It's time to make those New Year's Resolutions!It's inevitable this time of year to think of things we would like to improve in our lives in the upcoming year. Many resolve to make improvements in health, diet and exercise, while others set out to become more successful, increase their income, or improve personal relationships.
For those of us in the music world, our New Year's resolutions may very well have to do with playing guitar. If you are a beginning guitar player here are some "guitar" resolutions to consider for the New Year.
1. Practice more...
This goes for me especially! Sometimes it's too easy to say "I'll practice later". I am a firm believer in the old adage that says, "the hardest part of any job is starting it". If I can just make myself pick up the guitar and get started, the rest is easy and fun. And really...if I miss the next episode of "Survivor" on TV, have I truly missed anything?...
2. Practice with "Focus"...
Distractions are everywhere and our attention is often pulled in many directions at the same time. Resolve to "put on blinders" when it comes to practicing guitar. Turn off the cell phone, the email, the Facebook page, and close the door to your "music" room. Focus with laser beam intensity on the lesson in front of you and avoid the temptation to jump around from topic to topic on Google and YouTube.
And remember that 15 minutes a day of highly "focused" practice will take you much further on the guitar than trying to fit it all in one 2 hour practice session a week.
3. Memorize the chord "Shapes"...
When learning new chords on the guitar, work on visualizing the "shapes" of those chords. In other words, the pattern that the "dots" make when viewed on a chord diagram. These shapes are something you will see over and over on the guitar neck, and learning to visualize the chord "shapes" (as opposed to learning each individual note in a chord) will help later on as you begin to learn barre chords and chord inversions in other positions and keys.
4. Learn the "major" scale inside and out...
For a beginning guitarist, the number of scale possibilities can seem to be endless. It can be hard to even know where to start. However, if you only ever learn one scale, make it the "major" scale. One reason is that, when you learn the major scale, you will also know the "minor" scale for the "relative minor" of the major root. The notes in the two scales are exactly the same, so in this regards, you get two-for-the-price-of-one!
The major scale will also serve as the foundation for many other scales you may want to work with later on. You will often discover that other scales are built by adding or subtracting a few notes from the major scale.
Work on learning the main major scale "patterns" for each position on the guitar neck. Once you learn them for one scale (C major for example) those patterns and positions can be easily transposed and played in other keys just by being able to locate the root note of the scale.
5. Work on the "ears"...
In the early days of learning how to play guitar we spend so much time focusing on training our fingers and hands that we can often neglect one of the most important body parts that never even touches the guitar...the "ears".
Resolve to spend time truly "listening" to music and work on learning to pick out chord progressions and solos by hearing them on recordings. Start slow and work on figuring out what the chords are for some of your favorite songs.
Getting proficient at "hearing" music will help tap into your creative side and will go a long way toward taking you from simply "playing" music, to truly "feeling" the music - which is the goal we all strive for as musicians.
We could obviously make this list a lot longer, but by resolving to pay close attention to just these 5 topics over the course of the new year, you will find that you can make amazing progress on the guitar, and possibly go much further than you ever anticipated.
Enjoy!
