Getting good at guitar or anything takes time. But how much time? You might be surprised at the answer: It depends! You don’t want to hear that but it is true. Your level of “good” is a function of just what you are trying to play. For most of us, it is not really that much time.
Working on new music always reminds me of the days when I was young and had hours to spend playing music. There were times I would put on an album and figure out the songs as they came at me and then challenge myself to play straight through without a break. Sometimes that would take 45 minutes, other times it would be well over an hour for a live album. CD’s just increased that time as they could hold more music than the old vinyl records.
When I started playing bass in bands, it was not unusual to spend two or more hours practicing. There were always new songs to learn and the old set lists to refresh and improve on. I also played guitar in my church every single Sunday. Christmas Eve included two services with 30 minutes of carols before each. I played a lot.
Don’t get the idea that I am some sort of super guitarist as I had my niche and stayed in it for the most part. There is more to getting good than just time. You may have heard it takes 10,000 hours to achieve greatness but that idea is challenged in an article I read recently called, The 10,000 Hour Rule Is Wrong: How to Really Master a Skill. Let’s apply the concepts in the article to our guitars.
Iteration as a Key to Progress
You need to be able to hear what you are doing. Get some way to record yourself and listen. Getting someone knowledgeable to listen and guide you is for extra credit. It may take going to a guitar teacher to listen critically and help see your trouble spots.
As you listen, look out for timing issues. Many of us are quite poor at keeping time. Use a metronome or drum machine to help hear where the beat is in relation to your playing.
Listen for the feel. You may be getting the notes but it sounds mechanical and stale. Dynamics come when the notes are almost flowing out intuitively from you. Now you can back off from the challenge of just getting the notes and chords right and play it like you mean it! If you are following the format outlined in a previous post, Guitar Practice Makes Perfect, stick with the new stuff until it flows so easily it’s like you are talking to someone with passion. You will only start to hear this when you can listen to yourself.
Practice Intentionally
The post mentioned above touches on this but let me emphasize that you should avoid just playing anything and calling it practice. Pick a song and work it until you nail it. Pick a phrase and drive it until you make it your own. As the practice time on a particular skill, song, phrase moves along, the obvious progress will further inspire you. Take breaks occasionally to let your brain internalize what you are doing but stick to something and get it down.
This has the major benefit of creating a library of well worn phrases and songs you can recall later. Rhett Shull talks about this in his video here and he recommends creating a mixtape of stuff to practice. I use this idea by creating playlists in YouTube. I then share them with the other guys in my band.
Hey, Teach!
If you ever want to know how well you know a subject, teach it to someone else. First, you will need to refresh your memory in order to speak coherently on the subject and, second, you will identify gaps in your knowledge. The gaps are usually where we are assuming everyone knows what we are talking about.
Teaching my wife really revealed a bunch of gaps in my knowledge. She did not grow up being interested in music as a hobby and never thought she could learn to play an instrument. There were a number of ‘a-ha’ moments as I glossed over things that were completely foreign to her. How to explain various musical concepts to someone not into the jargon can be a real eye opener.
So, What Does It Take to Get Good at Guitar?
Getting good requires a level of understanding many others do not possess. It is the defining characteristic in my opinion. You might be able to play all kinds of great stuff but can you teach it to me? I find explaining rhythm to be the most difficult 🙂
Getting back to something I said in the opening paragraph about just what level of ‘good’ are you trying to achieve. You do not need to be a hotshot player to be respected and have others enjoy your music. I often remark to my wife about how some rather famous musicians were never really that great at their instrument. What they did have was songwriting skill and they surrounded themselves with others who filled in the places where they were weak. As I have heard many times: Be the worst one in the band and you will learn, provided you are humble enough to do so 😉