A lot of guitarists set objectives around achieving specific things: learning a certain song, mastering a scale, or nailing a technique. These kinds of goals can be useful in situations when there’s a deadline. But, most guitar players aren’t working under this kind of time pressure. So, if we’re not going to set goals around deadlines, how can we set achievable goals for our guitar practice?

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.

I want to introduce you to a concept I like to call the practice continuum. This idea explores how a guitarist’s approach to their practice affects their progress. Whether you play for fun or want to get as good as possible as quickly as possible, understanding where you fall on the practice continuum will help you maximize both your enjoyment and your rate of progress on the guitar.

In this lesson, you’re going to learn why it’s best to start learning these 9 chords in this order. I'll show you some useful memory hooks that will make it easy to remember the new chord shapes and some songs you’ll be able to start playing immediately with these chords. You'll also discover the game-changing concept most beginner guitar players don’t even know exists.

Learning the fretboard is easy and can be done in as little as 30-seconds per day. To do this, call out a random note from the diagram below and THEN play it. A lot of students end up calling out a note and playing it at the same time when they try this exercise. Don’t do this. Call out the note and THEN begin moving your hand to play it. Resist the temptation to do both at the same time.

You don’t need to know the notes on the fretboard to enjoy playing the guitar. But no one who actually knows them fluently is going to suggest you shouldn’t bother learning them if you’re interested. The level of freedom you’ll get from knowing the notes on the fretboard will make everything you do on the guitar so much easier.

The most important concept to understand when you’re learning music is the idea of context. This doesn’t just apply if you are learning how to play the guitar - this is more fundamental than that. Context is the only thing that matters.

There are 12 possible notes we can play on the guitar. Every one of those notes can suggest a different sound or feeling depending on the context.

Every strumming pattern you will ever play is going to fit inside one of four frameworks. This means that if we know what it feels like to play each individual slice of these frameworks, then we inherently have the muscle memory to play every strumming pattern we will ever want to play.

Key points to keep in mind when playing the caterpillar exercise:

1. Use one finger per fret

2. Keep your index and pinky fingers both angled inwards

3. Keep your thumb halfway down the neck behind your middle finger

4. Keep your palm horizontal

5. Keep the knuckles at the base of your fingers forward

If we recognise chord progressions based on their numbers, we are able to substitute those numbers with the appropriate chords from different keys as required. This means that we could play a chord progression we learned in the key of A in the key of G instead. The chords we use will be completely different, but the chord progression will have the same shape.

Here’s how beginner guitarists should practice changing chords in order to get better at the guitar.

1 - Hold a chord shape tightly with good technique. 2 - Relax your grip while leaving your fingers on the strings. 3 - Grip the chord tightly again. 4 - Repeat this process moving your fingers further and further away from the strings each time.

Over the years I’ve been teaching guitar, one thing I’ve seen consistently is students trying to practice something that’s too difficult for them simply because they think they should be able to do it. Who’s saying you should be able to do it? There’s no shame in simplifying something. The goal is for you to become a better player. You should simplify something to the extent that it will help

When you’re learning the guitar, it’s important to remember that your objectives change as you begin to practice different things. If you’re judging your performance based on what success looks like in one area, when it requires a different metric of success, you can easily get discouraged. Even if you’re actually making excellent progress!

If you don't understand what's happening from a musical point of view, then you have to come up with some kind of hack to explain to yourself why what you're doing works. You can either learn it properly and have an extensive understanding which will allow you to use the knowledge in any situation. Or, you can come up with your own explanation that is only applicable to one specific example.

Rhythm is one of the most important skills you can develop as a guitar player. When you strum, make sure you are moving from your elbow. The wrist shouldn’t move at all. Rather, the wrist is there to cushion the impact of hitting the strings in order to provide a smoother motion. Just like suspension on a car.

 How to hold a guitar pick: 1 - Imagine holding the pick like a key and putting it in a lock. 2 - The point of the pick should be at right angles to the direction of your thumb. 3 - Try and maintain a straight line from your elbow through your wrist to the point of your thumb. 4 - Make a fist, put it on the strings and relax it slightly.

A common misconception students have when they start learning guitar is that in order to get better they have to spend more time physically playing the instrument. Ironically, when you’re starting out, your progress is more significantly affected by the time you don’t spend playing the guitar.

There are three things we need to get right to play a good-sounding chord. If we do each of these things correctly, our chord will sound fantastic. If it doesn’t, we’re doing one of the three things wrong. To get great-sounding chords, make sure you: Push hard, use the tips of your fingers, and demonstrate good fretting position.

I think every guitarist who’s honest with themselves will admit that they don’t always enjoy practising the guitar. Even though I love playing the instrument, guitar practice can sometimes be a little tedious.

If you’re having trouble finding the motivation to practice, that’s okay. It’s not an uncommon experience. And, it’s definitely not a sign that you’re not cut out to be a guitar player!

A chord is a collection of three or more different notes played simultaneously.  When we play a G major chord on the guitar, we are not playing a G major chord because of the particular shape we’re making with our fingers, but because the shape we are making with our fingers allows us to play the three notes (G B D) that, when combined together, make up a G major chord.

It can be a pretty intimidating idea to think that we have to remember seven different seven-note arpeggio shapes just to be able to play all the chords in the key.

Thankfully, there is a simple trick we can use that only requires us to know the single octave shape for four seventh-type arpeggios.

That’s a lot less intimidating.

We always aim to be as efficient as possible when playing the guitar. Trying to ‘do a lot less reaching’ is one of the reasons why having the G and B strings separated by a sneaky little third interval is such a great idea. Scales and chords are easier to play, our fingers are more centred, and we don’t have to change positions as often as we otherwise would.

Stamina is a really important concept to keep in mind with all aspects of your practice. Let’s say you’re practising a guitar lick that you’re trying to get down. You probably won’t get physically tired, but you’re definitely going to get mentally fatigued if you don’t stop and take a breath between takes. Give your mind a second to recover and reset. Then try again.