How To Practice Guitar: The Ultimate 7 Step Guide

Taking up the study of classical guitar (or guitar of any kind!) can seem daunting, but with the proper practice methods you can achieve high levels of proficiency in less time than you might think.

Read on to learn how to devise an effective practice regimen to hone your skills on the classical guitar.

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Don’t Get Too Comfortable

The importance of maintaining a varied practice regimen cannot be overstated. However, to be effective we must determine exactly what it is that needs to be improved. We must identify our strengths and weaknesses and then tailor our practice accordingly.

Reality Check

The majority of our practice time should be focused on our weaknesses. Fortunately, classical guitar repertoire constantly presents us with new technical and musical challenges.

If you’re making mistakes, don’t continue until you’ve fixed them. It’s hard to resist moving on, but remember that every time you repeat a passage with mistakes you’re actually practicing those mistakes, making them that much harder to unlearn later on!

Stretch Before You Run

Before you begin your daily practice, you’ll want to warm up the muscles, tendons, and ligaments of your hands. Ideally, a full warm-up session will take 20-30 minutes, but if you’re limited on time just make sure to warm up 5-10 minutes and then focus on your weaknesses in practice.

ABC, 123…

Conquering the physical challenges of the classical guitar is only half the battle. The other half encompasses the domain of sight reading. Classical guitarists who study with little to no guidance from a teacher often fail to balance the demands of this challenging art.

Your sight reading should never fall behind your technical ability on the instrument. This ensures that new techniques will only be attempted once other foundational skills have already been mastered, and will maintain the focus on serving the music. Otherwise, the music ends up serving the technique rather than the other way around.

Interested in learning classical guitar? Get free lessons and learn from an expert today. 

Don’t Ignore the Score

The score is the ultimate guide when it comes to not only learning a piece, but truly perfecting it. It is only with this tool that we can see into the musical minds of centuries past and give their music new life.

As such, remember: don’t ignore the score. In it is contained all of the crucial notes about the composer’s intentions, including which voices to emphasize, tone color, phrasing, rhythm, meter and tempo. These finer details indicated in the score distinguish good renditions of a piece from the great.

Slice The Pie

When practicing a given piece of music, it’s important to organize it into sections. Make sure to determine where each part ends and where the next begins. Master the difficult passages first, then proceed with entire sections. Only then should you practice the piece in its entirety.

Try Different Flavors

Lastly, remember to listen to as many styles of music as possible. While classical music is quite varied in its own right, listening to other genres will aid you in the most important thing - becoming a well-rounded musician.

May your journey on the classical guitar be interesting, inspiring, and rewarding. Good luck!

Interested in learning classical guitar? Get free lessons and learn from an expert today. 

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