One of the most frustrating aspects of trying to master the guitar are the various points where progress seems to stop.  This can happen in a variety of ways and for a variety of reasons.  

The most common cause of limitations on progress is poor practice habits. 

Many guitarists have never been exposed to the concept of practice theory and/or the idea that practice is a skill in itself.  This can lead to guitarists spending years spinning their wheels by simply “practicing” what they feel like almost at random, without focused attention on any particular thing and without practicing correctly. 

Let’s look at three specific problems that lead to limited or blocked progress on the guitar and what can be done about it.  

1.  Sloppy Practice

For technique or speed, this can mean running through something over and over again at maximum speed hoping to get faster and achieve a cleaner sound.  Nothing will be more frustrating since you’re literally cementing the opposite of what you’re trying to achieve into your mind and muscles. 

As you’ve heard me say in the past, however you practice something is how you will learn it.  If you practice something sloppy, it will always be sloppy.  If you practice something with perfect articulation, your end result will always have perfect articulation.  

Of course, the way to always practice with perfect articulation is to practice very slowly with the metronome, only gradually increasing your speed over time.  It’s not as exciting at first and it takes some discipline, but that’s how those techniques are achieved.  There are no shortcuts in that regard.

2. Lack of focused practice

This idea of practicing things almost at random is actually a serious flaw in any guitarist’s practice routine.  

Every guitarist enjoys picking up their guitar and simply playing whatever they feel like playing.  However, the problem happens when these random playing sessions become confused with actual practice.  While you will absolutely benefit from every time you play the guitar, a focused and measured effort is required to achieve the higher levels of technique and general mastery of the instrument. 

If you find yourself getting frustrated with practicing something and needing to take a break from it before mastering it, all that means is that you are practicing something that is a little too advanced for where you are.  Sometimes you can get away with jumping forward a bit, but this should never be a common approach.  Without a solid foundation for your technique, you will never be able to achieve the level of playing you are working towards. 

It is critical to know exactly what you are going to practice, and why, before every true practice session.  

You must segment a dedicated amount of time in your practice routine to each individual thing you are working on.  For true optimization, this can mean breaking something down into its elements and spending time on each element separately. 

For an example of this, a guitar solo could be practiced as a whole for memorization while the techniques used in that solo could be practiced separately with the metronome before attempting the whole thing at full speed. 

There are a large variety of ways this can be done and it’s an area where creativity can really come in handy.

This ties in and brings us to our last point…

3. Poor goal setting and failure to reach goals

Specific goals are absolutely critical to any effective practice routine. Goals are what tell you where you are going and give you the stepping stones to get there.  If you’re not setting realistic short-term goals that work you towards realistic long-term goals, you are just spinning your wheels.

Obviously, every guitarist has what we could call an “arch-goal” that defines what they are hoping to achieve in the long run.  This could be something like one day playing as well as a favorite guitarist or even becoming a rock star.  And while this arch-goal is key for maintaining motivation to practice at the core, it’s not what we’re talking about now. 

In every practice routine, there must be a hierarchy of  short and long-term goals.  Breaking them up further is even more effective.  Let’s look at a specific example. 

A long-term goal can be something like becoming a master of alternate picking at Shred speeds.  Now, this goal can potentially take a year or more to achieve.  If that’s the only goal you bring with you to your practice sessions, you will feel that you are failing to achieve it every day.  You won’t be able to track your progress and this will lead to lack of motivation and eventually burnout.

On the other hand, you can set specific reachable short-term daily goals that will guarantee satisfaction and momentum in every practice session. 

In the case of our example, your daily goal could be about reaching a specific BPM on your metronome with your alternate picking.  Again, this has to be something realistic or else you will run into the same problem.  If you set this goal and reach it every day, you will build momentum and actually see far clearer and faster progress than you would otherwise.  

As a side-note, you could consider mastering specific patterns to be something like mid-term goals that could be spanned out over days, a week or more.  This is also incredibly effective. 

The more you apply these principles, the more you will understand the relationship between practice, your mind and your level of skill.  This will cause you to actually become more skillful in practice itself and you will begin to optimize your practice time more and more.  This happens naturally and will cause your progress to increase almost exponentially over time. 

If you’re looking for something new to practice, check out my brand new course: The Infinite Shred Method.

Dan Mumm

And how can you get some of their mojo? 

Most likely, at some point, you’ve noticed a stark contrast between the skill of amateur guitarists and pro guitarists.  Frustratingly, you may have even noticed a more pronounced difference when comparing yourself to your favorite players. 

There are a lot of aspects to guitar skill that can contribute to this difference.  For example, you might see a YouTube guitarist who can pull off lightning fast shred or sweep patterns but with a noticeable sloppiness in their technique or an arbitrariness to the patterns themselves.  On the other hand, when listening to your favorite guitarists, the technique comes off as flawless and the patterns are musical and convey real emotion. 

Now, many guitarists just assume that this is simply a difference between players with “natural ability” and players without “natural ability.”  This is an easy cover story as it gives permission to stop trying so hard.  Essentially, this is one of the most common excuses guitarists have for effectively giving up on their quest for truly great playing.  

As I’ve talked about many times before, the real difference so-called “natural ability” has on a guitar player’s skill can be insignificant.  It’s true that a person with absolutely no sense or appreciation for music could practice for many hours a day and achieve perfect technique.  The only trouble is, they run into that area of arbitrariness in their playing.  Without a real ear for music and a genuine appreciation for music, guitar playing can be nothing more than technique.  

But the question we have to ask ourselves is how much does “natural ability” come into that equation? 

On one hand, a guitarist who refrains from immersing themselves in music will find themselves lacking in the department of expression regardless of who they are or what natural proclivities they have. 

When it comes to technique, optimized practice routines are the great equalizer.  Many studies have been done on this exact subject and the results are clear.  Any “natural ability” for technique becomes impossible to compare between players who have put in the master level of practice time in their lives. 

In fact, having a “talent” for guitar can actually lead many players to become lazy with their practice.  This leads to less “talented” players eventually surpassing them in every way. 

The reason?  They had to work harder from it right out of the gate. 

In that way, “talent” can be seen as more of a burden than an advantage.  

In short, talent is not what makes the difference between amateur and pro level guitar players.  

So what does make the difference?

A genuine love for music, unwavering resolve, determination, self-belief, a willingness to honestly compare themselves to better players, and proper practice are the real deciding factors.  

Let’s break that down…

A genuine love for music

The reality is that a desire to impress people with fancy guitar playing is not nearly enough for someone to become a truly great guitarist.  Real passion for music is critical.  If you aren’t spending time regularly getting lost in music, you are going to always struggle with hollowness in your playing.  

Genuine inspiration seems to come from the subconscious mind.  People who are inspired more often seem to have found a way to engage with their subconscious more easily.  When you really connect to music, your subconscious is analyzing and logging every detail of it.  The more you understand about music, the more effectively your subconscious can do this.  These include aspects of music that can be so subtle that they are almost impossible to talk about or understand consciously.  But you have to think of it in terms of music being a language of emotion and your subconscious becoming more fluent in that language the more music you engage with and analyze.  

This accounts for the part of guitar playing that is impossible to define.  If we don’t mind risking a little cheesiness, we could almost say that this is the “soul” of the music that someone plays on the guitar.  This is that difficult to describe difference between a player who “has it” and a player that doesn’t.  

If this is something you struggle with, chances are you haven’t found the right music to engage with yet.  If you’re not regularly listening to music that gives you an emotional ride then you will have difficulties with expression on the guitar and connecting to other people with the music you play on the guitar. 

The remedy?  Start hunting new music until you find something that really grabs you.  It should be music that, after listening to it, you can’t stop thinking about it.  And I don’t mean that it’s “catchy” or that it gets stuck in your head.  I mean that the experience of engaging with the music was so profound that you can’t wait to relive it again.  

Unwavering resolve, determination and self-belief

This one is a little more self-explanatory, but it’s one of the most important aspects of becoming a great guitar player.  

Let’s face it.  Most guitarists have a dream to become great one day but they get bogged down with self-doubt, difficulty with motivating themselves and, of course, other people constantly telling them that they don’t have what it takes.  

Everyone goes through this.  Even the greatest guitar players of all time were told that they would never make it by the people around them at some point or another. 

The difference between the greats and the amateurs is that the greats didn’t take the “advice” of the naysayers.

One thing that all great guitarists have in common is that they knew where they were going in absolute terms.  They might not have started out that way, but they got there at some point.  This means that their future success became an indisputable fact in their minds.  Even if their own guitar heroes had told them to give it up, they wouldn’t have listened.  

That’s not something you are born with but something you have to learn to develop.  Anyone can do it but it takes work.  If you are struggling from self-doubt in your own playing, then now you know at least one key area that is holding you back.  Find that resolve, find that future that is compelling enough and own it with every fiber of your being.  You will be amazed at how many things fall into place after you do. 

A willingness to honestly compare themselves to better players

The sheer fact that you’re here reading this e-mail makes it unlikely that you’re suffering from this problem to any great degree.  The fact that you’ve sought out instructional material and/or advice from other players pretty much takes you out of this category.  But I think it’s important to go over anyway.

One of the most destructive forces in the progress of a guitarist is the need to protect an ego.  Many guitarists find themselves in the unfortunate position of identifying so strongly with their label of “guitarist” that if they allow themselves to admit that someone is a better player it makes them feel as if they are an inferior human being.  

This can be a side effect of someone who struggles with low self-esteem using the guitar as a means of building themselves up.  Now, learning an instrument can be hugely helpful in building self-esteem but it’s critical that the person doesn’t identify too strongly with their label as a “guitarist” or their current abilities.  The reason that learning an instrument should help with self-esteem is that it’s a way to demonstrate and witness your potential.  

One of the best ways to get better at the guitar is to surround yourself with better players that you can learn from, have an openness to constructive criticism and be free to model the methods of better players.  All of the greats did this at some point and it shows. 

If you are driven by a “need to be the best” then it’s important to understand that this can only move you forward if you understand that you are currently not “the best” and that it will takes years of concentrated effort to get there. 

It’s also important to point out that you should never measure your self-worth on your abilities on the guitar.  You should strive to become a great player because you want it or because you believe it’s your destiny but never as a means to justify your ego. 

Proper Practice

This is a subject I’ve written and talked about to great lengths already.  But it’s always a good idea to get a reminder that your lack of results may boil down to poor practice methods and habits.  

One thing that can take a long time to learn is that just because you are putting the practice time in, it doesn’t mean you will see the progress you are looking for.  

Musicianship, technical proficiency, improvisation, memorization, theory, etc. are all interconnected but are effected differently by different types of practice.  

A well rounded practice routine will spend time on each of these aspects individually while also including exercises that bring them together.  This doesn’t have to be a daily thing, but it should all be taking place in relatively short spans of time.  

Setting clear and attainable short-term and long-term goals on the guitar are critical.  You should be able to measure your progress by whether or not you are hitting the goals you’ve set out for yourself in a reasonable time frame.  Sometimes you have to adjust your goals if you make them too easy or too difficult, but eventually you should be able to get into a solid routine where goals are being met around the times you expected. 

Recognizing and focusing on “trouble areas” is also critical.  If you’re not regularly spending focused practice time on your “weaknesses” you are missing out on one of the most effect ways of increasing your progress. 

Now, all of that might sound overwhelming but it’s actually nowhere near as difficult as it seems.  The key is to take things one step at a time and to layout a clear strategy.  It actually become very enjoyable and when you are regularly setting and hitting goals, extremely rewarding and even addictive. 

Dan Mumm

Would you like to be more competitive or increase your “vocabulary” for expression on the guitar?  Are you looking for that next challenge?  Check out my massive catalog of guitar products and see what’s on sale today: https://sellfy.com/danmumm