Negative Expectations

Are you sabotaging your chances for success?

"I'm going to give it another month, and if things don't get better I'm selling the guitar." This is another classic example of not making the time, but making plenty of excuses. What is going to change in the next month when that's the attitude you're carrying around with you?


How to make it work.

Don't try to convince yourself that you have no time. If you want to something badly enough you make time for it. Yes work, family life, political campaigns, vacations and everything else you mention does hinder your ability to make time. The problem is, you need to have an iron clad schedule that nothing can change. Start off with a few minutes a day, get into the habit of making it work, and pretty soon you'll find that you feel awful when you miss a day of practice. I always use exercise as an analogy, it's great when you commit yourself, but blow it off for a few sessions and pretty soon you're your old couch potato self.

Choose your environment.

A comfortable, padded chair with no arms, a sturdy music stand, a metronome and a kitchen timer are all you need to get started. Turn off the cell phone, close the door and issue a do not disturb mandate to the rest of the occupants in your home. Convince yourself that this is your private time and that phone calls, emails and text messages can certainly wait for you to finish practicing. Set the timer for whatever amount of practice you feel you can get in and don't let anything stop you.


Have a reason for practicing.

Practicing an instrument is not "running through each piece a few times." Pick a song, a technique, a trouble spot, or something else that needs work and get busy on that. Record you practice session and listen to it at the end so you can hear some progress. If you don't have a teacher, get one! It sounds self serving, but there's a lot more motivation if you're accountable to someone.

So don't give up easily, set aside a specific time to practice, make sure you're in a quiet place that makes it easy to practice, and work on something. Again, get yourself a teacher so you have to show that you've worked on playing on a weekly basis. The more you practice, the easier it becomes, the easier it becomes the more you'll want to practice.

Learning a New Song

How do you go about learning a new song? There are different approaches, and it's important to remember that what works for one person may or may not work for the other.

Phrase by Phrase:
One way to learn is to take a small piece of the music and practice it over and over until you can play it flawlessly. This is a good way to learn if you can stand to make what seems like little progress. The key elements would be a metronome, a program to slow songs down, and lots of patience. I use and recommend Riff Master Pro (affiliate link) to set up a loop that plays the phrase over and over. Choose a speed that's slow enough that you don't practice mistakes, and speed up a very small amount once you can play at the previous speed without any errors. A few measures at a time is best, no longer than one line.

The Whole Song:
I learn a new song by playing through the whole thing to see what I'm up against, and I'll do it a few times. Every song will have phrases that are fairly easy to play, some that are a little harder and some that will require the phrase by phrase, or even note by note technique to get them smooth and up to speed. Once I've played the song I have a better idea of what's going to need work.

One Page at a Time:
A long song or one that has different parts to it or maybe more than one solo is another challenge. I'll treat it like each solo is a separate song and work from there. Again, I'll play it all the way through before I break it down into smaller pieces.

Listen to the Song.......Often!
One of the common beginner mistakes is to think they know the song well enough that they don't need to listen to it. You may believe you're playing it right only to find out later that you've practiced a mistake over and over. When I took music theory our professor told us that you need to hear a song at least 10 times before you start to know and understand it. Note the key words start to know and understand it. Many times I'll have a student march into the room and proudly proclaim that he or she has memorized the week's assignment only to play it wrong. Trust me, play along with the recording and just as important, listen to the song when you're not practicing.