Category: How to Practice Guitar

August 25, 2010

How Long Does it Take to Create a New Guitar Practice Habit?

categories How to Practice Guitar | comments 0 Comments

Are you getting started on guitar and wonder how long it will take to get into a regular guitar practice habit?

Or, are you not practicing consistently and wonder how long it will take to create new and better practice habits?

During my research for my newest book The EDGE: Maximum Guitar Results in Minimum Time, I came across some interesting studies on creating new habits.

21 or 28 Days? How Long to Create a New Habit?

There is a big misconception out there on how long it takes to establish a new habit.

The often quoted 21 days, or 28 days has never been scientifically proven.  The only study that has actually looked into this was done in 2009.  The results of this study suggest that it can take anywhere from 18 to 254 days to create a new habit that is automatic to you (Lally et al, 2009).

The amount of time it takes to create a habit that is automatic seems to depend on the complexity or difficulty of the desired habit.

The average time it took participants in this research study to establish a new habit was 66 days, which really isn’t too long at all.  So what you need to keep in mind is that it will most likely take you a little over 2 months to establish a new guitar practice habit.

A good idea is to set aside a specific time for your practice sessions.  Once you have practiced a few times at a specific time you will start to get used to it and feel like you are missing something if you don’t get your regular guitar workout in.

January 24, 2010

Play Guitar: How to Quickly Learn New Guitar Chord Fingerings Part 1

categories Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, How to Practice Guitar, Play Guitar | comments 0 Comments

Today we are going to look at a frequently overlooked way to learn new guitar chords.

When you sit down to learn a new guitar chord, you don’t have to start from scratch.

Once you know a few guitar chords, you can use this simple but effective technique.

When you are ready to start memorizing a new chord fingering STOP!

Ask yourself this important question:

“Do you already know a chord that uses a similar guitar chord shape or identical fingering?”

If the answer is yes,  then learning the new guitar chord will be much easier because you are linking the new chord with something you already know.

Let’s look at some examples…

Take a look at the E major and A minor chords shown below:

E major and A minor guitar chord diagram

E major and A minor guitar chord diagram

As you can see, E major and A minor both use identical fingers.  Fingers 2-3-1 are found on strings 5-4-3 in the E major chord.  In the A minor chord, fingers 2-3-1 are simply shifted down one string each to strings 4-3-2.  In other words, the exact same shape is used but it is used on different strings.  The sixth string is played in E major but is not included in the voicing for A minor.

So if you were going to learn E major and already know how to play A minor you can see how it will be as easy as shifting your fingers for the A minor chord to the E major chord and vice versa.

Now look at the F major and Ab major chords that follow:

F major barre chord with neck diagram

Ab major barre chord with neck diagram

As you can see, both of these chord fingerings are identical except that they are played on different frets.

Now look at the difference between E major and E minor.  Notice that the only difference is that you take the first finger off of the E major chord to produce E minor.

E major and E minor guitar chord fingerings

E major and E minor guitar chord fingerings

So there you have it.  Anytime you are going to learn new guitar chords, first take each new chord and see if there is a guitar chord that you already know that has a similar or identical shape or fingering.

The great news here is that as you learn more chords it will become easier and easier to add new chords to your vocabulary.

What do you do if the new guitar chord does not use identical or similar fingerings?

That we will look at shortly.

December 26, 2009

Welcome to the Guitar Accelerator Blog!

categories Acoustic Guitar, Electric Guitar, Guitar Chords, Guitar Lessons, Guitar Scales, Guitar Technique, Guitar Theory, How to Practice Guitar, Play Guitar, Shred Guitar | comments 0 Comments

Over the next few weeks you’ll see the Guitar Accelerator Blog grow exponentially.  Here you will find the ultimate online resource to improve your guitar playing.  You’ll find lots of guitar lessons on this blog and on the home Guitar Accelerator site:

I’m quite new to blogging and I’m giving myself 30 days to learn.

I’m evaluating a multi-media course on blogging from the folks at Simpleology. For a while, they’re letting you snag it for free if you post about it on your blog.

It covers:

  • The best blogging techniques.
  • How to get traffic to your blog.
  • How to turn your blog into money.

I’ll let you know what I think once I’ve had a chance to check it out. Meanwhile, go grab yours while it’s still free.

That’s it for now, I’ll be back with some new posts on how to play guitar shortly.

Don J. MacLean is one of the world’s leading authorities on accelerated learning systems for guitar—with students using his methods in more than 40 countries worldwide. Don is the author of over 50 books including How I Got Killer Guitar Chops While I Was Still in High School: Confessions of a High School Shredder, 21 Secrets to Learn any Guitar Song Super-Fast, 7 Secrets to Learn any Guitar Chord Super-Fast, Guitar Essentials: Chord Master Expanded Edition, The World of Scales, and the Absolute Essentials of Music Theory for Guitar.

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