If you want to play the guitar like a pro, to what the great professional guitarists do. Great guitarists treat their guitar as if the musical instrument is their lover. They are passionately in love with their guitars and that is one of the main reasons why they are such good guitarists.
If you want to learn how to play the guitar like them, you will need to understand that your guitar and you must form a very important and special "relationship". Just as like any loving relationship, your relationship with your guitar nurture and mature with time.
If you don't give your guitar enough time and have a deep passion for it, you will never develop a relationship with it. Therefore in order to play the guitar well, you must feel passionately about your guitar and the music you create with it. For without passion, you can never be a good guitarist.
The first thing to remember is "PDR!". Practice, drill and rehearse is the only way of ever learning how to play the guitar well. You need not practice for hours everyday, but it is absolutely crucial that you practice your guitar regularly and if possible, every day.
There is no point in practicing for 5 hours on Friday and then picking up your guitar again next Thursday. Just practice for about 30 minutes a day would be sufficient for you to become a proficient guitarist in a relatively short time.
What if you do not have the time to practice on your guitar everyday? Well, here are a few tricks to learn how to play the guitar like a pro.
a) Practice guitar chord changes over and over again until you have perfected the changes and are able to change chords fast and smoothly. If you have problem switching from F chord to a D open chord, you could keep practicing this every day until the switch is effortless.
When you have mastered that, then move on to another chord change exercise.
This may sound like a no brainer, but is very crucial because in time to come, you will be able to change chords very smoothly and comfortably, just like a pro.
b) Focus. Find a skill that you can improve on and work on perfecting that. You know that you cannot devote a lot of time to practicing on your guitar, so concentrating on one guitar skill set at a time, and progressively over time, you will have so many skill sets that even the professionals may be awed.
c) Play your favorite song. Everybody has a favorite song. Wouldn't you love to be able to play your favorite song and sing along as well? So play your favorite song.
At some point, you are bound to get tired of playing only guitar chords and riffs. So choose a song you like and work on it and then perfect it.
In this way you will actually have fun even while you are actually 'working' on your guitar and at the same time, gets you motivated.
d) Practice guitar licks. Working on a lick is a good way to learn how to play the guitar well. You can work through the licks many times in just a few minutes. This is a good technique to use while practicing chord changes as well.
e) String picking skills. Doing drills up and down the neck of the guitar can improve your guitar picking skills tremendously, which in turn contribute to you making immense progress with your guitar. Use a metronome to help you build speed so that you can play the licks fast and with good dexterity.
f) Practice guitar scaling. You can actually play a single scale about 70-100 times in ten minutes or so. Practicing by playing scales not only help you build your stamina but also helps you increase your playing speed.
g) Be creative. Play a few different chords that sound good together or even some melodies if you can. This way you can even come up with an entire song of your own!
Yes, play your own compositions and be passionate about your guitar playing. Most importantly, be disciplined and create a routine for yourself and stick to the routines.
These practice sessions may be small, but a few minutes a day and with the accumulation of time, your guitar playing skills will improve so much that very soon you will be playing the guitar like a pro.
