This includes creating a structure in what you practice, where you practice, when you practice, and setting goals for yourself to accomplish. Sticking with the tips in this article will get you on the road to learning the guitar proficiently and in the quickest amount of time. This is, in our opinion, the best way to practice guitar and improve as quickly as possible……

The Best Way To Practice Guitar Tip 1: What Should I Practice?

Before starting your guitar practice sessions, I always recommend to start off with a warm up exercise to get the blood flowing in your fingers. Here is a Chromatic (a fancy term for when you play all 12 pitches in the sequence of notes) exercise here:

(Use your index finger for the first fret, middle finger for the second fret, ring finger for the third fret, and pinky for the fourth fret on each string). Watch this video instructional:

After you have warmed up, there are several things that you can work on as a beginner that’ll help you find the best way to practice guitar: Scales, Single Line Melodies, Sheet Music Reading, Ear Training, Music Theory, Chords, and much more. The way that you want to approach all of these is very similar, but let’s take a closer look at practicing chords.

The Best Way To Practice Guitar Tip 2: Practicing chords

The most effective practice method is to play slowly at first and perfect what you are playing. From there, practicing allows you to get to a faster speed, taking the clarity of the sound that you developed while playing it slowly. Start off by getting the chords in your left hand, and pick through each string to make sure each note rings out clearly. Use  Uberchord App , it is free and the most effective way to learn chords and improve your chord changing on Guitar.

After getting the clarity out of the chords, the next step is to practice transitioning between them, as this is one more of the best ways to practice guitar. The most effective way to do this is with chord progression exercises, where we strum each chord four times in a series of chords. Here is a chord progression example that you can use with any set of chords:

Strum each chord four times:

A quick tip: You should initially practice at half of the speed you intend to play your music at.

• Using a metronome, start off playing at 50 BPM, strumming down on each beat every time you hear the click.
• Once you can transition between the two chords without any pause in between them, speed up the metronome by 5 BPM at a time until you reach 80 BPM.
• Eliminate any pauses between your chords, and make sure that each note comes out clearly in every chord.
• Practicing with a metronome is beneficial to keeping the rhythm and timing of tunes, but is also a great tool to set practice goals with. Stay tuned to Uberchord’s blogs for my next series on using your metronome effectively and making it fun.

Watch this video on some really interesting chord changing tricks:

Lastly, always save room to have some fun in your practice sessions and to play your favorite artist or songs! This is a great way to build your repertoire and apply your chord knowledge, technique, and proficiency into songs by the artists you enjoy listening to.

The Best Way To Practice Guitar Tip 3: When Should I Practice?

Of course, the simple way to answer this is to say as much as you can. But since our schedules do not always allow that flexibility, the best way is to get in a habit of a specific practice schedule routine. One great way is to practice every day at a specific time based around your current schedule. Some of my students practice after school, after work, or whenever they can pick it up throughout the day. Remember that learning the guitar is a discipline, so it requires a consistency of practice to progress. With our new update of  Uberchord App , you can follow your progress, log your reports, schedule reminders and alerts to meet your daily or weekly guitar playing goals.

Having a practice sheet allows you to stay on track towards your specific goals and to further discipline your practice routine. You can also download your very own WeeklyPracticeLogSheet here and start using it for scheduling and logging your practice time, practice material, and future goals.

The Best Way To Practice Guitar Tip 4: Where Should I Practice?

This is a topic that is often skipped over when talking about practice routines, but it is just as important as the others. Where you practice is another part of turning your practice routine into a habit that will flourish results. The best places to practice guitar are where you can be comfortable and without any distractions nearby. You want to be able to hear yourself play and to give your full focus to what you are working on. Many like the solitude of practicing alone in a bedroom, whereas others get excitement out of playing in front of others.

The Best Way To Practice Guitar Tip 5: Set Goals For Yourself and Guitar practice

Lastly, always set goals for guitar practice to stick to and accomplish. Whether that be playing a song at a certain tempo, making your chords sound clearer, or just finishing that song that you always have wanted to learn, setting goals will make sure that you are progressing in a disciplined amount of time. Remember that it is the consistency of practice that makes perfect, and a little bit of practice goes a long way. Learning guitar is a journey, where you grow from your influences and develop your individual style through practice. It doesn’t happen overnight, but is worth the time that you invest into it. So don’t worry about whether you’ve found the best way to practice guitar perfectly and just enjoy yourself!

Taking weekly music lessons can also help you stay consistent with your practice and reach your goals sooner. A good music instructor is similar to a workout personal trainer, where they track your progress and make sure that you are sticking with your goals.

Are you looking for a couple of songs that’ll help you learn the basics and help you develop your technique? We’ve got several free lessons here at Uberchord that may be able to help. A few lessons include the great hard rock song “Born To Be Wild” by Steppenwolf, the punk rock classic “London Calling” by The Clash, as well as “Brown Eyed Girl” by Van Morrison. Take note of all the tips we’ve given you here when you go and practice these songs. 

Happy Practicing!

About the author: Joseph Capalbo

Joseph acquired a Bachelor’s of Music, with a specialization in Songwriting, from Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. A native to Florida, Joseph has been playing music for fifteen years. He was taught by many well accomplished instructors such as Tomo Fujita, who also taught John Mayer and Eric “Kraz” from Soulive. Joseph is now proficient in all genres and instruments.

Joseph’s career began in Boston as an instructor at the Boys and Girls Club, where he was presented with the Berklee Urban Service Award for his dedication and passion to teaching music. Following that, he taught at various establishments to all ages and skill levels across South Florida for the past several years. His style of teaching can be described as very personalized.

Alongside his teaching career, Joseph is also an avid song writer and producer. After graduating, Joseph was quickly signed by a publishing company for his single “Ignited”, which put him on a compilation cd with such names as Avicii, Nicky Romero, Tiesto, and Disclosure. Soon after, he signed his first record deal with Smilax Records. He also writes for Film & TV, where his most recent placement was on E!’s Season Finale of Keeping up with the Kardashians. Additionally, he has performed in many locations across South Florida.

Some of Joseph’s work can be found on Youtube, where his videos have accumulated over 55,000 views.  He encourages taking a look at www.youtube.com/JoeCapMusic, which includes performances, some of his original work, covers, and trial lessons. In his spare time, Joseph can be found clicking on his own videos 55,000 times, but he still has a free hand to answer any inquiries you have. Please visit www.YouPickMusic.com for more information.

Still want more free lessons and practice tips? Then you should check out our guitar learning tips, our guitar metronome exercises, as well as how to stay motivated to practice guitar. Hopefully we’ve given you plenty of info on practicing guitar but we know that you could always use more clarification and inspiration!

The post 5 Most Simple and Powerful Guitar Practice Tips Ever: The Best Way To Practice Guitar appeared first on Uberchord App.

Take a moment, before we get into guitar metronome exercises, to imagine if our speech was spoken with long time intervals in between each word. We use symbols such as the period to complete our sentences and the comma to organize our thoughts into comprehensible sentences. This creates the right space within our spoken speech to where it is fluent and understandable. With music, we apply the same concept, where we use rhythms to organize our notes and rests to complete our musical phrases. Playing the guitar can be combined into the marriage of the notes that we play (pitch) and the timing in which we play those notes (rhythm). The tool that you use to effectively bind these two things together is a metronome, and we have some guitar metronome exercises to help with that.

Who should use a Metronome?

Guitar players of all levels, especially beginners and intermediate players.

Aside from making our playing more accurate and sharp, practicing with a metronome and guitar metronome exercises holds a number of other benefits. Another important advantage is building the ability to perform while having another entity in mind. If you ever want to play with another musician, rhythm is essential to keeping your sense of timing together – it is part of the language. It also develops an internal sense of rhythm and timing, so when you step away from it, you have a more balanced and even tempo. You can get metronomes physically, online, or as a phone app using your smart phone (and many of the free ones work great!).  If you are a beginner you can use the Uberchord App to learn chords and timings as it gives you a beat to practice and play along. Here are few ways you can use a metronome to it’s best.

1. Understand the Functions of a Metronome

There are a few things you need to know about using your metronome to start using it effectively in your practice routine. The first would be the number that you set your tempo to, or the beats per minute (BPM). This is how many times you will hear the click in the time span of one minute (i.e., a metronome set at 120 will click 120 times in one minute).

Most songs will have a specific BPM that they are set to. The next is the time signature, which you want to set to match the song that you are playing. While your most popular time signature is 4/4, try switching to ¾ and listen to the difference. A lot of the digital metronomes include handy features such as different sound sets, full screen flashing on certain beats, and even color schemes. These are all concepts you must keep in mind once you start using some of the guitar metronome exercises in the rest of this article. 

2. Use a Metronome for your Guitar Practice Routine

There are a number of guitar metronome exercises you can do with a metronome to help improve your playing speed as well as helping with your timing. Here are a few examples that I use in my lessons.

Exercise 1: Checking your alternate picking speed.

Try out this exercise with your metronome. We use open strings here because we want to accentuate the focus on the picking hand, without having to be distracted by a tricky riff in the fretting hand. Use alternate (up and down) picking.

-Set your metronome to 50 BPM

-Increase by increments of 5 beats until you accidentally start picking the wrong string.

– Challenge yourself and enjoy the speed.

Guitar Metronome Exercise 2: Monitoring Your Chord Transitioning Speed

Try strumming an E chord followed by A Minor:

– Set your metronome to 60 BPM in 4/4 timing.

– Start by strumming each chord one time every four beats, or for the length of whole notes.

– Then try strumming each chord every two beats, for the length of half notes.

– Try strumming each chord on every beat, for the length of quarter notes.

– Strum up and down two times per beat, for the length of eighth notes.

– Increase your metronome speed by increments of 5.

3. Lock into the Rhythm of your Songs

This guitar metronome exercise works great from just learning new sections of songs to polishing up the timing on a piece of sheet music that you are reading. Set your metronome to the BPM of your piece and lock into the rhythm with the metronome. Start slow then gradually get faster.

Tip: The metronome is an essential tool to creating and setting goals for yourself, which I spoke more of in my last article Beginner’s Guide to Guitar Practice. Try logging your Metronome speed and increasing that number by 5 BPM each week. You can download your very own metronome log here.

4. Practice Rhythm Even While You are Not Near a Metronome

While practicing with your metronome will be the most effective way to practice, there are alternatives to practicing rhythms when you are not able to use it. If you are able to access the song that you are learning, playing along with the track simultaneously helps keep your rhythm and is a fun way to practice. Any type of body movement can help with keeping a steady rhythm, such as nodding your head or tapping your foot.

Tip: If we are not by a metronome, there are ways to get a close estimate of a speed we are working on. Remember that BPM count the number of beats per minute, so if we are counting 60 BPM, we can count them the same as we do seconds. Count that rhythm in eighth notes(or double it), and you are at 120 BPM which is a common speed to practice at.

5. Find Alternatives to Using a Metronome

While the classic metronome is a very effective way to practice, there are alternatives that make practicing and using these guitar metronome exercises a bit less tedious. One way to still use the function of the metronome in a fun and more real time feel is to use a drum machine, such as the guitar-geared drum machine called Beat Buddy. You can also use a free online tool to train your beats, tempos, and speed with a Drum Trainer.

2/4 at a tempo of 60 bpm. Following the visual bounce can help you to play in a relaxed way.

Here is one of the best YouTube instructional on how you can use the metronome more effectively with Guitar.

You can find more free lessons and videos of my playing on YouTube. You can also find out more information about me, get more materials, free lessons, blogs, and private lesson information at www.YouPickMusic.com.

Remember though that the best way to practice guitar metronome exercises is to play with real music. That’s why we have so many great FREE blog posts here on Uberchord. Some topics include the best way to practice guitar, how to stay motivated to practice guitar, as well as other guitar learning tips scattered throughout our blog. Hopefully this article helped you out and you find what info you need!

The post 5 Ways to Use the Metronome That Will Change the Way You Play Guitar appeared first on Uberchord App.