Practice Tips

When giving guitar lessons, Pete often challenges people with how regularly they play guitar. It’s amazing how regular playing will help you improve out of sight - much more than guitar lessons alone. Every time you pick up the guitar whether to practice or just make some noise you'll be improving. You can play guitar everywhere: on the couch, in front of the TV, in your bedroom, outside in the sunshine, and rocking out to your favorite tunes on the stereo. Make your guitar part of the furniture, just pick it up anytime and you’ll hear the rewards.

1/ Allow a minimum of half an hour per day to practice the guitar, and go over things contained in your guitar lessons. You may wish to start with two fifteen minute sessions a day spread a few hours apart so your hand and fingers don’t get too sore. Now if you’re making excuses like “I don’t have the time to do this kind of practice”, I’m sorry, but put your guitar on eBay because you're kidding yourself. Half an hour is just trading one TV show, it’s not that long, or too much to ask, and the rewards are amazing. You may wish to start a routine so that you practice consistently at the same time each day. It won't be long before you won’t even think about it as “practice” and you’ll enjoy playing guitar for hours each day.

2/ Practice various things on the guitar and spread your time between learning new concepts, playing songs, and being creative. If you spend the whole time on one idea, you may get bored or your hand will get sore. Mix up your practice between playing chords and single notes, too, to keep your mind alert and learning, and your hands fresh. Use parts of your guitar lessons, learn new songs - keep it fresh and rocking!

3/ If your mind starts wandering or your hands get sore, don’t keep pushing, just take a short break. Go and do something completely different, like getting some fresh air by taking a run or walk. It will clear your head and fire you up to get back into the guitar lesson. Oh, and just so you know, everybody’s hands get sore when they start to play guitar. Trust me, it will not take long to pass, and you’ll be able to play for hours.

4/ I remember what it’s like when you start guitar lessons - information overload! Remember, it’s about you, and it’s meant to be fun. Take your time! Push yourself and always be trying to learn new things, but don’t let learning bring you down. You have your whole life ahead of you to learn. So relax and enjoy!

5/ Have fun - that's the most important part! Rock on, and enjoy your guitar lessons!

Guitar Lessons - Another warm up routine

Before playing and fast picking over your fretboard, warming up your muscle is very important.

It will help you to develop coordination and accuration. This warming up routine is called diagonal chord relay. Its have very simple pattern, but it's very effective and challenging too. It will help you prepare your guitar muscle before you shredding.

You can start everywhere on your fretboard, and do chord variation. Use strum mute switch strum mute switch approach. This technique will help you developing your control.

E ------------4--1--|-------4--1--------|
B ------4--1--3--2--|----4--3--2--1-----|
G 4--1--3--2--2--3--|-4--3--2--3--2--1--|
D 3--2--2--3--1--4--|-3--2--1--4--3--2--|
A 2--3--1--4--------|-2--1--------4--3--|
E 1--4--------------|-1--------------4--|

Guitar Lessons tools - Tux Guitar, Opensource Tablature Editor

There is a lot of guitar tablature software today. From just tab editor to complex guitar learning tools, but none of them is free and run on linux. When i heard about tuxguitar, i was surprised that it was free and opensource, and its run on linux too.

Tux Guitar have very complete feature, that set any competition with commercial guitar tab software. You will be able to compose music using :

- Tablature editor
- Score Viewer
- Multitrack display
- Autoscroll while playing
- Note duration management
- Various effect, like bend, slide, vibrato, hammer on, pull-off
- Repeat open and close
- Time signature management
- Tempo management

As you know, most guitar tab site offer their song tab in Guitar Pro format, TuxGuitar can open and export several popular format : Guitar Pro gp3, gp4, gp5, and Powertab .ptb file. Also it can export your tab to MIDI, ASCII, XML and even PDF.

If you playing guitar, and linux user too, then i recommend this Tuxguitar

Guitar Lessons - Chromatic Warm Up, First step to fingering accuracy

Here is another my favourite warm up routine before shredding the neck. Taken from Steve Vai guitar workout routine.

It will work wonders on your picking technique. Just like another guitar lessons, start slowly, and keep relax. Look at the detail, focus, keep your hands, wrist relax. Do it right,coordination first and then speed.

Use alternate picking, and starting from 1st fret. But you can start anywhere you like it with same pattern.

E -1-2---3-----4-----------|-------------------------|
B -----1---2-----3-----4---|-------------------------|
G -----------1-----2-----3-|-----4-------------------|
D -------------------1-----|-2-----3-----4-----------|
A -------------------------|---1-----2-----3---4-----|
E -------------------------|-----------1-----2---3-4-|

E -------------------------|-----------4-----3---2-1-|
B -------------------------|---4-----3-----2---1-----|
G -------------------4-----|-3-----2-----1-----------|
D -----------4-----3-----2-|-----1-------------------|
A -----4---3-----2-----1---|-------------------------|
E -4-3---2-----1-----------|-------------------------|

Guitar Lessons - Warm Up Excercise 3

Warm up excercise can helpful in many ways. Here another warm up routine, which is call "Diminished Chord Relay". I take this from Joe Satriani Guitar Secret. This warm up excercise is helpful for developing finger accuration on guitar playing.

Memorize finger position for all chord, then strumming it with strum-mute pattern. Make sure, it's clean and good sound. For variation, arpeggiate each chord, with alternate picking. Do #1 #2 #3 #4 pattern and then back to #3 #2 #1, and move one fret higher.

Have fun with your guitar lessons.

    #1    #2    #3    #4  
E -----|--3--|-----|--6--|-----
B -----|--2--|--5--|--5--|-----
G --3--|--3--|--3--|--6--|-----
D --2--|--2--|--5--|--5--|-----
A --4--|-----|--4--|-----|-----
E --3--|-----|-----|-----|-----

Guitar Lessons - Warm Up Excercise 2

After do chromatic warm up, for about 5 minutes, you can do finger stretching. This excercise is usefull too, for your finger, before walk over fretboard. The excercise is simple, but it's very effective for finger muscle stretching. Here is the tab :

E -1-5-------------------------------------1-5----
B -----1-5-----------------------------1-5--------
G ---------1-5---------------------1-5------------
D -------------1-5-------------1-5----------------
A -----------------1-5-----1-5--------------------
E ---------------------1-5------------------------

This excercise is written starting from 1st fret, but you can start anywhere on the fretboard. The rule is always add one more fret from your second finger position. In this example, 1st finger is used on 1st fret, 4th finger is used on 5th fret. The rule is Repeat, with combination of all finger. Here is the finger combination :

Finger 1 4 on Fret 1 5
Finger 1 3 on Fret 1 4
Finger 1 2 on Fret 1 3
Finger 2 4 on Fret 2 5
Finger 2 3 on Fret 2 4
Finger 3 4 on Fret 3 5

Have fun..

Guitar Lessons - Warm Up Excercise

Before you shredding fast over your fretboard, your finger should have any warm up first. It's very important step, before you play. Warming up your finger, can reduce repetitive stress injuries developing by your guitar playing excercise.

5-10 minutes is enough for warming up, before you play over fretboard. Here is warming up example tab, it's just chromatic scale. Always start with slow tempo, and gradualy increase your speed.

E -----------------------------------------1-2-3-4
B ---------------------------------1-2-3-4--------
G -------------------------1-2-3-4----------------
D -----------------1-2-3-4------------------------
A ---------1-2-3-4--------------------------------
E -1-2-3-4----------------------------------------