Category: Practice and Musicianship

Practice & Warm-Up Tips from Julian Lage

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These lessons explore what it means to be a more musical guitar player—including how to practice, learn, and have a healthy relationship with the guitar. You’ll find tips for developing your ear, playing with others, warming up, reading music, performing, and more of the foundational skills that will help you become a better and more confident musician.

How to Evaluate Your Own Playing

From books to magazines, YouTube videos to DVDs, there are no shortages of readily available materials to keep the self-taught guitarist occupied for several lifetimes. However, there are important areas that can be overlooked, such as technique and practice routines, by using those sources. Without the observance of a teacher,…

Jamie Stillway
May 28, 2017

illustration of a guitarist experiencing wrist pain

Playing Guitar with Pain: Advice on Prevention, Maintenance, and Recovery from Glen Phillips, John Mock & More

Physical setbacks can change the way you approach the guitar. Here are some strategies for coping with, and moving on from, what every guitarist dreads most.

Nathan Bell
May 26, 2017

Guitar player Scott Fore seated with his instrument

Flatpicking Champion Scott Fore Offers 5 Tips on Acing a Bluegrass Competition (with Music to Play) [VIDEO]

“I love flatpicking, but I could never afford a decent guitar,” Scott Fore says. “The only way I was going to get one was to win it.” From humble beginnings—Fore taught himself to play with a library book and picks fashioned “from broken 78 records and plastic milk jugs”—the 57-year-old…

Pat Moran
February 16, 2017

Video Lesson: 4 Ways to Improve Your Sightreading

Playing by ear is a great skill to have, but being able to read music is an asset that will take you to the next level as a guitarist.

Ron Jackson
February 6, 2017

Stage & Studio: How to Deal with Stress, Injuries & Burnout

By Ken Micallef Every veteran musician tells war stories about facing the ominous wall of burnout and coming through it wounded, but wiser. Burnout as a destructive musical force can appear in a variety of guises. It can be simple repetitive stress syndrome, an inability to progress on an instrument…

Greg Cahill
December 23, 2016

Too Many Guitarists at the Jam Session? Play Bass on Your Guitar [Video Lesson]

In this Weekly Workout, you’ll practice some techniques for playing bass on guitar, from alternating roots/fifths and bass runs to octaves and the walking bass, using the chord progressions from some perennial jam-session favorites.

Jeffrey Pepper Rodgers
November 16, 2016

Video Lesson: 6 Steps to Playing Guitar More Musically

Playing musically is often confused with playing with emotion or feeling. If all you needed were feelings, everyone on the planet would be a musical genius!

Adam Rafferty
November 15, 2016

Reignite Your Love for Guitar: 6 Ways to Bust Out of Your Rut

From the October 2016 issue of Acoustic Guitar | BY PAULINE FRANCE If you’re past the honeymoon phase with your guitar, chances are you’ve experienced a love-hate relationship with it at some point—and that’s OK. Maybe you’re frustrated because you can’t learn fast enough, or perhaps you’re just bored with playing the…

Acoustic Guitar Editors
August 17, 2016

Screwing up on Stage and Studio Musicians Tips Stringletter Performance Stage Practice

Screwing Up Onstage! Everyone Does it, Here’s How to Recover

Any player who’s put in a good amount of time onstage will most likely have a collection of train wrecks to tell about—

Adam Perlmutter
July 20, 2016

The Way You Approach Music in Practice Greatly Affects Your Success in Performance

Even if your playing in the practice room sounds good, you need to practice and learn the piece in a manner robust enough to withstand the pressure of onstage performance.

Louise Lee
May 10, 2016

Ron Jackson, seated and holding an acoustic guitar, performs the examples from this lesson on accompaniment

Weekly Workout: Be a Better Accompanist

Creating cool parts from scratch may seem to be a mysterious art form but it needn’t be an intimidating prospect

Adam Levy
January 26, 2016

Acoustic Guitar Notation Guide

The music in most guitar books and magazines is written in standard notation and tablature. Here's how to read standard guitar notation and guitar tabs.

Acoustic Guitar Editors
April 25, 2013