10 Guitar Playing Tips for Success!

Becoming a successful guitarist is a lot of hard work, sweat, dedication and perseverance. But in the end, it’s almost always worth it! You could end up becoming the greatest rock star since Slash, tour the world for a living, and release a countless number of multi-platinum records, putting your name in all sorts of record books once and for all!

But what exactly does it take to reach those sorts of stellar levels of success?

1. Setting Goals

Yes, believe it or not, setting goals is the first thing that you should do today, RIGHT NOW in fact, in order to become the sort of guitarist and the sort of artist that you aspire to be. Too many people wander aimlessly when learning the guitar, and end up becoming just another mediocre musician, with ordinary skills, and wonder why they’re stuck with mediocrity. It is because they don’t have any tangible short-term and long-term goals. In addition, read up on this article for tips on setting goals.

2. Reaching Goals

Setting goals is one thing, taking consistent action to actually achieve those goals is a completely different, yet an equally important task as well. If you’ve set short term goals, it is important to be able to determine what tangible steps you can take in order to achieve those goals. Write them down, map them in fact so that you can see the complete picture.

3. Enjoy the Process

Once you’ve set your goals, you can now begin practicing your guitar and be on your way to becoming the next biggest guitar-playing sensation in the world. In order to do that, you’ll be doing a lot of practicing and a lot of guitar playing. It is important to enjoy the process, in order to be able to make the most out of it and in order to be able to work towards your goals. Relish the process, and take it on with enthusiasm. Remember that you’re in this for the long haul (Slash didn’t become Slash overnight, neither did Malmsteen!), might as well enjoy it! Besides, you should never do anything that you don’t enjoy doing; if you don’t enjoy playing the guitar, my advice: quit right now.

4. Keep Yourself Focused and Motivated

A goal-oriented approach to learning the guitar has several merits, some of which have been quite evident in the examples above. Another one of the merits of setting goals is that it gives you the ability to remain focused in your guitar practicing exploits. Having short-term or –day-to-day/weekly goals, for instance, will give you the motivation you need to go all the way. But perhaps most importantly, focus and motivation will ensure that you are light years ahead of your competition, and that you make some real progress. Here’s a personal tip: there is no alternative to the motivation and encouragement that you get from a teacher!

5. Turn Frustrations and Achievements into a Source of Motivation

Both achievements as well as frustrations will be an equal part of the process, that is learning how to play the guitar. Use these to keep yourself motivated, in the short haul, and the long run. Accomplishments, triumphs, failures and disappointments should spur you on.

6. Play In a Band

Finding a band to play with is probably the easiest thing you’ll do, especially if you’re in a high-school, college or even if you work somewhere. Look around your neighborhood to see if someone’s willing to jam with you, put up notices in and around your neighborhood. Or look on Craigslist. Here's a Wikihow article with tips on how to join a band. Playing in a band is immensely fun, it keeps you motivated, gives you a reason to practice daily, and most importantly, you learn new things from other musicians when you play in a band! With the passage of time, you will see a significant, noticeable different in your playing. Above all, you'll be in the company of better musicians.

7. Take Responsibility

As soon as you realize that everything – your progress, your development, your success and your failure depend on you, and that you alone are responsible for everything you do, you will instantly experience a paradigm shift, and notice a significant improvement in your attitude in terms of playing the guitar. Putting the blame on someone else’s shoulders is ill-advised and one of the worst things you can do.

8. Learn

Always try to learn something new, because there is always something new to learn. This becomes easy if you’re enrolled in a guitar-learning program, or are learning to play the instrument somewhere. Having an attitude that allows you to seek new things to learn will get you places!

9. Listen

Listening and the ability to really be able to ‘listen’ is an important part of a guitar player’s learning toolkit. Listen to as much music you can, and don’t restrict yourself to certain genres or types of music. As a musicians, exposure to as many types of music as possible will be hugely beneficial.

10. Teach Someone

As a person who’s been playing the guitar for a good part of the decade now. If there’s one thing I’m most certain of, it’s that the best way of learning something, and the best way of making sure that you are the best at what you do, is to teach it (and this applies to everything in life!). As they say, “to teach is to learn.” Teaching the guitar to someone allows you to step out of your comfort zone, because questions are asked of you, questions that you need to know the answer to. Plus teaching is one of the best, most effective ways of practicing the guitar.