guitar Fingers
Guitar Practice: Never Be Stuck For Ideas Again

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Guitar Practice: Never Be Stuck for Ideas Again

Do you know what to practice on your guitar? Over half the replies to the recent Guitar Learning Challenges survey said they didn't. If you are like them then here's one simple idea that should help you find plenty of useful things to work on.

Guitar practice vs. playing

The first step to creating effective practice routines is to realise that playing the guitar and guitar practice are different activities. You play guitar to entertain yourself, or others. But when you practice guitar, your objective should be to develop and maintain your guitar skills.

Many guitar learners approach the two in the same way, spending practice time playing their songs. But this is not the best way to improve your guitar skills.

Practice to your mistakes

To make your guitar practice effective you've got to spend time on stuff you don't know how to play already. You've got to confront your problems and find solutions for them in order to make progress.

What are your guitar problems? There is one easy way to identify them, start with the mistakes you make. Think about the mistakes you make when you play. Pick one and make solving it the subject of your next practice session.

It might take you one practice session or many to fix a problem. You might even need to look for some outside help, from a teacher, a friend or a guitar forum, for example. When you've fixed your mistake you can pick the next one and start again.

Don't forget your existing skills

If you're anything like me, your mistakes will give you plenty of things to work on. But don't forget that you need to spend some of your practice time to maintain existing skills.

Much like a runner needs to run regularly to maintain performance, your fingers and mind need regular workouts to maintain their performance level.

It is up to you to find a balance between existing skills and new ones that works for you. You can make agreeable and fun music with a small number of skills. And remember the practice time you'll need to spend to maintain the new skills. If your time is limited you might be better off with a small set of very good skills, rather than a lot of flaky ones.

Play a little and have fun

After a hard practice session staring your playing demons in the face take a few moments to relax and have fun. I like to finish every practice session with a little song or two. It serves as a great reminder of what all the hard work is for.

There you have one simple way to find things to practice. Remember that each problem you fix takes you one small step towards being a better guitar player.

I'll be back with more posts on this topic to follow-up on the responses to the Guitar Learning Challenges survey. Don't forget to sign up for email updates or RSS reader feed so you won't miss them.

Interview With Curt Moye of Rock House Blog

Today's post is an interview with Curt Moye, Blog Editor of the Rock House Blog. Curt has kindly agreed to give me a little of his time to share some experiences and guitar tips with you. Be warned, the post is quite long. You know how it is when you get chatting...

NPG: Welcome Curt, and thanks for joining me on Not Playing Guitar today. Let's warm up by letting everybody get to know you. Can you tell us a little about your guitar playing?

Curt: Hey Gary, thanks for having me. Briefly, I started playing guitar at the age of 12 through my high school years and then put it down until about 10 years ago. I took some lessons when I was younger in the summer of '74 and then self taught my self from there, which wasn't as easy then as now. We really only had chord books, there were no VCR's or DVD players to watch a video lesson.

I just recently started lessons again. More so to help me put some styles together and for ear training. As far as my style I love playing blues and acoustic songs, I'm trying to expand into heavier metal stuff. My influences are Jeff Healey, Billy Gibbons, John Mellencamp, Jim Croce and Colin Hay to name a few.

Gary: Hey Curt, that's great. I love blues and acoustic too, maybe we can set up a jam some day. So how did you start learning guitar again, and why?

Curt: I picked up the guitar again, I honestly believe as a form of therapy, there were a lot things going on in my life and I decided I needed to find a way to occupy my time and let my mind drift to a more relaxing place.

I actually started out playing the trumpet in 4th grade but sinus problems kept me from playing it well. My parents knew how much I loved playing music and bought me an acoustic guitar for Christmas. (laughs) I chose the guitar because I wanted to be like Paul Stanley of Kiss at the time. They were the hottest band in the land at the time. I wasn't too serious about playing back then but I am now.

When I came back to the guitar about 10 years ago I bought books with audio lessons. Searching for the perfect learning method I ran across The Rock House Method products. The rest is pretty much history. I started with their 3 DVD system Learn Rock Guitar. I couldn't believe how excited I was to learn after getting those DVDs and how much I improved. I bought several other Rock House products as time went on.

Gary: Know what you mean, I spent hours looking at chord books not understanding what was written, video sure makes things easier...

I recently ran a reader poll on guitar learning challenges, maybe you can tell us what your guitar challenge is? And do you have any specific tips for dealing with it?

Curt: To practice consistently. I jam with some buddies a couple times a month. When I pick up the guitar to "practice" I find myself pretty much playing songs. I need to actually practice more things I don't or can't do very well. I guess I've fell into a comfort zone.

There's nothing magical about finding time to practice, when I do I'll go for hours (literally). I'm lucky in that I have music room and all I really need to do is walk in the room and I'm immediately motivated to pick up one of my guitars and play or practice.

Here’s a thought on practice that I touched on in one of my posts on The Rock House Blog. The instrument gives back to you what you put into it. If you put 30 minutes 2 or 3 times a week into your instrument that’s exactly what you’re going to get from it, not much. So then you begin to get frustrated and interest drops.

But if you put 30 minutes a day 7 days a week into it, then in a short time it starts to give back to you. Soon 30 minutes a day turns into an hour a day and an hour can literally turn into hours. If you play/practice everyday pretty soon it goes from scheduling a time in the day to play to becoming part of your day without thought.

Gary: This might be a tough one, we're going to dig for some secrets now ;-) Us guitar bloggers are great at handing out tips and advice to help people learn guitar. But I know - and don't ask me how... - that we're not always as good at applying it. Do you have a tip or piece of advice that you don't actually apply well?

Curt: Yeah ummm the dreaded metronome. I have one, well actually 2 of them. I use them on occasion but definitely not as much as I should.

Gary: OK, your secret's safe here :-) And speaking of blogging, tell us what your blog is about and who it's for?

Curt: The Rock House Blog is about Rock House Method, it's about News and Instructor/Artists that have instructional DVDs with the company. It's about learning to play musical instruments such as the guitar or bass and I post quite a few lessons, tips, tricks and advice on the blog.

Gary: Has guitar blogging and the blog community helped your playing in any way?

Curt: I gotta tell ya, I have run into so much advice while checking on the people in my blog roll. They all have something to offer and I've picked up a lot of advice from them. Much like your blog title Gary, Not Playing Guitar is pretty important. If people would learn that reading whatever you can get your hands on about playing, practicing and performing will help improve their skills I feel they would be way ahead of the game.

Gary: Curt, can you tell us which post on your blog is your personal favorite?

Curt: One of my favorite posts and the most read my readers is called 12 Things You Can Do Right Now To Become A Better Player the other is when I wrote a post about taking guitar lessons again called Guitar Lessons After 30 Years of Playing.

Gary: I like those two, probably my favourites. As a parting word you get the chance now to help out a fellow guitar beginner. Let's say you meet someone who's just started, or is thinking about, learning guitar. You're at a bus stop or a train station or something, so you have only two minutes to give them advice. What do you tell them?

Curt: 2 things here young man before you hop on the bus to Hollywood. I gotta tell ya about that ugly dreaded "P" word called practice. You won't get better thinking about it. You have to do it, every day, not 2 or 3 times a week but every day. Practice proper techniques, scales and chord progressions. End the practice with a song you want to learn and finish with one you can knock out of the park.

The second thing is to have fun, with all the practice you'll be doing music will become fun. Your skills will be what you make them to be, it's not easy, if it was everyone would be playing guitar.

Hey kid, one last thing. That saying "Drugs, Sex and Rock 'n Roll"? Don't get into the first one, be careful with the second and third....well the third is what it's all about.

Gary: Curt, thanks once again for spending some time with the Not Playing Guitar readers. I for one picked up a couple of useful ideas in there.

Got a question for Curt? Ask away in the post comments, Curt will be sticking around to answer them for you...

How to Fix Stupid Guitar Fingers

Do you feel like you have "stupid fingers" when you play guitar? That's what a commenter on the recent Guitar Learning Challenges poll reported. So today we're going to take a look at some ways to train those misbehaving fingers.

Note that for this post, I'm assuming that the comment was talking about the fretting fingers, the ones you use on the fretboard to make chords or scales. For right handed players this is the left hand. The tips below can also be applied to solve problems with the picking, strumming, or right hand too with a little adaptation. I'm sure you'll get it, but feel free to leave a comment if you don't. Back to the story...

Right, so if you have stupid fingers, firstly, you should know that you are not alone. Secondly, you should know that chords and scales are fiendishly designed to tie your fingers in a knot. Guitarists have perfected them over the centuries to discourage newcomers and protect their place as makers of the music.

OK, I admit, I made up the second bit, but I sometimes wonder if there isn't some truth in it. Anyhow, here are some useful tips I hope you can use to combat this knotty problem.

1. Focus on your fingering hand only.
2. Practice changes very slowly.
3. Do finger independence exercises.
4. Practice chord changes in your sleep.
5. Develop a sense of patience.

Let's take a quick tour through these points to explain what I mean.

1. Focus On Your Fingering Hand Only

Your brain has to learn to control hundreds, thousands even, of tiny muscle movements to finger chords and scales on the guitar. If you load it with even more tasks, like reading tab, strumming, listening to a metronome and tapping a foot, all at the same time you are headed for trouble.

Your brain will be rushing around like a plate spinner in a cabaret show, eventually when there are too many plates in the air there will be broken china. Your brain just can't keep up.

So give your brain a chance. Practice only the finger movements of your fretting hand. Forget strumming, forget reading the tab or music at the same time. Work only with your fretting hand.

2. Practice Changes Very Slowly

So now you've cut your brain some slack while it coaxes your reluctant fingers into obeying its instructions. Things might be a little better already, but if you practice too fast some fingers won't get enough attention. They'll start making mistakes to show how unhappy they are about this (yes, fingers can be fickle things).

The more you make these mistakes, the more your finger muscles and brain will learn to repeat them.

So, sloooooooooowwwwww dooooooowwwwwwwn. A lot. Do the movements as slowly as necessary to get them right. It doesn't matter if it takes you two minutes to change chords when you start. Get it right first, get it faster later.

3. Do Finger Independence Exercises

Some exercises to build your finger independence might give you an extra boost. They can also make a nice change from practicing the same old chords and your brain will thank you for this.

You can try the ones I wrote about here, here and here as a start. You can also find a whole bunch of good exercises by visiting Guitar Cardio, a neat exercise generator.

4. Practice Chord Changes In Your Sleep

Another way to get in a little extra learning is to do it in your sleep. You don't need to take your guitar to bed to do this. No, you simply need to learn how to do guitar visualization exercises.

Visualisation is a great way to reinforce muscle learning. The best thing is you can do it in bed, in the shower, or just about anywhere.

5. Develop A Sense Of Patience

Even with all the best practice tips in the world you'll have to get used to the fact that it takes time to un-dumb your fingers.

Even when your fingers have got quite smart at something you will find that they easily go back to their childish ways when you try something new. You just have to go through this process again and they will learn, often ever such a little bit quicker than before.

Let's recap.

1. Focus on your fingering hand only, give your brain a chance.
2. Practice changes very slowly, don't teach yourself mistakes.
3. Do finger independence exercises, for variety and unfamiliar movements.
4. Practice chord changes in your sleep, using visualization.
5. Develop a sense of patience, you're gonna need it ;-)

Now you know what to do to fix your tangled stupid fingers. With a patient attitude and a patient approach you can master chord changes and enjoy playing guitar.

Finally, remember to stay relaxed as you practice. The more you tense up with frustration at your stupid fingers the more they will freeze on you.

I'll be back soon with another answer for your Guitar Learning Challenges. No Mike, it won't be dealing with impatience, you'll have to wait for that... Next time I'll be trying to help those who don't know what to practice. If you are one of them, feel free to comment with a few details of your situation. The more I know about why you don't know what to practice the better the solutions you'll get.

Meanwhile, keep practicing.

You might also like: The Principles of Correct Practice for Guitar

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What's Your Guitar Learning Challenge - Poll Results

The voting is closed in this poll to discover your guitar learning challenges. I'd like to give all of you who voted or left comments a big thank you for participating. I really enjoyed following the poll and learning more about your challenges. Let's take a look and see what you voted for.

21 readers voted and here are the challenges they voted for, the ones with the most votes first.

12 (57%) - Don't know what to practice.
8 (38%) - Don't know what to do next.
7 (33%) - Can't afford lessons.
7 (33%) - Not making progress.
6 (28%) - Don't know where to start.
6 (28%) - Not enough time.
6 (28%) - Can't read music.
5 (23%) - Don't have an objective.
3 (14%) - Can't remember songs.

A few readers commented with their own challenges that weren't in the list. These spoke of "stupid fingers", "problem changing chords", "impatience", and a "minimal practice routine with maximum impact". I for one can sympathise with those challenges so thanks for adding them.

The poll results show the number one challenge you voters want to hear about is what to practice. The top two items in the poll both relate to this. I'll be back with some specific advice on those problems soon, but while you're waiting here's a post from the archives with some help on preparing what to practice. Maybe it's what you are looking for?

Now I'm off to prepare some posts to help you with these challenges as fast as I can. Look out for them here over the coming week. You can sign-up to get posts delivered by email or to your RSS reader to save you checking back for them yourself.

Running this poll has been a lot of fun and it helps me to learn more about you readers so I can hopefully write more of what you like. It has given me some good ideas for new content to add to the site, so I think you can expect to see more polls in the new year.

Once again, thank you to all the participants and readers. Keep practicing!

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Christmas Carol Guitar Lessons

Only a few more weeks to Christmas but there's still time to learn a couple of Christmas carols to play on your guitar. Today I'm going to share with you some Christmas carol guitar lessons offered by Kirk Lorange at the Guitar For Beginners and Beyond forum. There are songs in fingerstyle and for strummers, and the great thing is you can enjoy them for free.

The lessons are of varying difficulty so you should find something that suits you. They come with a video that shows you both the left and right hands thanks to a split screen view. You also get tab, midi, mp3 and GuitarPro files as well as tips on how to play each piece.

While we're on the subject I recommend you visit the Guitar For Beginners and Beyond Forum. It's one of the best and friendliest on the Net, and Kirk is the most helpful host. Thanks Kirk for all your hard work.

Here are links to a few of the carols, you'll find links to more of them on the site.

Fingerstyle

Silent Night - easy version
Silent Night - tricky
We Wish You A Merry Christmas
Jingle Bells
O Little Star of Bethlehem

Strumming

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen
Silent Night
We Wish You A Merry Christmas

Time to get practicing... only two weeks to go...

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3 Days Left for the Guitar Learning Challenges Survey

Here's a friendly reminder that the Not Playing Guitar Learning Challenges survey is open for only three more days. If you want to participate you've got until the end of Sunday. The time will vary according to your time zone so don't wait until the last minute.

To participate simply select your challenge in the survey widget in the sidebar to the left of this post. You might have to scroll up or down a little to see it. If you are reading in a feed reader you'll have to click over to the Not Playing Guitar site.

Don't see your challenge in the list? No problem, just leave a comment on the survey announcement or right here on this post. Describe your guitar learning challenge in a few words and I'll include it in the results next week.

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Intermediate Blues Guitar Review Update 2

It's been a couple of weeks since my last update on the Intermediate Blues Guitar method by Matt Smith. This book and CD package is for guitar players with a basic knowledge of blues looking to extend their skills. You can read my previous posts on this method I'm working through by following the links below.

• Intermediate Blues Guitar by Matt Smith
• Intermediate Blues Guitar Update 1

So, back to today's update. I've been continuing my work on rhythm guitar skills this past two weeks. I admit my progress through the book was slowed down by two things. One was some time spent learning a few other songs to play with a band. The other is the funky blues fills and Rhythm & Blues fills styles I've been studying in the book.

Last time I wrote I'd already started work on funky blues fills. This technique requires both some mental and finger gymnastics so it's been quite difficult for me to perfect. One thing that would have been nice in the book here are some songs that use this technique to listen to and learn.

Even though I haven't finished with the funky blues fills I took a sneak peak ahead to the next rhythm style, Rhythm and Blues fills.

Rhythm & Blues Fills

You'll have heard this style if you've listened to Jimi Hendrix's Little Wing or Stevie Ray Vaughan's Lenny. This rhythm guitar style involves playing little fills around a chord shape. The fills are played by hammering onto, and pulling off of, notes around the chord.

The book uses open C and G chord forms that have been made moveable - by adding a bar - as well as the F, E minor and A minor bar chord forms. The diagram below shows the C and G forms that you might not be familiar with.

The little bar in each chord is where the open strings normally occur. The bar makes the chords moveable up the fretboard. The white circles are the notes that are hammered-on or pulled-off to.

Now, I've been practicing these on my acoustic guitar and I can tell you that the unfamiliar C and G forms involve quite a stretch. Thankfully the book's examples are played a little way up the neck reducing the stretching a bit. It's still hard to play the hammer-ons and pull-offs cleanly, though. I'm sure it would be easier on an electric.

Once these forms are mastered the remainder of the rhythm guitar chapter combines the funky blues and Rhythm and Blues fills to make some great sounding rhythm backups.

Matt Smith Video Lessons

Oh, almost forgot one other thing I wanted to tell you. I recently discovered that you can follow video lessons with Matt Smith over on Workshop Live. This online music school looks interesting. You can sign up for a month at a time and pick any lessons you want from a huge selection. I think I might be trying it in the new year...

Meanwhile I've got a few more weeks to practice these rhythm fills before I move on to the solo part of the Intermediate Blues Guitar book. Until the next time, may the blues be with you.

Resources

Intermediate Blues Guitar by Matt Smith, a National Guitar Workshop publication.

Matt Smith's web site.

National Guitar Workshop - US and Canada reader's can attend summer and weekend workshops with renowned guitar teachers and players.

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How to Never Lose Your Place In a Guitar Solo

Singing to keep your place while you play a song is a simple and easy way to avoid getting lost. It is much more fun and easier than counting beats and bars which is why I think you should learn the words to the songs you learn to play.

I discovered this tip recently when I had to learn a solo for the song Why Did You Do It? by Stretch. The solo basically involves playing a B minor pentatonic over a verse and chorus of the song. The verse is simply 8 bars of Bm with no chord changes. This made it difficult for me to keep my place as I had a hard time concentrating on my solo and counting the bars going by at the same time.

The other guitar player in the band said "Maybe you need to follow the words or something." Lights went off in my mind as I realized how easy and obvious this solution was.

We started the song again and when we got to the solo I sang the words of a verse and the chorus in my head. No error prone bar counting, that panicky feeling when I lost the count was gone. Instead I knew exactly when the chord change to the chorus was coming.

Now this tip seems really simple and obvious. I admit I felt dumb for not having thought of it before, but then I have never heard it before, so I guess it is worth sharing.

So now you know the secret of how to never get lost in a solo again. The wonderful thing about this tip is that it works for rhythm guitar too as well as if you are playing drums, bass, keyboards or something else. You can forget about counting bars and sing the words in your head instead.

Share this tip with the musicians you play with. It works for any instrument to help make your band sharper, everybody will just know when changes are coming up.

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Playing Guitar Is Useless

Today I want you to celebrate with me. We're going to celebrate the fact that learning and playing the guitar is a useless, unproductive activity. Yes, that's right, I said useless and unproductive. And we should all be celebrating that because, well, useless is in fact useful.

The Importance of Useless

Our bustling modern world is obsessed with value, productivity and profitability. In rich countries people have never before had so much material wealth, so many objects. Yet, many are unhappy and stressed by the constant pressure to be clever, productive and efficient.

Our leisure activities are no exception. They have to be meaningful and important. We should be "winners", always striving for even more achievement. But what about the simple enjoyment of simply doing something for fun? You’re your hobby really have to be about achievement?

No Pain No Gain

Rocky Balboa believed that no pain meant no gain as he pounded the streets on his way to becoming a boxing champion. But does your guitar learning have to feel like you are hammering those hard cold streets every day? Pushing yourself to your limits and beyond?

I bet nearly all of you started to play the guitar because you thought it would be fun. But the fun is often absent in a lot of learning material. It's all about better, faster, more, and fun seems to take a back seat.

It feels like everyone is pushing you to become a world champion guitar player. There's little encouragement for the player who's happy strumming simple arrangements of his favourite songs with just two or three chords.

There's even a lot of this here on Not Playing Guitar. Sure, if you want to learn guitar there are plenty of hints and exercises. But many of you might just want to play a few simple songs for pleasure. So feel free to ignore lots of the advice and just strum for fun.

You don’t have to learn all the tricks of the guitar masters. A few simple chords and some songs you enjoy are all you need to have fun. It’s alright to be way behind on your practice schedule, or even to have no practice schedule at all.

Now I'm sure that some of you avoid practicing sometimes because you feel guilty about stuff you didn't learn, or didn't practice. Or simply because you feel your playing isn't "good enough". There's no need to. Remember, whether you are just beginning or are already a guitar hero, playing guitar is just a frivolous waste of time. So lighten up on yourself, and enjoy.

Celebrate and have fun

Playing guitar is useless. It really is just for fun and that's why it's so great. Let's all celebrate that today. Pick up your guitar, quit feeling bad about all those things you didn't get around to practicing, and simply have fun playing your guitar.

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Survey: What's Your Guitar Learning Challenge?

We all have challenges to overcome as we try to learn guitar. This week I’d like to hear about your challenges so I'm running a survey on Not Playing Guitar where you can tell me what problems you are dealing with – or not - as you learn guitar.

It's not easy to describe all the challenges you could face in a simple list but I'm going to try. You can select more than one if you want. If you don't see your challenge in the list then you can always add a comment on this post to describe it.

I’ll be leaving the survey up for a week or so to give everyone a chance to have their say. You can check back later to learn about the results of the survey. I’ll be following it up with my thoughts on these problems and hopefully I’ll be able to suggest some solutions that will help you.

The survey appears in the left hand column of the site, just below the subscription area. If you can’t see it right now then scroll up or down a little until you find it. I look forward to hearing from as many readers as possible.

Don’t forget, if you want to hear more about solutions for your learning challenge, make sure you vote for it in the survey or leave a comment to describe it.

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Become a Better Guitar Player at Rock House

Would you like to become a better guitar player? I know I would, and that's why I enjoyed a series of 12 tips offered by the Rock House blog earlier this year. The Rock House series presented little things you can do to become a better guitar player, right now.

You might have missed the series, but our friends over at the Rock House blog had the good idea to re-post the tips in a convenient single post. I've printed a copy to leave as a reminder in my guitar case, next to my list of songs. You might find this useful too.

Here is a taste of the 12 things Rock House recommends in 12 Things You Can Do Right Now To Become A Better Player. You'll have to read the post to get the details...

1. Listen.


2. Practice smart.


3. Watch yourself.


4. Record yourself.


5. Learn from your mistakes.


6. Have perception.


7. Build speed in small increments.


8. Use your body clock.


9. Listen to other genres of music.


10. Play for others.


11. Create a practice routine and play consistently.


12. Don't get frustrated.

You might already know of some of these things, and even do them already. Congratulations if that's the case. You can still use the list is a simple and practical reminder so you don't forget and lose focus.

Two things I decided to do better are recording myself and playing for others. Recording revealed to me that I play songs too fast.

This might seem surprising, it surprised me at any rate. It seems that most guitar players worry about not playing fast enough. But I have found with several friends that in fact we play too fast. I guess it's the excitement (or fear!) as we rush to finish a song without making mistakes.

I'm sure you'll find something in the list that will help to improve your guitar playing. If you want to become a better player visit 12 things you can do right now and print a copy to keep in your guitar case.

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