What is the most difficult part about learning how to play the guitar?
It always comes down to you, the student.
Many of my students sometimes feel like they haven't done as well as they'd hoped in taking guitar lessons. They look to me for answers as to why they might feel this way. Knowing that every individual learns at his/her own pace, it is impossible to pinpoint reasons as to why they feel they have either hit a brick wall in their practicing, or why they have long since forgotten the reasons why they wanted to learn the guitar in the first place.
When you are motivated by being challenged, you will eventually excel at almost anything. How you do anything is how you do everything. However, in order to do this, you must commit to practicing. There simply is no magic formula for getting better without some significant level of effort on your part.
We're talking about learning an art form. Music is art, writing is art, photography is art, painting is art, basket weaving is art. The list goes on. Not one of these art forms can be learned without proper guidance and understanding, practice and unconditional commitment.
The worst thing that can happen for anyone learning how to play a musical instrument is for them to establish preconceived notions about what they can and cannot do as a practicing instrumentalist. Here's the reality of that - you don't get to choose whether you can or cannot do something - and your instructor will never tell you that you cannot do something. Your instructor knows exactly what he or she is expecting from the things that you can already do. His or her job as a music teacher is to guide you and challenge you out of your comfort zone. Just because something isn't easy, doesn't mean you can't eventually learn how to do it.
So what does it truly take to become better on the guitar?
When I say the answer is "endless practicing", you might think in terms of picking up your guitar once or twice a week and playing the some things you already know how to play. When you do that, you're not actually practicing, you're playing. Playing is what you already know - practicing is what you still have yet to learn. Playing doesn't count. Making excuses not to practice something just because it's difficult, time consuming or boring to you, does not mean that you shouldn't try to work through it the best that you can. Don’t practice until you get it right. Practice until you can’t get it wrong.
Frustration is your own worst enemy.
Musicians and artists of all kinds are creative people with creative minds. They think creatively about everything in their lives. Creativity means being resourceful and open-minded about the possibilities, without entertaining preconceived notions about the impossibilities. If you believe that you can do something, you are right. If you believe that you cannot do something, well…you're right about that too.
If you're practicing a lesson or a song that your instructor has given to you - do the time, pay your dues, earn the rights to play that guitar. I promise you that in time, you will get better simply through repetition and effort. Believe it or not, it actually does get easier the more you practice.
How much should you practice?
This is an open-ended question I get asked all the time. There is no simple standard rigid answer. Some choose a half-hour each day, some do fifteen-minutes. Others find ways to practice for at least an hour or two, every day. You see, everyone learns differently.
If I have two students working on the same song, one might learn it all the way through in one week, while the other might take two or three months. As long as the practicing time is genuinely invested, and dedication, effort and commitment become a daily ritual, it doesn't matter who learns it first. If both students can play the song from top to bottom, then they have both accomplished their goals.
Nobody can practice for you.Â
Cheating yourself by not practicing every single day of your life, means that you simply don't have what it takes to become a better instrumentalist; and you will sit at that crossroad of stagnant playing never becoming better simply because excuses were easier to make than to actually put in the time and effort. Is that who you want to be? Me either.
When I first started teaching guitar lessons in 1996, I used to think that if a student wasn't doing better over a certain period of time, that it was somehow my fault that they weren't learning. When you do this as long as I have, you begin to understand and accept that some students just can't get past a certain point in their learning, and there is little that can be done about it. This usually happens out of frustration and surrendering. I can always tell when one of my students has given up. They begin to make more excuses as to why they didn't practice, they begin to cancel their lessons more frequently and they lose interest in their lessons and eventually quit.
Yes, I feel bad when a student quits; but I am limited in what I can do to motivate and coach my students to practice the way I did when I was a beginner. As a teenager, the guitar was everything to me. It was my identity and the air that I breathed. I felt like I possessed a superpower because I could play songs on the guitar. I still feel this way.
I try to help as much as I can, but it always comes down to the student. It's got to come from deep inside. If you do indeed possess your superpower, it will find its way to the top. You just have to allow it a chance to become part of your life and your identity.