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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

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In order to learn certain advanced techniques, it’s important to hone in on optimal practice methods which are more akin to physical training than musical expression.  This is nothing new and shouldn’t start any controversy.  Building a larger “vocabulary” and technical proficiency on a musical instrument is hugely important in expanding your ability to express yourself with it.  

The competitive aspects of guitar technique are also important in keeping the instrument fresh and pushing it forward and there is nothing wrong with that.  But where does guitar technique fit into the artistic aspect of music and why do so many people have differing opinions on what constitutes a valid use of advanced technique?  

For the sake of a more pure analysis let’s, for today, set aside the “guitar envy” aspect of this debate and deal only with the arguments that are made from logical disagreement between musicians on this subject.  

Auditory vs Visual Experience

While extremely advanced and cutting edge guitar techniques can be used as a means of creating dynamics within a musical composition, most of the time they are simply used as a means of grabbing attention.  In other words, these techniques are more about the art of performance than the art of musical composition.  A good way to think of this is to look at any number of the great instrumental guitarists of today whose music really isn’t meant to be listened to as much as it is meant to be watched.  

Getting creative with developing new techniques that are more visually appealing is a sure way to garner attention online and/or increase the intensity of a performance.  The impressiveness of fancy guitar techniques is far more “tangible” than the “ear of the beholder” nature of musical composition on its own.  This leads to a kind of arms race among guitarists to develop the next new guitar technique that will skyrocket them into the spotlight of the guitar community.  In other words, this is an area where it’s not uncommon to see more time spent on developing and practicing techniques than actually composing music.  This gives plenty of fuel to the “sport vs art” critics who question the validity of music that is more or less a vehicle for demonstrating new techniques. 

If you’re reading this, it’s almost certain that you’ve heard some variation of the “that’s great but what can you do with one note?” argument.  If we set aside the absurdist literal interpretation of that question, we can easily see that they are meaning to contrast raw technical skill with emotional expressiveness.  This seems to be the root of the debate. 

However, there are various problems from attacking the problem from this angle.  The most notable is that it is impossible to create a spectrum that goes from emotional expressiveness to raw technical skill.  It’s tantamount to trying to create a spectrum from spoken words to the time it takes to speak those words.  One part is required for the other to work and vice versa. 

Perhaps a better way to frame it would be to see these aspects as “dimensions” of music. It’s easy to say that highly technical guitar work that is devoid of emotional expression is “one dimensional.”  However, it gets a quite a bit more complicated when you try to turn that argument around.

What constitutes “emotional expression” on the electric guitar?

While it’s fairly easy to describe advanced guitar technique, defining “emotional expression” on the electric guitar in concrete terms is fairly difficult to do.  Different guitarists have wildly different ideas that sometimes completely contradict each other.  While acoustic instruments have the benefit of volume dynamics, the compressed nature of an overdriven electric guitar signal (further compressed in the mixing process of a professional recording) virtually eliminates the ability to use volume as a means of emotional expression.  

If we created an imaginary cross-section of debates on this subject, we can pull out some key terms from what people seem to think allow for effective emotional expression on the electric guitar.  These apparent tools for expression almost always include such things as vibrato, bends and go as far as including facial expressions and even “mouthing” the notes as the guitarist plays them.  The latter two can be eliminated right off the bat since emotional expression can be perceived on a recording without the benefit of watching the performance.  The first two definitely seem to be effective at expressing emotion, but it can easily be demonstrated that they aren’t required for emotion to be expressed through the electric guitar.  

Think of an electric guitarist whose roots are strictly in Baroque Classical music with absolutely zero influence from Blues or Rock guitar styles.  This guitarist would use no vibrato or bends at any time but could still be very effective at expressing emotion through melody and phrasing alone.  Furthermore, it’s easy for emotion to be conveyed in highly technical guitar work that consists of a constant barrage of notes based solely on the movement of the notes being played.  This, of course, is the emotional content of the music and could be just as easily expressed on any instrument capable of playing those same notes in the same order.  This brings us to a very revealing demonstration, namely that those same notes could be arranged on a midi file and played back through a computer and the same emotion would be expressed without the need for a musician to be expressing what they are feeling in real time.  

This seems to be the point of divergence between two aspects of emotional expression on the guitar.  There is the dynamic expression that is allowed by using specific techniques on the guitar that have been associated with a kind of “emotional vocabulary” and there is the musical content of the notes that are being played.  

On that subject, I will leave you with that deconstruction to draw your own conclusions.

So… which is it?

If music was purely about emotional expression, then it’s unlikely that advanced techniques would ever have developed to begin with.  However, music has social aspects to it that hugely shape the path it has taken over the years.  When the ideas of fame and financial success enter the equation, it’s inevitable that non-artistic competition will arise.  This competition has lead to incredible advancements in guitar technique over the years while simultaneously keeping the guitar fresh and relevant for new generations.  It would be a mistake to try to invalidate the fruits of the competitive forces at work in the history of guitar and guitar technique. 

That being said, there is an obvious distinction between a guitarist who has simply focused on the competitive aspects of the guitar and a guitarist who uses the techniques developed through competition as a means of dynamic expression in artistic works.  However, the efforts of both guitarists serve important roles and are each valid for their own reasons.  

In summation, modern electric guitar can be seen as both a competitive “sport” and an art form and I believe that modern electric guitarists have plenty of reasons to be thankful for that. 

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