The commitment has been made to pick up my guitar (again) and learn to play. I was doing well, but then life go in the way.. again…. Argh. I need some help.. So I thought I would take a look on the internet (isn’t that the go to now when we need help these days? I’m not sure if that is good or bad, or a bit of both perhaps.. another topic for another day – squirrel….). I looked through a few sites and found some helpful tips. There were some basic tips on technique of how to play guitar that were helpful including: how to hold your guitar; the importance of playing on your finger tips and keep your thumb on the back of the guitar; basic finger techniques; the importance of using your pinky; how to hold your pick use a pick; warm up to get the blood going to your fingers; toughen up the finger pads; and the use a metronome to help build rhythm.Other helpful tips were more philosophical or psychological and were really great tips for learning in general (to pass on to our students/kids etc.) including: learn easy music as soon as you can to capture the excitement; listen to more experienced players; no one is born with talent, it takes practice (in Michael Jordan’s movie The Last Dance that was so apparent – sorry, another squirrel) and keep it simple to fight discouragement and so you can have little victories. Then some really practical general advice that could be translated in to general learning as well, including: use lighter strings with lower action; toughen up your finger pads, practice efficiently – if you are struggling with one part of a song or one chord focus on that part; and get a guitar that is comfortable (which I did 2 years ago when I realized I was not going to play my bad sounding guitar that was too big for me and not fun to play).
These were all really great tips!! But there were two tips that were the best for where I am right now (and which can be adapted to fit any learning situation). Oddly enough (NOT) the top 2 tips came from the You Tube video “7 Tips for Older Beginners” and they are… drum role please –
KEEP THE GUITAR OUT HERE YOU CAN SEE IT
and the winner is… the #1 tip for me right now in my struggle is
PRACTICE 5 MINUTES A DAY.
And you might ask, how can a person get any better with only 5 minutes of playing a day, but the logic is that once you pick up the guitar you will keep playing.. and 5 minutes turns to 10 turns to 30 turns to… And it is true! If I start with the plan that I need to practice x amount of time a day (where x > 5 minutes), then I will not be able to find x amount of time in my day. But if I start with 5 minutes, I can find that time.
