Playing a guitar is almost anybody’s piece of cake at present, but playing like a pro is quite the opposite of that. It is not even a picture too new that many guitarists fail to play like a true professional even after years and years of practice because they simply go on making the same mistakes over and over again. This way they do not only get stuck to a same place but also fall prey to develop a practice of playing wrongly. However, you can avoid this unfortunate thing by following the few effective tricks and tips that are going to be mentioned below.
Beginning at the starting point is the key point to either shake off the malpractice of playing guitar in a wrong way or to keep away from doing that altogether. It is true that you might feel this step to be unnecessary if you are already a fairly good guitar player. But you should not neglect to do so because the importance of a strong foundation of playing music cannot be undermined. On a brighter note, if you have learnt the base properly, you can simply take it as a great practice session, which would be very beneficial for you beyond any doubt.
While playing guitar or rather practicing it, never underestimate the value or power of exercising. To play like a pro, you will need hours and hours of practicing a day. However, doing so you can develop back pain, muscle pain, joint pain and things like them unless you make your body prepared to handle that kind of pressure. This is where the necessity of a few simple stretching exercises comes along. Just stretch systematically for a while so that your body gets used to sitting in the same position for a long time doing almost the same things.
To make things even better, do not forget to get your entire musical set-up in a position that is very comfortable for your body. For example, get a seat with enough back support and a height that is consistent with your notation stand, keep a guitar stand handy so that you can take a break whenever the things get uncomfortable for you.
Never underestimate the importance of taking long and relaxing breaths whenever you can. Because humans tend to hold their breath for a long time, even unknowingly, while doing something important or intense like thinking about a critical chord progression or so. So, taking deep breaths becomes quite rewarding in the end of the day.
This is one great trick that can make a huge difference in improving yourself as a guitar player. Once you record your playing guitar with a video camera, you can not only focus on your fingers running on the fret board, but also can see your posture, style etc., by running the tape. This way you can identify major and minor mistakes in your playing as well as in your posture and work on them to rectify those mistakes.
So, you have got an electric tuner handy for you to get perfectly tuned guitar whenever you want. Well, there is nothing wrong in using a tuner as a time-saving device as long as you are not replacing your ears for the tune with that. Nowadays, many guitarists fall victim to compromise their tuning sense overusing the tuners. As a result, they become lazy, sloppy and even doubtful of their own ability to create great musical compositions. The best way to do the tuning is to tune a single string with a tuner initially and then tuning the remaining ones accordingly trusting your own ears. If you are tuning your guitar to play in a program or a gig and don’t have much time in your hand, then feel free to use your tuner for all the strings without any hesitation.
Be it a song, be it an instrumental number or eve be it a chord progression, make sure you keep them nice, easy and superbly simple. You might feel like how playing simple things can help you play like a pro as you need to practice critical things years after years to raise yourself up to that level. Well, that is in fact true. However, beginning with something very advanced can make you walk backwards hitting a wall. This is the reason why you should start taking things on level by level. First, start with simple stuffs then get to the next step and afterward take it even further.
One of the most common errors of a guitarist is to try new things when their mood is off. Perhaps they believe that playing something fresh will lift up their mood at that point. It is possible that playing something new can be refreshing, but taking that up as a learning exercise will not be beneficial at all. So, play whatever you wish to play when you are feeling low or all stressed up, but do not take that as the part of your learning.
There are a few things that can distract a guitarist and make him or her take a break from the practice sessions. For example, water, medications (prescription ones), inhaler (if required) etc., close to you so that you don’t have to take longer breaks than necessary. This way you would be able to focus more on your practice than before as your attention would be undivided.
There are many guitarists that you will find in your vicinity. Some of them are on the same page as you are, some of them might be better and some of them might be worse than you. However, talking and sharing musical knowledge with them will not ever misfire. Yes, there is a chance that many of the things they share with you might not worth sharing or even might be the things that you already know. But there would always be some new angles, some fresh ideas that would definitely make the ‘talking’ worth doing. So, grab the chance of talking to the fellow guitarists whenever you encounter them without a miss.
Hoping to become a guitar hero overnight? Looking for a crush course or shortcut to play like a professional? Then it’s time for you to stop for a while, take a nice deep breath and accept the fact that there is no crush course in playing guitar. To make a real difference, you have to invest years of practice and there is no other alternative to that. Remember, playing guitar is not about learning theories and then beginning to play right away, it is about making your mind, senses, hands, fingers ready to synchronize in a perfectly balanced way. And doing so might take a little while.
Using the visualization technique is one of the most efficient techniques in learning to play like a pro. It does not matter what you are playing or how you are playing just close your eyes while doing it and try to see the notes, strokes, chords you are using to get that. Visualization is not necessarily limited to only playing guitar. You can make yourself more of a musician if you begin to post-mortem the music you listen to. This way you can learn music in a much more effective way that before.
The bottom line is, playing guitar like a professional is not an easy challenge to take on. It is going to test you at every level. To win this challenge, you need to stay focused and true to your guitar playing. Because this is the only way for you to make your dream of playing like a professional guitarist true.
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