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Here's your host, Amazon best selling author of the book Learn to Play Electric Guitar, Paul Andrews.

Hello and welcome to this week's episode of the Beginner Guitar Academy podcast.

I'm your host, Paul Andrews and in this week's episode we're looking at five practice habits your future self will thank you for.

So, five things I see all the time in students or just people I see watching their videos or playing on YouTube or something that, that if they'd been mindful of these habits early on when they started playing guitar, it would not be a problem years down the line.

It's those kind of little habits.

If we start focusing on early, obviously is not going to become an issue.

But once you go those few years into your guitar playing, they're very hard to get out because you're so used to doing them.

So these are five things that I see of students all the time, which I want to tell you guys to help you not fall in the trap of these habits.

Now, before we dive into this, I'm just going to talk a little bit about next month on the podcast.

So in March we are doing Metal March.

So the podcast, every episode's gonna be focusing on metal music for beginner guitar key members.

We have some cool stuff we can look at.

Our song of the month is gonna be Paranoid by Black Sabbath.

I'm gonna do some new quick tips looking at metal guitars.

We'll look at like tapping, how to gallop, rhythm, that kind of stuff.

And then at the end of the month, we're gonna do five Iron Maiden riffs.

So I've had quite a few requests for Iron Maiden Workshop.

That's a big year for Iron Maiden, this year being their 50th anniversary.

So I thought it'd be a great opportunity to look at some cool Iron Maiden tunes.

What' Do a live Q A as well.

All that information will be coming out in the next sort of week or so, but I thought I'd give you a little heads up now.

Yeah, make sure you subscribe to podcast.

You do not want to miss out on Metal March.

Also, if you're listening to this on Spotify, Apple or something like that, you can go check out the video version of this podcast over@the bgapodcast.com website.

You also find the blog there as well.

So if you want to watch it, if you want to read it rather than hear it, you can do that over at the website again.

BGA Podcast.com so now we've got kind of the news and what's coming around the corner out the way.

Let's dive into this week's content.

So the first thing or the first practice habit we want to talk about is use a metronome.

So I see this all the time with people that submit their level assessments or progress checks for beginner guitar.

Can we.

Lack of timing, so not being able to stay in time with the clicks, that's one of the things they have to in the level assessments because it shows me obviously they can stay in time.

They know the rhythm, they can play it.

It's just not using the Metro enough.

Now.

Metro is so important.

Not just for doing your level assessments, stay in time with music.

Even higher level students I've got now in those, those kind of level three, level four, where we play along with full songs to backing tracks.

The timing is normally the issue where they have to go back and just work on that a little bit harder.

It's not intuitive, it's not just happening.

They're not locking into the beat.

That will happen if you are playing with a Metro.

Metro will teach you that.

To stay on a beat.

That's all the metronome does.

It just clicking out the heartbeat of the music, the pulse.

Now if you can get that pulse, tap your foot along that pulse, you're going to stay in time a lot easier, more consistently.

So really important to use a metronome.

No excuse.

Because it's so easy to get.

You can get metronome@metronomeonline.com completely free.

You can download Super Metronome.

It's a great little app.

You can buy the Korg MA1 I think it is, and kind of the newest one.

If you don't want to use your phone, you don't want to use your computer, you just want standalone unit.

There's quite a few out there.

There's some great ones which even say numbers don't just have to click.

Some people find it easier to hear someone go, 1, 2, 3, 4.

So there's loads of Metro homes around.

Again, you look at the apps, there's hundreds in there.

I said a couple there, but there's loads of them.

So get a Metro.

If you haven't got one, you should definitely have One.

If you're not using one, you should be using one.

Quite often students say to me, I didn't use a metronome because, you know, I'm using my internal metronome.

Your internal metronome is broken.

So make sure you use a proper metronome.

It's just going to be variable.

You might think you're staying in time, but there will be, there will be changes.

You will be getting slightly faster, slightly slower.

A metronome will stop that happening because it's obviously exact.

So, yeah, make sure you use a metronome.

One of the biggest things, hence why is number one on the five practice habits we want to be changing because not a lot of people or not lot enough people use it.

Now we can use it for all of the skills, be it, you know, our scales are picking our chords or arpeggios, everything we can pretty much use to metronome.

Metro is fantastic.

Not just obviously improving our timing.

For beginner guitar key members, as you work through the methods, you have a speed we will be aiming for.

So once you hit that tempo, you know it's ready to be ticked off.

You've reached that, that, that goal of hitting that speed.

Also really good for motivation.

So you can see this week I was working on my G major pentolic scale and I did it at 60 beats per minute.

Last week I did at 55.

So there's been an increase there in the tempo.

So, hey, I'm getting faster.

It's getting more, more, you know, under my fingers.

I'm learning it.

So really good for motivation because you can see your progress and anything you do to chart and keep track of progress is really helpful because guitar progress can be slow.

So things like that are going to be really, really good.

So let's now move on to the second practice habit that your future self will thank you for.

And as use more fingers.

So using more fingers, because as you're playing, you know, weak fingers like the forefinger, maybe third finger, ring finger are easy ones to leave out because they feel weak just because they don't feel that strong.

And maybe first second finger feel stronger because they're, you know, more dominant fingers.

It just means they need to be built up, the strength needs to be developed.

It's not going to be there, so it's something to work on.

The problem is if you only use, say three fingers quite often the case quite often people leave out the pinky finger.

So you're doing your minor pent on stretching to play the fret 8.

When little finger is just hovering above that fret 8.

If I just put my fingers above, the strings naturally hovers there.

So I'm stretching.

What's the problem with stretching?

I'm moving out of position for first finger will probably stretch with it.

And now if I put my finger down, I'm in the wrong fret.

So it moves you out position because there's more movement side to side, there's more chance of error.

So as you move, Oh, I missed a fret.

I overshot.

It didn't go far enough.

There's more room for error.

And if you're not using your pink finger, you're just using 75% of what you could be using.

So we want to be obviously playing 100%.

We're going to be using all our fingers.

Now, little finger is a weak finger.

It takes a while to build up.

Now, I have got an example I would quickly want to show you as well of something I was doing with a group just the other day.

And this is Nothing Else Matters by Metallica.

So this is a really good example of using different fingers.

So I'm up at fret 14.

We're in E minor pentatonic.

So I'm starting that 14 bend, then going to play 12 fret on the B and the E.

So that's the phrase.

Now you can see the things I'm using.

That pink finger just goes straight over that 15 fret, pulls off 15 on the G.

This really good example because there are three 15's in that bar.

Again, if we're not using that pinky finger, if we are stretching around that straight away, my fingers now come away from that fret.

They're gonna move back again.

So much more fluent when using more fingers.

Again, it feels harder in the short term, but in the long term is very, very useful.

Again, this was level four group.

So someone that's been playing, you know, a few years now was struggling with this because they weren't using all their fingers.

So really important to make sure using all four fingers.

There's some great little exercises if you're a beginner guitar key member.

I've got a whole video in the quick tip section that goes through building up the pinky finger.

But just give you some examples.

Let me come back actually to full screen to show you this.

Just taking the top E string, thinking A minor pentatonic, first finger on our eight, Pinky's gonna go on the C.

So first things on fret five, and then pinky's on for eight, and then just hammering on Playing the five, hammering onto the eight hammer ons are great strength builders.

We can pull off, we can just do hammer on the pull offs.

That is a fantastic strength builder because the volume is being sustained by my hammer on the pull off.

So we've got to have obviously very good control, good attack as we're hammering on pulling off to get that volume.

So hamon plus fantastic.

These little exercises like the 1, 2, 3, 4 exercise, really good for again, strengthening fingers.

That was one that kind of I grew up with when I was learning.

Well, I'm learning guitar when I, you know, my early years of playing guitar.

So that's a really good example because that popped up in a lesson this week where the guy was finding it difficult because he was trying to stretch his fingers, put himself out position, couldn't get the speed because it's not a slow phrase that it's all 16th notes.

We're in 6, 8.

So this 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and 5 and 6.

And so it's consistent.

There's no gaps.

So we have to make it nice and smooth.

So make sure using multiple fingers.

Now the next practice habit number three is read the rhythm and count.

So often we'll be learning a song in a group and students will learn the rhythm by hearing me play it or, or have heard it in the song previously.

They're not reading the rhythm.

The problem that is it slows down the learning and we have no comprehension about how it should sound.

A set forth, what we hear.

When you can read rhythm, it makes it so much quicker to learn it.

And also you're fully understanding it.

Then when it comes time to put it to the metronome, you understand how what you're playing, the rhythm side of it is going to fit in with the clicks and the beat and you'll be able to stay in time a lot easier.

That's the idea.

Now I have another example here to show you.

And again, something that I was looking at with students this week is man who Sold the World.

And we do the, the unplugged version, the Nirvana cover in Level 3 of Beginning Guitar Academy.

And we were doing this.

We're looking at the A chord.

Okay, so that first bar of a all A for whole bar.

Happy days.

We've got eighth notes, which are down, up, down, up.

Strummings 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

And then we got to tie those little curved lines going from the two and to the three, which means we don't play on number three.

One and two and three and Four, so my hand still goes down.

I just miss the strings 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Then we have the X's on beat 2.

That means muted strum.

So I'm strumming the strings, but just before I connect with the strings, my hand goes on them.

So I'm strumming muted strings.

And that's what we have is one and mute.

Up, miss, up, down.

And that's the rhythm.

But if you can't read the rhythm, you've then got to try and say, listen to it.

Oh, what's happening there?

Which one we missing out?

Which one we doing that one on?

Soon as you can see and relate to the numbers, you think, okay, so number three, we're missing easy.

Number two, we're muting.

All right, so 1 and 2 and 3 and 4, so much quicker.

The problem is people don't look at the rhythm and then we get to the high levels.

And because we haven't gone over the whole notes, half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes, and we've kind of moved away from rhythm reading, it makes so much harder.

Obviously, when you try and do it at a higher level, people fall into this trap as well with pitch reading.

So when we look at reading our stave and reading actual notes, because they're not doing it consistently, when they come back to it, they've forgotten it, it's gone, you know, a bit dusty.

It makes it so much harder.

So these are skills we need to keep consistently coming back to recapping.

This is something we're going to talk about one of our practice habits in, in a few time.

Yeah.

So make sure reading the rhythm, really, really good skill.

If you're a beginner Guitar key member, head over to the resource section.

You'll see the PDF there, the skill set PDF.

Well, I've put together all of the pages for out of all the levels for rhythm and you can really practice then your rhythm reading going all the way back to level one again.

If we're struggling with the level we're on because we haven't gone through it consistently, go back, go back as far as you need to go to understand it.

You can stay in time and then start building it back up again.

Sometimes, you know, we have to take away that ego, make things simple, build it up.

I think, okay, yeah, I need to go back to the beginning a little bit here and build it back up.

There's no way of doing that.

And you'll get there, obviously, a lot quicker by doing so.

So that's a really good song and all these things have popped up that inspired this episode from actually in the studio in the lesson room.

So let's now move on to the next one.

So look at the music, not your fingers.

So look at the music and not your fingers.

Because this came from a comment someone said the other day.

So, yeah, I'm gonna.

You know, we learn this song, I'm gonna memorize it, and then I'm gonna play it.

So I need to memorize the music first, then I can play it.

So that's gonna really slow down the learning.

So the idea is to read the music as you're playing it one, so you don't have to memorize it.

Obviously, it's gonna take a while to memorize it.

You can see what's coming up.

You can see what's coming ahead, so you're not gonna make mistakes.

Again, we can read the music so we can see what's going on.

We can be more connected to the music, so we want to read it.

Ideally, now, eyes mainly on the page.

You can look down to make sure, obviously, Han hasn't wandered away and we're still in the right place.

But the majority of what you're looking at should be the music.

Once you can do that one, you'll find you'll probably make less mistakes because your brain gets in the way.

If you're looking too much, your fingers, you start overthinking it, and you start complicating it.

Your fingers know what to do.

If you've been practicing enough, your fingers will know the shapes.

You don't need to be looking all the time.

This will really help, eventually improve the axiom, improve fluency, and kind of more confidence in playing as well.

But the most important thing here is the speed of learning.

It's like reading a book.

Okay, I'm going to, you know, read the story once I've memorized all the words.

Doesn't make sense.

That's not how we read.

Read a story.

Sorry, a book.

Same with music.

We want to get in the habit of just reading through it.

It's time we start doing a level three, a little bit more of trying to actually read through phrases and not looking at the guitar so much, looking at the music.

But I'd recommend people do this from very early on, especially with note reading, because it makes it so much easier.

If you're not, say, looking at your fingers and looking up, you'll find where you are a lot quicker.

You won't lose your place as you look down, look back up.

Very easy to lose where you are.

So look at the music, not so much at your hands.

So the last practice habit that your future self is going to thank you for is recapping old skills and songs.

Quite often I hear students which are in the high levels say they don't know any songs, they can't play any songs.

We've learned songs up to that point.

Each level has 10 or more songs in it.

So you've obviously done songs up to that point.

The problem is they've not been practiced, so they've been forgotten.

So once you've learned a song, write it down.

This could be on your ultimate song list.

This could just be on your computer in like a word doc or something like that.

Or even better, if you've got Spotify or even YouTube, create a playlist of the songs you can play.

Then that can be like your set list.

And then when you have a few minutes, or this could be one of your practice days in the week, you just play the songs, you just play around with them.

You pick a random one, jump into it, have a bit of fun with it.

There's different levels when you're learning a song.

So firstly, obviously we've got to learn the chords, the shapes, we've got to learn strum pattern, maybe the solo.

If there's some lead stuff, you might learn, you know, some of the licks.

But the first stage is being able to play the song.

Then we go up to next stage of actually really learning that song.

So you have to look, you memorized it.

Only when you get past that memorization stage will you feel that, oh, I can actually feel like I'm playing music now because you don't have to think so much about it.

You just kind of get lost in music.

You feel more confident to sing along with it because everything is just going kind of on habit.

You're not having to think too much about it.

So to get to the place where you see people playing the guitar and they make it look effortlessly, they've got beyond just learning the song, they've got to master the song.

That's a few stages above that.

And that comes just through practice and practice.

So make your playlist, make your set list on Spotify and keep coming back to it.

I had a student, they called this Revisiting Old Friends, where every week they just pick a song and have a little play for it because you're going to forget them.

Especially when you learn quite a few songs, they're easy to mix up.

And amount of songs I've played Now through my 25 years of playing guitar that I've forgotten because obviously I'm playing for them recently now, obviously, because I can read music, I can pick them up pretty quick if I have the music in front of me.

I've got fairly good ears, so I can listen to music and pick it up, but, you know, they're not in my head if I'm playing them, obviously for several years.

So keep recapping this stuff, keep going back through it.

That's going to really help build your confidence.

It's going to make you feel more like a guitar player.

When people say, oh, you play guitar, play us a song.

And then you think, oh God, what song?

What song I'm working on?

What songs have I played?

You want to have a, you know, good kind of archive of tunes in your head that you can have some fun with.

And yeah, strum away and impress with your friends and family.

So, guys, hopefully you enjoyed this week's episode.

There are five practice habits that you want to be aware of right now and your future self is going to thank you for because these are ones say, I've seen this week.

I've literally been writing them down as I've seen students doing this because I want to share this with you guys and make sure you don't fall into the same trap as them.

So if you haven't already, make sure to subscribe to the Beginner Guitar podcast.

I said earlier.

We've got Metal March coming up just around the corner where we look into some metal music.

Even if you're not a fan of metal music, definitely want to check it out because it's nothing more better than growing as a guitar player, than looking at different styles of music and open your ears to different genres.

Even if you're not a big fan of it, there's always something you can take away from it.

Some new thing to learn, some new technique that might help you elsewhere.

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This week's episode is done.

So make sure you keep your eyes open for next Friday's episode as we start Metal March.

But until then have some fun, keep practicing and I'll chat to you next week.

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