19
FEB
2018
FEB
2018
0
Musical heroes
We all have our musical heroes.
Usually we discover them early on in our guitar playing experience.
Heroes can be a wonderful guiding light that give us something to aim for, and drive us on to take our guitar playing to greater heights.
Sometimes it’s our heroes that motivate us to take up guitar playing in the first place.
Musical heroes can also seem to be an alien breed though. This is particularly true when we view them through the lens of the ...
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28
NOV
2014
NOV
2014
Comparing can be a good thing
Making comparisons between ourselves and other guitarists is very useful in order to progress as musicians. Just about all guitarists have learned from players that they admired. This could be people they knew personally or their rock and roll heroes on old crackly LPs.
We need to identify characteristics, approaches or ‘tricks’ of other players in order to add to our own skillsets. This kind of comparing is healthy and positive.
The dark side
It is very easy, though, for ...
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26
APR
2013
APR
2013
Why mistakes are you friends
If you are not making any mistakes on the guitar, either you are amazing or, more likely, you are playing material that is well within your current level of ability. Playing well within our abilities is desirable when performing live or recording. These situations require good performances that are free from mistakes for obvious reasons.
The practice room however is where we should strive to improve our abilities. This could mean developing ...
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12
APR
2013
APR
2013
My tennis years
Why does an article called ‘There is nothing natural about playing guitar’ start with tennis? Bear with me…
When I was in my teens, my friends and I joined the local tennis club. It was a small place with no coaching so none of us knew what good tennis technique was. We just battered the balls around with boundless enthusiasm in a way that felt right to us.
A couple of years later, with our abilities having developed steadily from ...
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22
MAR
2013
MAR
2013
From time to time it happens to just about everybody from writers to Olympic athletes. And guitarists are no different. For no apparent reason we can find ourselves feeling demoralised and unhappy with abilities that we used to be proud of.
Practice can feel like an unwelcome chore instead of something that we look forward to. Worse still the whole idea of developing our guitar skills can begin to seem a little pointless. We are stuck in a rut.
What to do if you’re a guitarist ...
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15
MAR
2013
MAR
2013
Time, our most valuable resource
Music is a vast subject with many different styles and areas of study. Time is a limited resource that very few of us feel we ever have enough of. How can we make the best use of the time we have with regard to guitar practice?
Having a well-structured guitar practice regime helps enormously to keep you focused on specific skills and tasks that you want to master (if you don’t have one yet click here for a free copy ...
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5
MAR
2012
MAR
2012
