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"Don, your books have gotten me further in
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Use a metronome and take it slowly at first, and you will get great results.
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Do you wish you could find more time to play guitar?
Well you’re not alone. Every guitarist wishes they could get more time to play guitar.
In this article I’m going to show you 17 great ways to create more time or free up lost time so you’ll have more time to play guitar.
1. To get more time to play guitar you must first know where your time is currently going.
Here is a very enlightening exercise:
Grab a piece of paper and across the top write in the days of the week. Now down the side write down one-hour time blocks from 12 am to 12 pm.
Now below each day, write in your typical activities and how much time you usually spend performing each of them. Make sure you include work/school, sports, hobbies, eating, sleeping, time with friends and family, etc.
Next, add up the total time accounted for in each day. It should add up to 24 hours each day, if not, something has been missed. Now that you’ve got a better idea where your time is currently being spent, you’ll be able to answer an important question...
2. Are there some things you can stop doing altogether?
Is everything that you did over the last 7 days essential? If there is something you can stop doing, stop doing it and use that time to play guitar.
3. Do less of low priority activities.
Take a look at everything you did over the last 7 days and rate everything on a scale of 1-10. Use 10 as something that is very important to you or something that you must do, and use 1 as something very unimportant. Consider doing less of the activities that you rated at 1-3.
4. Delegate.
Are there things that must be done each week but not necessarily by you? If so, these are prime candidates for delegation. Consider your hourly rate of pay, if you can pay someone to do the gardening, house cleaning, or dry cleaning for less per hour than you make, consider delegating those tasks and using the freed up time to play guitar.
5. Add guitar time first thing in the morning.
What about getting up earlier in the morning to play guitar first thing? The great thing with this is you get your guitar playing done first thing and then you can get on with the rest of your day.
6. If you're a night owl consider staying up an extra half hour to play guitar before you go to bed.
7. Cut down on television time or Internet time.
Do you really need to spend all of that time watching TV and surfing the Internet? Reduce your TV and Internet time by a half an hour and use the time to play guitar.
8. How much time do you spend gaming?
Can you use some of that time to play guitar? If you spend lots of time playing Guitar Hero, why not become a real guitar hero and learn to play your favourite guitar songs on the real guitar? Yes, it will take some work but won’t it be worth it?
9. Can you make better use of your commuting time?
If you take public transit to and from school/work, what about listening to a recording of the songs you are learning? How about practicing writing the guitar tab of the songs you know how to play on guitar? And what about doing this from memory? How about doing this for the newest guitar song you want to learn. Why not work on learning guitar music theory? Bring a good guitar theory book with you and work on it during your commute.
10. Use your breaks at work or school to improve your guitar playing.
Work on the mental aspects of your guitar playing when you take a break at work. Listen to your favourite guitarists and commit the songs to memory. Also use the ideas covered in number 9 above during your breaks.
11. Use active learning when you are outside.
If you are in a restaurant, or a store and there is music playing, try to identify what’s going on with your ears. If there is a live band at the bar or restaurant—watch the guitarist. See what he/she is doing. Identify the guitar chords and guitar scales being used etc. If you are out walking somewhere, take your mp3 player and listen to songs you are working on, or want to learn.
12. Practice finger coordination exercises when you are away from the guitar.
You can improve your guitar technique when you are away from the guitar. For example, position your fret-hand in the air as if it was on the neck of the guitar and practice finger exercises like 1234, 1243, 1324, etc. Practice them on your leg, on your opposite forearm, on a table top. Practice them everywhere you can. Also practice guitar scale fingerings, guitar chord fingerings and guitar arpeggios this way.
13. Visualization.
This is a powerful trick musicians have been using hundreds of years to improve their playing. When you are away from your guitar, play guitar in your mind’s eye. Visualize yourself playing guitar. In your mind, see and hear yourself playing the new guitar song you are working on. See and hear yourself playing that guitar scale, guitar chord or guitar arpeggio. The more vivid the detail, the better.
14. For relaxation, instead of watching a movie, watch concert DVDs and/or Blue-rays of your favourite bands and guitarists live.
You can also watch instructional guitar DVDs.
15. Bring a notepad with you and practice drawing out the newest guitar chords or guitar scales you are working on. Do the same for the newest guitar song. Write out the tab from memory. Just think about how much easier it will be to play a guitar song when you can write out the tab for it from memory!
16. One of the key principles of effective time management is to think on paper.
Plan your day in advance and slot in some time so you can play guitar. If you don’t plan to play guitar you won’t, so schedule some practice time.
17. Set aside specific times and days that are just for you to play guitar.
Regardless of whether you want to play guitar for an hour a day, or an hour a week, let your family/roommates know that 7-8 pm is your time to play guitar. During this time you can’t be interrupted. You won’t answer the phone or the door. This is your time. When you treat it as precious time that is important to you, your family will respect this.
The other great thing with setting up a regular practice time is you will come to expect to be playing guitar at this time. It becomes a habit. You expect to play guitar and you will play guitar. If you miss this time, you will want to make it up.
Apply as many of these 17 ways to get more time to play guitar and see how much more time you can make to play guitar.
Here’s the great thing—as you play more guitar you will get better. The better you get on the guitar, the more you will get out of your practice sessions. The better you get on the guitar the more you’ll want to play guitar!
Now that you've discovered 17 ways to get more time to play guitar, the key to becoming the guitar player you want to be is getting the most out of each time you sit down to play guitar.
So how do you do this?
Most guitar players don't know this...
It doesn't matter whether you're just getting started on the acoustic or electric guitar, or whether you've been guitar playing for years.
There are just two factors that ultimately determine how fast you'll progress on your guitar.
That's right.
It all boils down to two things.
You must use these two factors to your advantage every time you play guitar. Otherwise you're just wasting precious practice time and taking years to accomplish what could done in mere months.
Know What to Practice and How to Practice
That's it.
Those are the two things holding you back from reaching your guitar goals faster than you ever thought possible.
When you know exactly how to practice and what to practice, you'll get great results every time you play guitar.
Who Am I and Why Should You Listen to Me?
I've spent most of my life learning and performing music and studying the best ways to teach it.
I've taught guitar lessons for over 25 years, taken years of private guitar lessons and earned a degree in music. I've authored more than 50 books, played lead guitar with too many bands to list here, and taught numerous master classes and workshops.
I've got students in more than 50 countries worldwide that are using my courses to advance their guitar playing.
I'm fascinated by how we learn music, so I studied it at university and completed a degree in psychology and did some graduate studies in neuroscience as well. With all of this intensive studying and practicing, I have discovered some little known secrets that will save you massive amounts of time and give you results you never thought possible.
So you see, I've already done all of the trial and error work so you don't have to.
Click on one of the menu options and pick the area of your guitar playing you want to transform now.
If you're a beginning guitar player, click on the following link to learn to play guitar quickly with 14 Easy Beginner Guitar Lessons.
For intermediate and advanced players, check out guitar technique, guitar chords, and guitar scale courses. To really understand how music works, start with guitar theory. If you're looking for monster package deals, go to play guitar with Guitar Accelerator.
Each one of my guitar courses will show you what to practice and how to practice to get the best results every time you play guitar.
Join the thousands of other guitar players in over 50 countries worldwide that are achieving their guitar dreams faster than they ever thought possible.
Start to play guitar today. Whether you're a beginning guitar player, intermediate guitar player, or advanced guitar player, make today the day you start to make dramatic improvements in your guitar playing.
To your guitar success,
Don J. MacLean
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 50 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.
P.S. Everything is covered by my No Strings Attached 90-Day, 100% Satisfaction Guarantee, so you have nothing to lose. So why not start improving your guitar playing right now?
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"A
good friend of mine was over recently and after seeing and hearing how
quickly I was learning to play he wanted this same book. He has been playing
for over two years..."
Dear Don, You may have noticed that this is the second
Guitar Quick Start that I have ordered. A good friend of mine was over recently and after seeing and hearing how quickly I was learning to play he wanted this same book. He has been playing for over two years now and really likes the way your book teaches (twelve bar blues in particular).
So thanks from a happy student.
Kim Screefer
Lower Nicola, BC, Canada
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"An excellent resource for guitarists."
An excellent resource for guitarists.
The
World of Scales offers a wealth of interesting sounds…much food for thought for the improvising guitarist.
John Stowell
Guitar Player Magazine
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Paul J. Thornton
NY, United States
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"This book has
taken
me to the next level in my ability to play the guitar."
I haven't had time to
go through the whole book yet, but here's what I can say...
I now understand
where all the notes on the fretboard are, and they are taught in such a
way that it was easy to understand.
I can now put my fingers down anywhere on the guitar and know
immediately what note I am playing.
I have learned the patterns to where all the different notes fall
on each string, and it is not confusing at all.
Learning something as simple as that has helped me understand and
make sense of things that were otherwise very confusing.
I also like the way
that the scales have been explained.
Learning what the major and minor scales are and how to apply
them has also helped tremendously.
This
guitar theory book has
taken
me to the next level in my ability to play the guitar.
The book is fantastic
and I can't wait until I get more time to finish it off.
Jeff
K., ON, Canada
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