Practice & Have Fun
Guitar learning will be your life time adventure. The online CGA curriculum is designed to help you achieve your goals with fun and a lot of satisfying practice.
Work Hard, Be Patient & Enjoy the Results
The guitar is a vehicle to channel our creative minds and our self expression. Personally, I study guitar because it allows me to have more and more fun everyday, as I am able to express and flow with my feelings, to the utmost satisfaction. The real joy occurs, when we are to be able to perform a piece of music, from start to finish, with love and especially if we do so, for an audience.
Apply these 9 tips to your daily practice routine to learn more effectively
1. Sing
As a general rule, if you can imagine what you wish to play in tempo, and can also sing it, then your learning will be by far, much more efficient, and satisfying, than what students achieve by solely repeating mechanical movements, or in other words, practicing frustration.
2. Emulate the live performance
Only practice in a manner that emulates the final performance. Try to do it right the first time, and at the slowest speed possible.
3. Do not think
Do not think while you play, but rather sing the music in your mind. The more you think, the harder it will be to play.
4. Feel
Do not be a spectator of your feelings but rather create them through music.
5. Do not judge
Hear the music in your mind before you play it. If not you will become a spectator of your feelings and as a consequence you may judge yourself harshly.
6. Play soft
Play more soft than loud. In the loud you will have less room for increasing intensity. Remember, intensity does not come from playing loud, but from choice of register, harmonic tension and also rhythmic density.
If you play loud, you will tire your muscles out soon and will perform poorly. You might feel you are expressing yourself, but in the end you are only shouting.
7. Practice what you know
Practice what you know, to enjoy yourself, and practice what you do not know, to further enjoy yourself in the near future.
8. Revise
Build up a repertoire, but never forget to refresh it. This is fun and rewarding.
9. Do not stop
Once you start playing a song, do not stop if you make a mistake, keep on playing until the end. Reward yourself for what you know and embrace with warmth what you do not know that is commonly and harshly called the mistake.
