subject: Beginner Guitarist - Fix Your Mistakes Instantly [print this page] Beginner Guitarist - Fix Your Mistakes Instantly
As a beginner guitarist, you're going to make mistakes as you learn the guitar because it happens to everyone. However, dealing with these mistakes will determine how quickly you'll continue to improve and develop skills on the guitar. Here is a simple technique for improving your ability to fix mistakes as you encounter them in your guitar music lessons.
How Do You Handle Your Mistakes?
When a mistake occurs, how do you handle it? Most people, including myself, find a mistake and just repeat a lick over and over again, hoping to smooth out the problem and learn guitar fast. You might be surprised to know that this is not the most effective approach.
If you're a beginner guitarist, you might be waiting a long time for this mistake to be smoothed out with this technique. A better approach for this would be to deal with your guitar problems with a set process that you can repeat each time. Check out this process that's shown to create favorable results.
Own Up To The Mistake
The first step to dealing with a problem while you play is realizing that there's a problem in the first place! If you can consciously identify that you've made a mistake, then you can learn to systematically solve it.
If you find yourself getting frustrated when you make mistakes, don't worry about it. It's as simple as that. You're a beginner guitarist and mistakes do not represent who you are. These are merely obstacles on your way to becoming great.
Get A Plan Of Attack For The Solution
Once you've gotten past all of your frustration that you've been able to let go, pull out a pad and a pen and write down the answer to these simple questions. This is starting the process to solve your simple mistake and learn guitar fast.
(1) Why did you make this mistake?
Try going through your mistake while focusing very intently on what's happening with your hands and fingers to identify the source. Is there a finger out of place? Is there a timing issue? Is your arm not cooperating with the strumming pattern? Maybe you're just not in the right mindset and you're focused on some other task at the moment.
(2) Actually write what it is that you need to do differently.
If you can see why something isn't working, then you can see how to make it work. This works for everyone, even a beginner guitarist. Write with some detail to the extent where you can visualize the solution in your thoughts.
(3) Write how you're actually going to reach your solution.
So if you know what you need to do differently, how are you going to achieve this? Write down the process of what you're going to do to reach your goal. Does it have to do with more practice? Do you need to isolate your movements and work slower? Think about your plan and write it down.
Take Action On The Solution
You'll want to post these answers somewhere that you can review them daily, that way, when it comes time to practice and face your mistake once again, you'll have everything planned in your mind about how you're going to attack.
Of course, repetition is a healthy way to fix mistakes, but it isn't always the answer for a beginner guitarist. Take these steps as a process to fix any mistake that you might encounter and you'll be saving yourself a lot of time and grief.
