You MUST overcome this challenge before anything else…

Okay… let’s be honest with each other and ourselves.  There is one problem that, at one point or another, has blocked the progress of every guitarist that has ever tried to pursue higher levels of playing.  No matter what anyone says, this problem has affected every guitarist from the bedroom to the greats who have made their way to the international stage.  

This problem is even worse when a guitarist is unaware of it.  If you are suffering from it and you don’t realize it, you will likely be a victim of common illusions that guarantee you will never progress much further from where you are now.  These illusions come in the form of believing that you just don’t have what it takes, that better guitarists are simply more “talented,” that you just “can’t do” something, or even that your “inability” to play a certain technique is somehow a positive trait that makes you unique.  

I’m here to say that, in almost every case, none of those things are true.

So what is the greatest enemy of all guitarists?  What is this problem that has bogged down every guitarist at one point or another and may currently be keeping you from getting to where you want to go?  

As simple and cliché as it may sound, this problem is… (drum roll please)…

Procrastination.  

Wait!  

Before you skim to the end of this article, do yourself a favor and keep reading.  You might be surprised about what there is to say on the subject that you probably haven’t heard before.  It might be just what you’re looking for…

Let me start by telling you a little story.  

In the early days of my guitar playing, at around 13 years old, I had gotten it into my head that I just couldn’t play barre chords.  As ridiculous as it sounds, it even became something of a point of pride for me.  I had “tried” and found that my fingers just didn’t work that way.  In my mind, I rationalized that this was something that made me unique.  While I could play a variety of techniques, my fingers “just didn’t have the capability” of holding down all the strings at once.

 “But look at what else I can do!”  

I’m embarrassed to admit that I practically bragged about this point.  It wasn’t until one day that I met a kid a few years older who really put me in my place.  While I don’t remember exactly what he said, what I do remember is that he didn’t buy my rationalizations for a second.  He called me on the absurdity of my excuses and hammered it into my head that it’s something that simply takes work.  I had healthy hands and absolutely no excuses for not learning and perfecting barre technique.

A little ashamed of myself, I went home that night and practiced barre chords seriously – probably for the first time ever.  In a few days, I already had the basic form of the technique down.  I learned a number of valuable lessons that day.  

Where do these pitfalls come from?

A lot of guitarists, at some point or another, see guitar as being closely associated with their identity.  This, in itself, can lead to a number of problems. The most obvious is the danger of wanting to see ourselves as being better players than we actually are (or to come up with a story about why we aren’t better than we are).  

While it might be tempting to think that only teenagers are susceptible to this kind of thing, it can actually affect adults in unexpected ways.  This isn’t necessarily an ego thing either.  It seems to just be a byproduct of normal human psychology.  It’s mostly about how we deal with the feelings of wanting things we don’t have, what we’re willing to do to get them and how we manage things like expectations and disappointment.  A lot of this stuff just happens automatically when we aren’t aware of it – typically in ways we don’t expect. 

Practically none of this happens consciously.

Because barre chords didn’t “come naturally to me” as a kid, I came up with a story in my head about why that was a “good thing.”  In reality, I didn’t want to deal with the fact that it was going to take me real work to get it down.  I didn’t just put it off, I found a way to blow it off completely.  That way, I could feel satisfied with where I already was… 

Let me tell you though… there is no faster way to kill a dream.

If you have full use of your hands (and even if you don’t in many amazingly inspirational cases), if you can’t play a technique perfectly, there is only one reason why…

You haven’t practiced it enough yet.  

When you see a spectacular guitar performance or guitar video online, all you are seeing is the end result.  It’s natural to fall prey to the illusion that there is something special happening, some innate ability.  After all, when you try to play the same thing, you can’t.   However, the most important thing to remember is what you don’t see in that performance or video: all the hours of practice and hard work that were put into learning and mastering those techniques.  

The greatest guitarists who ever lived had to put serious time and effort into getting to where they got, so why wouldn’t you have to do the same?   

Now it’s true that some guitarists have myths about them claiming they never had to practice.  But how did they get to a point where people would actually believe those myths?  

You guessed it: years of intense, albeit secretive, practice.

So this leads us to the real problem…  

If those players were able to consistently put in the time and energy that lead to them being able to play so well… why haven’t you?  How did they overcome the rationalizations that lead to procrastination?  

Thankfully, the answer to that is pretty simple:

They found the proper motivation.  

They formed a powerful vision in their mind and strong enough reasons that allowed them to cut right through inertia.  Over time, they built new mental habits that favored practice over say… binge watching a TV show or scrolling through social media.  They made it rewarding for themselves in the short term and the long term, and it paid off in spades.  They learned to invest their spare time in themselves and discovered the incomparable feeling that brings at the end of each day.  

In short, they found ways to become addicted to practice.   

So is the secret to talent the ability to become passionate about practice itself?  
Probably.

Does that mean that you could do the same?  

Absolutely!

For some people, circumstances give them the perfect motivations and inspirations.  For others, true motivation takes a little bit of searching and reflection.  But everyone who is serious about progressing on the guitar needs to build the mental habits that keep them excited about practicing every day. 

So what can you do to overcome procrastination once and for all?

For starters, take a little time to think over what I talked about in this article.  See if you can find any little stories floating around your head that excuse yourself from practicing more often or pursuing the techniques or avenues that you really want to pursue. 

Stay tuned for next week’s article where I will detail a process that will eliminate the poisonous effects of procrastination from your practice routine and get you on the most effective path towards achieving your goals as a guitarist. 

Need some new material to practice?  Check out my massive catalog of guitar related products, covering everything from Metal versions of Classical pieces, Neo-Classical Shred technique, Sweep Picking, and more!   See what’s on sale today at the link below:

www.Sellfy.com/DanMumm

So a couple days ago we talked about how to approach practice.  That is, finding the sweet spot between attempting something too challenging and working on something too easy.  Ideally, you should be working in an area that is challenging enough to be interesting but not so challenging that it’s overly frustrating.  We also discussed the importance of setting small, attainable goals that you can reach on a regular basis.  With that in mind, let’s now get into the applicable techniques of practice itself.

Now when I used the word “techniques” in reference to practice, it most likely didn’t stand out to you in any special way.  It’s not unusual to talk about practice in terms of the techniques that are used.  But let’s take a moment to really look at that word in the context of practice.  Something that is often missed by guitarists is the fact that practice is just as much a skill as playing guitar.  Just like guitar, there are specific techniques that can be done correctly or incorrectly, that can be focused on or ignored.  They take time to master and, the better you get at the techniques, the better you get at the overall skill.  However, the cool thing about practice techniques is that you can simultaneously practice them while practicing the guitar.  The key is knowing what they are and how they work.  If you’re becoming more skillful at practice, your ability to increase your guitar skills will grow exponentially over time.  This concept is the reason why it can seem so daunting to a beginner when trying to understand how a master can play the way they do.  From the beginner’s perspective, it seems impossible to achieve that level of playing.  This is because, if you were to continue at the pace a beginner learns on the guitar, it would take centuries to achieve master level.  Thankfully, you don’t have to continue at that pace.  When you know how to practice efficiently and increase your practice skill, your rate of progress increases consistently.  Not to get too “Inception” with it, but even the rate of increasing your rate of progress can increase heh heh.  Seriously though.

Okay, let’s break it down.  There are two basic elements to practicing the guitar, the mental and the physical.  To simplify things a bit, the mental is essentially your ability to memorize things on the guitar.  The physical is simply your dexterity, speed, finger strength, etc.  While there are definite crossovers between these two elements, it’s extremely useful to see them as being separate things.  One requires study and repetition while the other requires focused and controlled repetition.  With this in mind, I’ll point out a common mistake people make with practice.  Before working on the physical side of something, you must have the technique or part memorized.  For the memorization side of things, whatever you practice is what you are programming into your brain.  If you don’t quite have something properly memorized and you repeat a part over and over again with mistakes, you will solidify those mistakes.  To really be successful with it, you must memorize the part or technique first and then work on the physical side.  This is critical.  You must practice something perfectly in order to end up with a perfect result.  Force of will just isn’t enough to achieve clean and fluid technique at high speeds.  Let’s boil that down to a rule to remember – whatever and however you practice is what your end result will look like. 

So how do you do that?   If you’re new to something, how can you memorize it without playing it over and over again, risking solidifying your mistakes?  At first glance, this might seem impossible.  This is where optimized practice techniques come into the picture.  Thinking of the two elements I mentioned above, basically the biggest mistakes that guitarists make are to rush memorization and to rush to playing something at full speed.  The trick is to break something down into small, digestible sections and to repeat them extremely slowly.  If you’re learning a full song or solo, don’t try to learn the whole thing at once.  If you take out a small section to start with and you’re still struggling to memorize it, make it even smaller to start with.  Don’t worry about how long this takes at first – I promise that, over time, you’ll be able to take on longer and longer sections.  The more effective your memorization practice becomes, the faster you will become at memorizing things.  That’s just how the brain works.  So the next thing is to repeat the small section for the sake of memorization.  The key here is to work extremely slowly.  Don’t worry about using the metronome until you have the part completely memorized.  If you can’t remember exactly what note comes next at an extremely slow speed, how can you possibly remember it while rushing through it?  This mistake can feel like running straight into a wall.  But this wall is not a limitation on your ability to play.  You’re simply approaching it in a way that can’t work effectively.  So take your time and truly memorize the part first – always.

For some of you, that might seem rather elementary.  It should as it’s a real fundamental.  But all of us, at times, get so used to fundamentals that we stop taking advantage of them.  Impatience can put us in the complete opposite state of mind that we should be in while practicing.  This is where the points I mentioned in the previous article really come into play.  When you balance your practice routine properly, practice becomes satisfying and rewarding.  It’s huge.

Okay so now I will get into the part that is the true game changer (when coupled with everything else I’ve mentioned).  Once the part or section is memorized, it’s time to lock it in with a metronome and begin practicing the physical side of things.  Keep in mind that, while practicing your dexterity and speed for one pattern or section, you are simultaneously practicing your general dexterity, speed and even timing.  It can easily be compared to going to the gym.  If you’re lifting weights, you aren’t simply practicing lifting weights.  There is a larger benefit to every exercise you do.  Just like lifting weights, this practice technique is all about repetition.  Take the memorized part or section and play it with the metronome at a very slow setting.  I always like to say that it should be “ridiculously slow” to start with.  The point, again, is that you are able to play it perfectly without making a mistake.  Once you find a speed that is extremely easy for you to start with, play the pattern 5 times in a row without making a mistake.  At this point, increase the metronome by 2 bpm and repeat the process.  I admit that this process will seem tedious at first, but it really does become fun and rewarding the more you do it.  Work your way up the metronome this way until you hit a speed where you can’t get through 5 perfect repetitions in a row.  Once this happens, take a break from practicing that part or section for the day.  Strangely, when you wake up the next day you may find that your skill has increased beyond where it was when you left off the day before.  Studies have been done on this phenomenon and the evidence points to the idea that your brain continues practicing while you are sleeping.  It might sound ridiculous, but my own experience has made me a firm believer in it.  I utilize this for preparing every song I do each month. 

The cumulative effect of this is incredible.  Because I believe any of you can do it, I will say that I can typically perfect an entire song in two days using this method (save for when there is new and extremely difficult technique involved).  That isn’t because I have some special talent for it, it’s strictly from utilizing these steps and principles.  The more I do it, the better I get at practice.  The better I get at practice, the faster I can learn anything.  Follow these steps and you will find yourself experiencing the same results.  

I know this article is going on way too long now, but I feel I should add one more thing.  Every process I have mentioned gets faster and easier the more you do it.  Like anything, it can be tedious or seem endless at first.  I promise that doesn’t last.  Stick with it and you will find yourself addicted to the process of practicing.

Dan Mumm

Ready for that next challenge? Check out my full catalog: 
www.Sellfy.com/DanMumm