by Tom Hess
No matter what your skill level is as a guitar player, you want to ‘get it right’ just like anyone else whenever you are practicing. When you practice guitar properly, you will gain better command over the instrument and be able to express yourself more freely. This will increase your excitement at first, but as you improve and seek to take your playing to the next level (whether it be performing live or recording an album) this excitement often transforms into ‘fear’. You become afraid of making mistakes. This opens the door for a lot of big problems…
It’s weird how so many guitarists become much better players than they were previously, yet become fearful of making mistakes instead of inspired to keep getting better. These are the worst fears guitar players have and they affect all guitarists. They keep intermediate players from taking action to become advanced players and sabotage the future careers of guitar players who are highly talented.
As a real world example of this, one of the students in my music career mentoring program recently had the chance to become a member in a band and tour throughout Europe. He had been dreaming of doing this ever since he was a kid, but almost didn’t take the opportunity because he thought he would be ‘good enough’. After I talked with him about this, I helped him understand why he was feeling these fears and coached him to practice guitar much more effectively than ever before. Only a short while afterwards he overcame his fears and toured with the band – having the time of his life in the process.
So how was he able to overcome his fears and succeed? And how can YOU do the same so that you get better and become a great musician?
The reason why guitar players become insecure about their playing as they advance is because they practice with the mindset of ‘playing things right’, vs. to ‘never play them wrong’. Here is how these two mindsets differ and what it means for your guitar playing:
Practicing Guitar To ‘Play It Right’ - this is the step everyone must take when they begin learning to play something for the firs time. Your first task is to play the notes correctly, gain confidence in yourself and play whatever you are trying to play. A lot of guitarists stall at this point (after making mistakes) and assume that their playing will just get better on its own. This is NOT how it works! Mastery will ONLY happen after you’ve begun a higher level of practice, such as:
Practicing Guitar To ‘Never Play It Wrong’ – Once you’ve learned to play something on its own in the privacy of your own room, you need to practice it ‘for the real world’. There are three main ‘real world’ situations you must practice for: playing on stage, recording music and integrating all your musical skills together. After you can ‘play it right’, you must answer this question: “what is the scenario in which I will use this item in my guitar playing?” This will tell you precisely how to practice in order to fully master the material and ‘never play it wrong’.
Here are some examples of how to practice guitar in this way:
Practice Integrating Your Musical Skills
Even if you aren’t going to be playing live or recording anytime soon, you still need to work on using your skills with other techniques as well as in ‘musical’ situations (such as guitar solos, songs, etc.). To do this, you need to stop practicing skills in isolation and start combining them together with other techniques. For instance, after you learn a new scale sequence, you should be practicing it together with other techniques, fast and slow, and with a variety of different rhythms. You also need to learn the best way to apply these sequences into a musical context. Study these ideas in this video about the best way to practice guitar.
Depending on your unique goals with each item in your guitar practice routine, you will have to practice it in each situation above or perhaps just one or two.
Practicing Guitar For Recording In A Studio Situation:
Many guitar players are afraid of making mistakes, so they avoid recording themselves. As a result, they never improve their skills in this area. Once you think you’ve mastered the ability to play something right, you go to record it and suddenly can’t stop making mistakes. Hey, we’ve all been there 
To get better in recording situations, you must do these two things: First, get into the habit of frequently recording yourself playing guitar (on audio and video). Try to play as perfectly as you can using as few takes as possible. By taking this simple action, you will quickly build confidence and start playing more accurately in any recording situation. Second, learn all of the unique subtleties of your guitar playing that require practice in order to make a high quality recording. To understand these things in great detail, study this free guitarist recording guide.
Practice Guitar For Playing Great On Stage:
To become a great live guitarist, you must be familiar with the scenarios that occur most often while playing on stage and prepare for them in your guitar practice time. Common examples include: standing up and moving around while playing, playing without being able to see your instrument, playing with distractions, staying in control of your playing without worrying about making mistakes in front of others, playing guitar in different types of weather and playing with equipment you aren’t accustomed to. Of course, this does not cover everything – simply use these ideas to make your own list to work on while practicing.
When you take anything you can ‘play right’ and try to play it in any of the situations above, you will usually crack under the pressure. It’s great for this to happen during your practice, because then you know precisely what needs to be improved in your playing so that you never get it wrong in the actual situation.
As you practice, repeatedly put yourself in the scenarios above and start building your confidence to make your playing become more reliable.
How To Use This Information To Get Better:
Apply the information above by following these steps:
Step One: Identify your specific musical goals. Learn more by studying this article about how to build musical goals.
Step Two: Understand how every practice item brings you one step closer to reaching the goals from the previous step. Read this article about what to practice on guitar to learn more. If you don’t know the purpose of practicing something, stop wasting your time by practicing it!
Step Three: Effectively organize your guitar practice so you can reach your goals as fast as possible.
Step Four: Always seek the answer to this question: “What is the main objective/scenario in which I will use this practice item or music in my guitar playing?” This will keep your guitar practice in line with your highest goals and help you make the transition from ‘playing it right’ to ‘never playing it wrong’.
When you integrate the ideas in this article into your guitar practice on a regular basis, you will stop being afraid of making mistakes and start practicing with confidence and excitement as you begin realizing your ultimate musical goals.
Learn how to effectively organize your guitar practice so you can reach your musical goals much faster.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a highly successful guitar teacher, recording artist and virtuoso guitar player. He teaches guitar players from all over the world in his online guitar lessons. Visit his website tomhess.net to get freeguitar playing resources. Then use his practice generator to organize your guitar practice.