Stuck Despite Practicing a Lot — What Should I Change?

A question that I get asked really often.

The answer is as varied as the question itself. Because “practicing a lot” is just as relative as “not making progress.”

For example, taking 15 minutes to figure out and learn a simple pop song would be extremely slow for me, while others might need a week for it and be happy with that.

Or playing or practicing guitar for four hours a day is just average for me, while students with jobs, hobbies, friends, etc. would consider 20 minutes a day to be a lot.

The point is, there is no objective answer to this. Everyone has to find out what works best for them.

However, what is always true is that cheating or forcing it is not really the solution and will come back to haunt you later. For example, if you learn strumming patterns with incorrect up and downstrokes and stick with them. Or internalize techniques incorrectly and might have a problem later on.

How do I make progress again?

Don’t ignore unplayable parts

I know it’s extremely tempting to play the same song over and over again and to just keep trying to cheat your way around the complicated part that you always just leave out or briefly sneeze during. But that’s exactly the first reason why you might not be making progress.

So take a week and practice this part over and over again.
How do I practice correctly?

Repeat again and again

For example, if I have a part that either doesn’t want to get into my head or just doesn’t work technically, I play that part at least 100x a day. Not in a row, more spread out throughout the day.

I then repeat the same thing again the next day and feel like I’m starting all over again. But usually on the third or fourth day, the whole thing gets going and you can’t explain why it suddenly works so well! 🙂

Time is not the same as time

The person who gets distracted every three minutes by the group chat on WhatsApp will never be able to muster the concentration to really master it in the foreseeable future.

Therefore, it’s better to invest fewer hours, but regularly and with concentration.

See software as an ally

By software, I mean metronome, Guitar Pro/TuxGuitar or Transcribe! to be able to play the whole thing in an endless loop.

Software can help you not feel so alone and also prevents incorrect learning.

I hope this has helped one or two of you!