This will stop you getting better at guitar
Preferences vs. prisons
Your preferences are what make you unique as a guitar player. But, if you're not careful, those preferences can turn into prisons, locking you into habits and limiting your growth.
In this lesson, we'll learn how to tell if your preferences are actually prisons and what you can do to fix that.
What’s the difference?
Preferences
Preferences are what you gravitate towards when you're playing the guitar—the shapes, scales, chords, and techniques you think feel the most natural or sound the best.
Prisons
Prisons are the habits or choices you fall back on in stressful musical situations because you’re not confident doing anything else. They feel safe, but they actually limit your freedom on the guitar.
Pentatonic Pattern One is a good example of a shape that can easily become a prison.
Most guitarists have this pentatonic pattern as their preference. I know I do! But if you find yourself only using Pattern One because you feel uncomfortable using the other pentatonic shapes, is it really your preference—or are you stuck in a prison?
Identifying and breaking out of your guitar prisons
Pentatonic Patterns
If you’re always gravitating to Pattern One, try this test: Jam along to a backing track in a few different keys and limit yourself to only using the other pentatonic patterns.
How comfortable are you? Can you move freely, or do you feel stuck? If you’re struggling—if it feels confusing or unnatural—Pattern One might be a prison rather than a preference.
Breaking Out:
Limit yourself to practicing with another pattern, like Pattern Five.
Identify the root notes in this new pattern.
Once you’re comfortable, practice transitioning between Pattern One and Pattern Five.
The key is to keep your restrictions small and manageable. The more focused you are, the easier it is to make progress.
Root Note Reliance
Another common prison is always using the same root note. For me, it was the low E string. If I got lost while soloing, I’d always revert to that root note. This became a problem when I was improvising a solo and it took me higher up the neck. If I made a mistake or got lost, I'd have to jump back down to the root note I was familiar with on the low E string.
Breaking Out:
To break out of this prison, I practiced soloing from the high E string exclusively for a while. This helped me expand my comfort zone and gave me the freedom to understand where I was from another root note—not just the one I was used to.
It's worth getting familiar with the root notes on every string (I found it game-changing when I finally did!), but don't try and start with them all at the same time. Limit yourself to getting familiar with one new note at a time.
If you need help mastering the notes of the fretboard, check out The Musician's Guide to Fretboard Memorisation for the easiest and most effective method to get them down.
Discover how to learn the notes in a way that not only develops your fretboard fluency but reinforces your overall musicianship.
Chord Shapes
Do you feel like you might be relying too much on the same chord shapes? Test this by trying to play a chord progression using different chord forms: Bar chords, open chords, triads in various positions, drop 2 chords, and seventh chords.
If you struggle to adapt, this could be a sign that you’re in a chord prison.
Breaking Out:
Spend some time familiarising yourself with new chord shapes and practice using them to play different chord progressions.
Pro tip: Learning to recognize the notes and scale degrees within the chord as you play them makes this so much easier and will supercharge your playing.
Why new things feel hard
A big reason we get stuck in guitar prisons is that certain skills seem harder compared to what we already know.
For example: When beginners start with open chords, they often find bar chords intimidating later on.
The truth?
Bar chords aren’t objectively harder—they just feel that way because you’re much more fluent with open chords.
This principle applies to everything on the guitar. The things you are more fluent with will seem easier, while less familiar concepts will seem hard.
Remember, there are very few things on the guitar that are objectively hard. When something seems hard, most of the time it's just unfamiliar.
Always self-audit
The best way to improve on the guitar is to always be asking yourself these questions:
Are you choosing this shape, lick, or technique because you truly prefer it—or because you lack confidence elsewhere?
Can you perform comfortably in other areas of the fretboard, or do you always fall back on the same habits?
Answering these questions honestly will help you step out of your comfort zone and determine what you need to practice to improve as a guitar player.
Your challenge this week
Pick one thing that you know is a preference—maybe it’s your favorite pentatonic pattern, a chord shape, or even a lick. Refuse to use it during practice. Force yourself to explore other options.
Yes, it will be uncomfortable at first, but you’ll expand your creativity and ultimately gain more freedom on the guitar!
Preferences are not bad
Your preferences are not bad—in fact, they are what makes you unique as a guitar player. The goal isn’t to eliminate them but to give yourself the freedom to choose to play your preferences because you want to—not because you have to.
