4 Easy Tips To Get More Practice Done

 

Every guitarist knows that starting the practice habit is not easy. As with all new habits it is easy to follow the old way of not practicing. But since practicing is the one thing that makes or breaks your guitar playing let us look into ways to make it easier you to practice regularly.

 

Tip Nr. 1 Make it easy to start

Our brain is wired to crave instant gratification. Every delay to the gratification makes the activity to get there less attractive. That is the same way with starting to play guitar. If you first have to get your guitar from your closet, then get it out of it is gigbag and also tune it before you can start to practice this feels like a huge barrier. Luckily, this problem is easy to solve. Just get a guitar stand and place your guitar right next to where you are most of the time. This way grabbing it and starting to play takes seconds instead of minutes. This tip alone can help you great lengths.

 

Tip Nr. 2 Connect emotionally

Another problem is that practice feels like work or like a chore. This starts with your attitude toward practicing. Try to change “I have to practice now” to “I want to practice now”. One simple thing you can do to want to practice the guitar more is to connect emotionally to it. Feel what it means to play those notes and imagine when you would use them in the future. Are you wooing a potential lover or are you playing on a stage? You could also think about a movie and imagine a scene in which you could use this music you are playing right now to underscore the images.

 

Tip Nr. 3 Find your reason why and then pour it in cement

It is common sense that we practice our instrument, but have you ever thought about in depth why you practice guitar? I highly recommend you do this. Here is one method of doing this:

Take a piece of paper and write “I like to practice because...” on top, then as fast as you can write at least six endings of this sentence below it. Don’t judge, just write. This will not take longer than a few minutes. Do this everyday before you start to practice for a week and then look at your notes. You could also experiment with changing the sentence to “If I would practice more...” or “If I would enjoy practicing more...”. This will help you with getting into the right mind for practicing.

 

Tip Nr. 4 Set up little rewards

If nothing else works get a little bit of external rewards into the picture. You could make a bet with yourself that if you practice on 7 consecutive days for 20 minutes each you will reward yourself. This could be as simple as getting an ice cream or going to the movies. This sounds crazy, but it can work.

 

Most importantly, try those tips and see what works for yourself. And don’t forget to have fun with your guitar.

 

About the author: René Kerkdyk is the leading expert on guitar teaching in Hildesheim, Germany.