What To Do When You Face A Problem In Your Guitar Playing

By Mike Philippov

Like most musicians, there will come a point when your guitar playing progress will hit a sticking point due to not being able to overcome one or more problems in your guitar practicing. The way you react to such an event will determine whether you will "give in" to your perceived limitations as a guitar player or do what the great guitarists do in order to successfully overcome these challenges and continue progressing as a musician. In this article I will show you how to do the latter.

The good news is that if you have both of your hands operating properly it means that you CAN learn to solve any guitar playing problems you encounter. Although it isn't realistic to suggest a single cookie-cutter method for overcoming all conceivable problems on guitar, there 'are' some proven steps you can take that will get you closer to finding the solution that you need for the problem at hand. The next time you feel your guitar playing becoming stuck, apply the 5 steps listed below to jump start your progress:

1. Get Specific

In order to effectively approach any guitar problem or challenge you must first get crystal clear on exactly WHAT it is you need to fix. As common-sense as this advice sounds, I get daily emails from guitar players who describe their guitar challenges with vague phrases such as: "I am bad at improvising" or "I can't improve my speed" or "I need help with rhythm guitar". Until you learn to get A LOT more specific in pinpointing exactly where and how your problem appears in your guitar playing there is virtually no chance for you to correctly fix it. In addition to the obvious reason for needing to know "what" the problem is in order to work on it, breaking down a much bigger issue (such as general difficulty with improvising) into a series of specific and smaller tasks will make it a lot less overwhelming to practice towards mastering them. When doing this step in the process of solving your guitar problems, fill in the blanks of the following sentence: I have difficulties with (put guitar/music skill here) whenever I (describe a precise musical situation here).

2. Use your mind to solve the puzzle

The steps of learning to play guitar (especially the body mechanics involved in practicing for guitar technique) obey the basic principles of physics and logic. Knowing this means that many guitar playing problems can often be solved by using your powers of observation and common sense. In a lot of cases, even what seems like a 'big' problem or challenge in your guitar playing can be solved with a very simple adjustment to your guitar technique (or by using your ears to notice something that you did not detect before).

To give you a specific example, when you are faced with an issue in your guitar technique of not being able to perform a certain phrase or solo without mistakes, analyze the notes around the part where the mistakes are happening. What is it that's happening in the picking hand or the fretting hand that is giving you trouble? Perhaps you are not clear on the fingering to use or your picking hand efficiency is not as good as it could be. Performing this analysis will help you to get to the root of the problem.

With all of that in mind, I want to also caution you against "thinking too much" to the point where your analysis paralyzes you into a complete stupor and inaction. This happens to a lot people with a perfectionist mentality and such an approach will hurt your guitar progress more than it will help. Remember at all times that your primary objective is to "make your guitar playing sound good" and the technique and practicing approaches you use are only the "means" towards reaching that goal. So only apply this analysis for as long as it takes for you to learn to play the music you want to play and then move on to another area of your practicing.

3. Put your guitar playing challenges into appropriate categories

It is important to realize that not all of your guitar playing problems need to (or can) be solved immediately. As a result, it is best to place them into 3 general categories so that you can use your limited guitar practice time most effectively. These categories can be labeled similar to the following: "Immediate Action" (referring to problems that you can completely solve 'right now'), "Intermediate Term" (indicating that you can take action on the problem but you won't be able to solve it in its entirety right now) and "Problems To Deal With Later" (meaning that a particular guitar playing problem is a long term one and it isn't possible to try to fix it right now, since your current musical skill level will not allow you to solve it).

Set aside the majority of your practice time into focusing on the guitar challenges placed into the "Immediate Action" and the "Intermediate Term" categories. At the same time, continuously work on learning more about practicing and playing guitar in order to advance your general skill level as a guitarist so that you can transition to working on the items in the "Problems To Deal With Later" category and completely remove them from your guitar playing for good.

4. Increase The Challenge

A very unusual (and highly effective) way of making your guitar playing problems start to feel easier involves intentionally increasing the challenge you are facing in your practicing. This can be done mainly by introducing new and more challenging demands on your playing that didn't exist in the original version of the music. Be creative to design several ways of doing this. To make this technique work in the best way possible, you must already have it crystal

clear in your mind what specific challenges you need to overcome in your playing.

5. Persevere

No matter how frustrated you might be with your current rate of progress, always keep in mind that you very well might only be a single practice day away from a monumental burst of progress in your guitar skills. Also realize that it is entirely possible to conquer EVERY challenge you face in music and guitar playing. Your breakthroughs and results may often come from a variety of surprising avenues, such as through self-discovery or from being guided through the process by a teacher or some other learning aid.

When you consistently follow all of the tools that I shared with you in this article (and in the included video demonstrations at the links above) you will find yourself feeling a lot more confident about your potential to become the guitarist you want to be and you will enjoy the process of reaching your goals a lot more along the way.

If you want to see several examples of how to use this technique of increasing the difficulty of your guitar problems, watch this free video demonstration of this guitar practice approach.

About The Author:
Mike Philippov is a music instructor, recording artist and professional guitar player. He publishes articles about the best ways to learn and practice guitar for musicians around the globe. Visit Mike's guitar practice website: http://PracticeGuitarNow.com to learn how to make your guitar practicing process more effective.