Guitar Study Habits, How to Practice and Warm Up

[DesiSerna]

I was wondering if you have any books coming in the future relevant to practicing? How to practice? How to warm up? Setting up a personal syllabus? Study habits etc, pertinent to getting the most out of your study time? Would you have any input on this or references on these areas?

Good question Al. I don't offer any materials that focus solely on practicing guitar, but I do make references to it throughout my guitar theory lessons (books and DVDs). Also, the free guitar song lessons I posted on YouTube include tips on how to break guitar parts down and develop technique.

Guitar Practice and Learning Songs
I can't emphasize enough the importance of learning songs. You must put any new information to use in order to truly understand it. This is why I include so many song references in my guitar theory book and videos. Instead of playing generic exercises or warm up routines, I prefer to use songs. This works much better for my students as well. You can kill two birds with one stone this way. Practice AND get real songs down at the same time! Also, in order to develop properly, you want to practice things that occur in real music. A lot of practice material is very impractical in that it's not entirely consistent with what goes on in popular songs.

[LordsoKarmaRIFF]

I do recall the emphasis placed on learning songs and practicing them throughout Guitar Theory. I can see that it is a good way to practice. I'm assuming if you're covering songs or playing your own it's equally as affective. Thanks for replying to that question Desi.

[DesiSerna]

You brought up a very important point! Any music theory you learn must be understood in musical context and put into practice. For this reason, all guitar players should learn songs regardless of whether their goal is to play their own music or not. Why do you think we are taught to use new words in sentences? It's so we can hear and understand how words function and can be used. Then we can take it from there and speak for ourselves. Why do people say you can hear Albert King in Stevie Ray Vaughan's playing? Because SRV learned how to phrase by first copying what he heard on King's records. That's how all great guitar players got started and developed their style.

[LordsoKarmaRIFF]

OK Desi, I'm concurrence with that last post, very much so. This is my problem with the term "learning". When you state "learning", doe that mean memorizing all those songs? I'm having a problem memorizing new songs. I think it's a little too much for me. Since purchasing Guitar Theory last year, I've memorized only three songs (Yellow Ledbetter, Pawn Shop, and Heartbreaker). That alone is a miracle for me. However, if I sit and read the sheet music supplied with the download accompanying Guitar Theory, I can generally play all the songs smoothly and with out stumbling or hesitation.

Is this what is mean by learning the songs? Should I actually be able to memorize all those notes? I've written a few songs of my own and can improvise rather well for someone of my experience. I've just found it easier to register my own tunes in my head versus the songs I've listened to for so many years on the music box. I don't why this is.

[DesiSerna]

No, you don't have to memorize all the songs or all the notes necessarily. In my book Fretboard Theory I usually only point out one song part (like a riff or solo).

Go to my LINK page and preview the video Fretboard Theory Jam Tracks . I suggest you follow the instructions to get full access to this online lesson. It will show you how to start using the pieces of songs you've learned to compose and improvise your own guitar parts over music tracks.

[roffe_ek]

Hello
I have been playing guitar for quite some time now. When you learn guitar try to build a repertoire of songs,now your reportoire is yellow ledbetter, pawn shop and heartbreaker I think that is excellent, play these songs so you can perform them to anyone without missing a tone, concentrate to play this songs wery well, actually that is a lot of work, guitarplaying is not only hitting the right tone it is also emphazising certain tones muting others etc that can take years to develop, and you need to hear and play a lot of different songs. You can make the guitar sounding like a orcestra if you want mimicking drums, piano, and even trumpets. paralell to practicing your reportoire learn as many riffs as possibe listen to the music and riffs you love and learn all the coolest riffs you do not have to learn the whole songs to start with, it is better to learn MANY different riffs and solos, when you play your reportoire really well then change some of the songs with songs that you have started to learn riffs from, pick songs that you think are the coolest . Paralell to learnig riffs and songs analyze the musical theory what is the parent key of the song containing this riff??? and what mode??? do not ever miss to analyze the theory .try also to sing the songs of your reportoire that is good ear training, I have also used a ear training program for computers to learn hearing difference between intervals, if you learn this then you can analyze melodies without the guitar, just by listening. If you want to see a guy that have a insane reportoire look up Tommy Emmanuel at you tube I heared him at a concert recently he played a 4 hour long reportoire, he is my number one favourite guitarist. he make the guitar sound like a orcestra.

OK Desi, I'm concurrence with that last post, very much so. This is my problem with the term "learning". When you state "learning", doe that mean memorizing all those songs? I'm having a problem memorizing new songs. I think it's a little too much for me. Since purchasing Guitar Theory last year, I've memorized only three songs (Yellow Ledbetter, Pawn Shop, and Heartbreaker). That alone is a miracle for me. However, if I sit and read the sheet music supplied with the download accompanying Guitar Theory, I can generally play all the songs smoothly and with out stumbling or hesitation.

Is this what is mean by learning the songs? Should I actually be able to memorize all those notes? I've written a few songs of my own and can improvise rather well for someone of my experience. I've just found it easier to register my own tunes in my head versus the songs I've listened to for so many years on the music box. I don't why this is.

[DesiSerna]

Just adding to what I already explained, here's a great video of Stevie Ray Vaughan talking about how he got his ideas from other players.

Stevie Ray Vaughan Guitar Lesson