What are you working on?
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what practice is. When you get your guitar out for 15 or 20 minutes, noodle around with a few songs and licks and then put it away, does that count as practice? Or, do you have to be your own taskmaster and force yourself to have every minute of playing be goal oriented? I hope it's obvious that the answer lies somewhere in between. My beginning students seem to be at one extreme or the other on this, with no visible middle ground. Most guitar teachers will encourage you to do both, play for fun and play to improve. Maintaining your focus is hard sometimes, but is a necessary part of advancing. Set aside a specific amount of your practice time to work on something that's holding you back.
Self assessment.
I would say that most of us know what we need to work on and sometimes it appears to be too difficult. The best thing to do is to pick one small improvement you could make and stick to it. Does your timing need help? Get out the old metronome, you DO have a metronome don't you, and set it to a comfortable pace. Smooth out what needs work and then move on. Are you missing the same notes over and over? Slow down as much as you need to so that every note sounds good and is clean and clear. There's no sense in practicing mistakes and I see way too many students do just that. I've heard it all before, it doesn't sound good slow, I can't get it, I don't like this song, it's too hard. Muscle memory is what you're trying to learn, so if you're teaching your muscles the wrong notes, that's what they're going to play.
Play for fun too.
After you've put in your work, play for the sheer enjoyment of playing. I know when you're first starting out that's not easy, but there must be at least a couple songs you can play well and enjoy doing. End on a positive note, leaving yourself open for more improvement next time.
There seems to be a lot of confusion about what practice is. When you get your guitar out for 15 or 20 minutes, noodle around with a few songs and licks and then put it away, does that count as practice? Or, do you have to be your own taskmaster and force yourself to have every minute of playing be goal oriented? I hope it's obvious that the answer lies somewhere in between. My beginning students seem to be at one extreme or the other on this, with no visible middle ground. Most guitar teachers will encourage you to do both, play for fun and play to improve. Maintaining your focus is hard sometimes, but is a necessary part of advancing. Set aside a specific amount of your practice time to work on something that's holding you back.
Self assessment.
I would say that most of us know what we need to work on and sometimes it appears to be too difficult. The best thing to do is to pick one small improvement you could make and stick to it. Does your timing need help? Get out the old metronome, you DO have a metronome don't you, and set it to a comfortable pace. Smooth out what needs work and then move on. Are you missing the same notes over and over? Slow down as much as you need to so that every note sounds good and is clean and clear. There's no sense in practicing mistakes and I see way too many students do just that. I've heard it all before, it doesn't sound good slow, I can't get it, I don't like this song, it's too hard. Muscle memory is what you're trying to learn, so if you're teaching your muscles the wrong notes, that's what they're going to play.
Play for fun too.
After you've put in your work, play for the sheer enjoyment of playing. I know when you're first starting out that's not easy, but there must be at least a couple songs you can play well and enjoy doing. End on a positive note, leaving yourself open for more improvement next time.
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