- Hey guitar players, it's Nate here
and about a month ago, or a little over a month ago,
I did a video called 10 Ways To Get Better Faster
on the guitar where I was completely facetious and
as absolutely sarcastic as I could be
but you guys get that right?
Anyway, in my defense it was April Fool's,
so I wanted to do kind of a different version of this video
where I give you 10 Actual Ways To Get Better Faster
on the guitar with no sarcasm,
or at least almost no sarcasm.
Number ten, timing, timing, ti-, ti-, timing.
No seriously, timing is one of the most important things
to sound good as a musician and you may think your timing
is great and if it is that's awesome
but do something, record yourself to a metronome or
drum track and listen back to it to see
how good your timing really is
and if you need to work on it.
You might be surprised you know
you could do some work on it.
Or you might be horrified at how
much work you need to put in.
It took me a long time to realize how
bad my timing was and unfortunately
guitar players are kind of notorious
for kind of ignoring this aspect of their playing.
So, don't let that be you.
I was humiliated on the first day of jazz band in college
when the director of the jazz band called me
I was like hey man you're late,
you need to really work on that.
The good news is that there are a really simple things that
you can do to make your timing a little bit better.
The first five minutes of each
practice session for like a month
just do an exercise like this, put a metronome on,
and then just go through the rhythm tree,
you know, with subdivisions.
Start with the quarter notes.
One, two, three, four.
Eighth notes.
One and two and three and four
and triple it, triple it, triple it, triple it.
Twenty, and a twoey and a threey and a foury and a.
And then work your way back down
and that's gonna really reveal some weak spots
and help you get your timing in shape
very fast if you are consistent with it.
Number nine, consistent and smart practice.
By smart practice, I mean practice that is
specific, measurable, attainable, realistic and time based.
Being consistent with your practice and setting smart goals
is one of the biggest keys to getting better faster.
And if you only practice like once a week,
once or twice a week, for like three or four hours
that's like going to the gym
only once a month and doing leg day.
It's gonna be painful and it's gonna be frustrating,
and it's gonna hurt and you're not gonna
see the progress that you want to.
So being consistent, maybe five or six times a week
with even smaller little chunks of practice
throughout the day can be really effective.
And as far as though smart goals go,
make little bitty things that you wanna do.
Get very specific with what you want to accomplish
on the guitar and set a deadline for when you want to have
that done by and this can be flexible
and it should be flexible cause once you reach a goal
you should you know kind of revaluate
where you want to go and set some new ones.
Number eight, learn songs.
Have you ever been in a situation where
somebody's like oh you play guitar, play me something.
You know, what song can you play me?
And you just look at them like I don't know what to play.
I'm just drawing a blank.
I have definitely been in situations like that
and one way out of that is to work in
learning songs into your practice routine,
your smart goals that we were talking about.
It doesn't matter if its cover songs, original songs,
or you're just improvising over chord progressions,
things like that, the important thing is to apply
all of the things you work on, you know, technique, chords,
strumming, music theory, to real music that gives you
context and a reason for working on all that stuff.
Number seven, practice melody lines and phrasing.
One sure fire way to make your lead guitar playing,
sound like you're playing up and down scales
is to do nothing but practice
up and down scales all the time.
So, there are a couple of different things
you can do to kind of get yourself out of that.
Number one, sing a melody
and try to re-recreate it on your guitar.
That's the first way.
Something like this.
(humming tunes)
(guitar notes)
(humming notes)
(guitar notes)
(humming notes)
(guitar notes)
So, just improvising like that,
making up melodies out of your head,
or even you know taking a jingle
or a song that you hear on the radio
and singing that melody and trying to play that too.
Let's see what's a good song.
- [Male Voice] Do Game of Thrones.
(humming Game of Thrones intro music)
(guitar music)
(humming Game of Thrones intro song)
(guitar notes)
- There you go.
So like Game of Thrones right.
(guitar music)
Don't get me wrong learning how to play through
scales and scale shapes is important
for getting your technique down,
just getting the basic shape down,
but getting that sense of melody in there
and a way actually to use the scales is very important.
Number six, don't practice through mistakes.
This is a really tough one to implement.
It takes a lot of discipline
but when you're practicing something,
don't just make a mistake and kind of gloss through it
and say this'll fix itself.
I don't have to worry about it.
What happens when you do that is you
program in things that are incorrect.
If you take your time, slow things way down,
and play them to where you're not making any mistakes,
you're programming it in correctly
and that will save you years of time in the long run
and it will keep you from going back
and having to correct mistakes
or bad habits that you have as well.
Number five, play with other people
and it can be anything from jamming with a friend on guitar
to, you know, getting together with a few buddies
and playing in a band setting, playing at church,
playing with a piano player or bass player,
or even going to an open mic.
The important thing is that you
start playing actual music with people
and this is going to do a couple things for you,
it's gonna help push you, it's gonna help you set goals,
learn songs and it's gonna give
you a gage to see how you're doing,
you know your actual progress on the guitar.
Another really great advantage of this
is hanging out with other musicians that are better than you
is one of the best ways in the world to get
faster and motivate yourself too.
Number four, tune your guitar often.
And this may not sound like a tip that's relevant
to getting better faster on the guitar
but it is really the first step to
sounding good as a guitar player.
If your guitar is out of tune,
you can hit some open strings and it won't sound good.
If it is in tune, it sounds great.
And tuning your guitar with an intentional ear
is a great way to do some you know basic ear training too.
Number three, don't depend on your gear to make you better.
Often times, and I'm super guilty of this,
we'll fall into the trap of buying a new piece of gear
to motivate us to practice more
and then once the newness of that piece of gear has worn off
then we're back in the same spot we were in.
Don't depend on your gear
to motivate you to practice or to get better.
What you needed to do is depend on that practice routine,
that effective practice routine,
that you set up to see progress.
And if you're not getting better,
it's not your gears fault, it's your fault.
Number two, learn the names of the notes on the fret board
and this may seem like a monumental task
but if you take a little bit at a time,
five minutes a day
at the beginning of each practice session,
just one string a week, something like that,
you will be able to memorize all the notes on a fret board.
And Joe Satriana, when I was at one of his camps,
said if you don't know all the names of the notes
on a fret board cold then you're kidding yourself.
Ever since then, I took it seriously.
Really buckled down and learning the notes on the fret board
really changed the way I play and the way I view the guitar.
Number one, learn some basic music theory
and I'm not saying that you have to be an expert in
jazz music theory but I am saying that learning
how music works a little bit,
will help you learn songs faster
and learn songs when you're not even around your guitar,
which is really awesome.
A good start for this is to just learn how major keys work,
how chords are built, and how progressions work,
that'll go a long way.
And once you get those basics down,
you can either continue learning music theory
or you can say you know what,
I know enough I just want to go jam.
And one bonus one for you, do a little bit of ear training.
I'm not saying that you have to be a music major
and lock yourself away in a practice room
until you can hear paint dry and grass grow
but I am saying that doing some basic ear training
will help you learn songs faster,
and it'll help your rhythm and your lead guitar playing.
The cool thing is it doesn't take a whole lot
to start getting into this.
Let me show you a quick example or an exercise
that you can use everyday to get this started.
If you know a major scale shape, all you have to do,
(guitar playing)
is start on the one and sing along with it.
Just go, one, two, one.
One, three, one.
One, four, one.
One, five, one.
One, six, one.
One, seven, one.
One, one, one.
That's gonna start to train your ear
to be able to hear the root note
or the tonic of whatever key you're in.
And then hear the intervals to the common chords
that occur naturally in that key.
So, it's gonna help you pick out
chord progressions and melodies too.
Let me just say that I don't always implement
all of these tips in my practice time.
If I did, I would be a much better
guitar player now than I actually am.
So, just keep that in mind as you move forward
with your practice routine or whatever
it is that you are working on.
Thanks for watching.
Don't forget to like and subscribe
and leave your biggest tips below for getting
better, faster on the guitar.
Thanks.
(whistling music)