{ Lick That Riff! }

Are you a guitar beginner? Are you an experienced guitarist that’s just lost that motivation to play? Do you want some structure to your practising? Or maybe you just want to improve as a guitarist? Then this simple guide is for you.

This guide contains 52 simple tips for you to try out so that you can:

• Improve technique
• Finger Ability
• Theory knowledge
• Motivation
• Timing
• Rhythm
• Many More

Now please remember that these are just simple tips that you can do, and you will need to read into them further to boost your techniques. But this is the groundwork for this

Motivation

1) Make a list of songs that you can already play – If you aren’t feeling that motivated about the guitar, then this tip can be extremely useful and give you a great sense of pride.

2) Make a list of songs that you would like to be able to play within the next; Week

3) Month

4) 6 Months

5) And Year

6) Make a list of what you would like to achieve by playing guitar? Job? Band? Degree? Songwriting? Just for fun?

7) Set yourself a target. Like a weekly song that you are going to learn.

Go to your local library and get a tabulature book of your favourite band to learn. This is free and it is also a timed target, because you have to return the book at a specific date.

9) Go to your local Guitar shop, pick up a guitar and play. Or just stay in the shop long enough to see some other cool dude play. It will Inspire.

10) Watch some Youtube videos of your favourite guitarists.

11) Listen to some songs of your favourite guitarists.

12) Write down why they are your favourite guitarsists and analyse their style, and how you can mimic this.

13) Go to see a local band in your area. It will make you feel good that there are guitarists out there that are doing it, who aren’t a bigtime band.

Finger Exercises

14) Practice finger exercises as often as possible. If you feel any pain or discomfort the stop immediately.

15) Try the bottle neck technique for longer stretch. Get old Pepsi bottle caps and place them between your fretting fingers whilst not playing guitar. i.e. Whilst watching the T.V.

16) Practice different variations of scales, alternating between fingers. Try to start with the pentatonic as it is the easiest and most widely used.

17) Try to learn a new Barre chord shape every week. This is not only a great test and workout for the fingers but its a great way to learn a new chord a week

18) If you can afford one, buy a Gripmaster.

19) Learn Alternate picking

20) Learn Economy picking

21) Check Steve Vai’s workout (although its fucking long) There are some pretty good variations of this workout on the web which aren’t as long.

Theory

22) Learn the guitar notes along the top string, then move on to the other string.

23) Try to learn a new chord a week

24) Try to learn a new scale a week, until you have mastered them

25) Buy a chord dictionary. This will be your Bible.

26) Learn the five positions of the pentatonic, as this is the most used scale around and a lot of riffs/solos are based on this.

27) Analyse different guitar keys by using the Roman Numeral System.

28) Look at some of your favourite songs and work out what key they are in.

29) Experiment with unusual Time Signatures.

30) Experiment with unusual tunings.

31) Learn Suspended chords

32) Make chord progressions

33) Mess around with different variations of them

34) Go into a guitar shop and try a Left -handed guitar. This should give you a great feel for the guitar and the notes. It should also show you how far you’ve come with your normal hand.

35) Try writing a basic chord progression

36) Then try to add Time Signature

37) And Melody

38) Key

39) Rhythm

40) Arrangement

41) Lyrics

42) Record your song if you can and revisit it at a later date to see what you could add to it.

Miscellaneous

43) Buy a metronome.

44) start practising with it at different speeds.

45) If you can afford one, buy a drum machine, if not some free one’s can be found on the internet

46) Practice with different drum beats and at different tempo’s. This will greatly improve your time and your ear for music.

47) Again if you can afford it buy some backing tracks, if not visit here it has a few decent backing tracks.

48) Play with some slower tracks at first and build up to faster, more challenging songs.

49) Find another guitarist to jam with.

50) Try to start rehearsing with a band even if all you do is rehearse. This will improve your improvisation, timing and rhythm.

51) Record yourself playing every 1-3 months and see how much you’ve improved.

52) The most important tip ever! ENJOY YOURSELF!

So there it is. My 52 tips on Guitar Practice. These were just a basis to get you going and hopefully even if you do one or two of these a week your guitar playing will be improved.

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