How to Get Better at Guitar
If you want to know how to get better at guitar, or you feel like you're not progressing as fast as you would like, this guide offers some hints and tips on how to practise, as well as a few different ways to think about how to improve your guitar playing.
Remember it's easy to learn guitar, it just takes some time commitment and a willingness not to give up. Most new learners quit in their first year, so set yourself milestones: a week, a month, three months, six months, a year. Don't give up.
Play songs
One of the best ways to practise guitar is by playing songs. Songs have several benefits over trying to learn chords and scales in isolation.
Easy to memorise
A familiar song is often easier to remember than a sequence of notes and chords with no context. If you have a favourite song you've heard a thousand times, you're probably already very familiar with its chord progression.
Memorising the music eliminates one of the big struggles new learners face: the challenge of reading guitar sheet music or guitar tabs.
Much more fun
As well as allowing you to play from memory, it's just more fun to play an actual song than a repetitive music scale or chord sequence.
You can try different songs - anything from nursery rhymes and national anthems, to the latest chart music or your personal favourite song - to understand more about how a song is constructed, and to find your difficulty level for your current progress.
Improve rhythm
Rhythm is a crucial factor in how to get good at guitar. When you first try to pick out notes, you don't need to worry as much about playing at the right pace. But once you've mastered the absolute basics, playing with rhythm very quickly takes on more importance.
Use a metronome to practise
A metronome is a great way to set yourself a rhythm without background noise. The steady click-click-click holds you to the beat. You can buy physical metronomes from music stores, or just download an app to get a virtual metronome in minutes.
Play along with recordings
They say the key to good writing is to read as much as possible, and the equivalent is true in terms of how to be a good guitarist. The music you listen to most often will shape your own sound, so practise along with songs you like, and you'll naturally start to emulate them.
Be instinctive: Try to recreate the general sound and tune of the song, rather than slavishly hitting every pluck or strum on the studio recording.
Be analytical: Don't get bogged down in detail, but do listen and learn from the masters on things like common chord progressions, bridges and flourishes.
My own teaching method combines these approaches to make sure you learn technical skills in a very natural way, so that your playing style becomes your own as your ability grows.
Learn chords and scales
It's important to recognise that chords and scales ARE a key part of how to master guitar, helping you to develop your musical ability as well as your guitar-playing ability.
Melody and harmony
Part of how to be a good guitarist is understanding how your instrument works alongside others. Even if you play alone, harmony is a factor - every chord you play is, in principle, a harmony of multiple notes.
By practising scales and chords, you build a second-nature sense of melody and harmony, which can help you to play songs and will ultimately help you to improvise guitar solos and write your own compositions.
Organised patterns improve technique
Again, don't get overly distracted by technical learning, but do appreciate that the best way to practise guitar leaves some space for learning notes, scales and chords.
The key factor in how to master guitar is balance. Work on the areas where you need to improve, and continue to put time into the areas where you have already developed your skill level, and your overall playing will progress at a good pace.
Master technique
A great guitarist never stops learning - this is another crucial rule in how to be a good guitarist. Don't get frustrated if it feels like you're not progressing. Every time you practise, you increase your musical awareness and build more muscle memory.
Smooth and fluent
Playing smoothly and fluently can be a big help to get better at guitar. Like driving a car, the journey will be less bumpy if your playing style is smooth and flows fluently from chord to chord.
Work now, progress later
Invest the extra time and attention when you are first learning, and you'll pick up good habits that will help you to progress faster both now and later. The alternative is to try to train yourself out of bad habits once you reach intermediate level, but that just increases the time and effort it will take for you to get good at guitar.
Understand basic theory
A good grasp of basic theory will give you an excellent foundation on which to improve guitar playing through regular practice.
Guitar sheet music vs tabs
If you want to play guitar from sheet music, there are two main options:
Conventional sheet music notation displays notes on a stave and may be better if you have already learned to read sheet music for another instrument.
Guitar tabs (short for 'tablature') represent each string on your guitar on a different line, with numbers to indicate the different frets.
Many guitar players, including a lot of beginners and novice learners, prefer tablature because guitar tabs give you a direct visual representation of the fretboard - it's a bit like annotating the note (C, D, E etc) underneath a line of sheet music and can be easier to read if you're not experienced at interpreting sheet music notation in real-time.
Play the song, not the notes
It's worth saying again: the best way to master guitar is to learn to play music in whole sections and songs, not to focus too much on finger placement. Allow yourself to make mistakes and just keep playing, so that you develop your fluency at the same pace as your fingering.
Practice, practice, practice
Practice makes better, but best practice makes perfect. As a beginner, try to pick up your guitar every day if you can - legendary guitar manufacturers Fender suggest as little as 15 minutes per day to get you into the habit.
Plan every time
Practise with purpose. Plan what you will play. Start with some scales and check your guitar is in tune. Have a metronome ready if you want to play to a fixed beat. Have your phone (or some other device) nearby so you can record yourself to analyse later.
Little and often?
There are lots of reasons why, especially for beginners, half an hour's practice per day is better than one hour's practice every second day. More frequent practice keeps you motivated and committed, there's less time to forget what you learned last time, and it's kinder on your fingertips if you're not accustomed to strumming metal guitar strings yet.
More advanced players will obviously practise for longer, and jam sessions can last for hours if you're in a band. It's all about finding the best balance for you, based around your personal goals for your guitar playing, and your schedule and other life commitments. You can read more about how long to practise guitar here.
Track your progress
The catch-22 of practising little and often is that it can feel like you're not getting anywhere, when in fact you're making incremental gains with every minute of practice you put in. Be sure to track your progress objectively, and compare with performances from some time ago so there's more chance of a noticeable difference between the two.
You can get apps that will tell you if you're hitting all the right notes, but remember it's about how your performance sounds as a whole, so often the best option is just to record yourself, play it back (don't be embarrassed - you can always use headphones!) and try to spot areas where you've got better, and others where there's room for improvement.
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