Habits Guitarists Should Develop IMMEDIATELY

If there are things you can start doing right now so that your future self thanks you for it later, this lesson is for you. Your success or failure in being the guitarist you want to be is entirely based on the habits you are forming right now. In this lesson, I will share the best habits you can develop to take care of your skills, your guitar, and your hands. Like warriors keep their swords sharp and their bodies ready for battle at any given moment, your skills and your guitar will need to be in top shape and ready for whatever challenge your musical journey throws at you. Following through with these tips will prepare you to be the most accomplished player you can be.

Consistent Practice: Guitar Hero Training Routine

A lot of players, especially those who have just recently started with guitar, struggle with finger pain. Making sure you practice regularly, in moderation, will help you overcome the initial pain in your fingertips.

Consistent practice also helps you progress faster on your instrument. Let’s say we have two different people with equally busy schedules who start learning guitar at the same time. Person A hits a wave of heightened interest in guitar and spends 8 hours of their weekend practicing guitar at the start of the month. For the rest of that month, Person A’s time and attention are dedicated to other things. Person B, on the other hand, strategizes their practice by putting in 30 minutes of practice time for 5 days a week. By the end of the month, not only will Person B have had more total practice time, but they also would have retained their skills and maintained their dexterity to a higher degree than Person A. You retain more with frequent exposure to new skills than you do with crash courses that have weeks or even months in between each session.

My Challenge: Use the template in my Guitar Gains Cheat Sheet to develop a goal tailored to your needs, put the scientifically based principles to use, and see for yourself where your skills are at in one short month from now.

Maintenance: Sharpen Your Axe

It’s important to take care of your guitar if you want it to take care of you. Don’t lean it up against a wall, keep it in a damp environment, or take it swimming with you. Invest in a hardshell case to keep your axe in top form.

When you’re done playing for the day, wipe your guitar down with a cloth. It keeps your guitar cleaner, and it even helps maintain the longevity of your guitar strings, which you should change regularly.

You don’t have to change your strings every day or even every week. That can be time-consuming and expensive. (Although, the more often you change them, especially in the beginning, the easier it is to remember how to do it). Generally, you can go 1-3 months before it's best to replace your strings.

Nail Care: File Those Claws Down

The last and perhaps one of the easiest habits you can develop as a guitarist is to care for your fingernails. It’s important to regularly trim the nails of the fretting hand so that you have better control over strings. Trim them enough so that your nails are not making any contact with the fretboard. If you neglect regular nail care, your nails will get in the way of your ability to produce notes.

The length of your picking hand fingernails is optional. You may even want to grow your nails out on that hand if you want to get into fingerstyle guitar or chicken pickin’.

Form the habit of making sure your nails, at least the nails of your fretting hand, are regularly clipped short enough so that way you know what it feels like to have proper control over the strings.

Conclusion

It may sound cliché, but becoming invested in being the best guitarist you can be is much more than a hobby; it’s a lifestyle. Training your skills with consistent practice, keeping your ax sharp with proper basic maintenance, and keeping your claws filed down will turn you into a rock n’ roll guitar hero who is ready for anything. Put these habits in place now and maintain them so you can thank yourself later.

Watch the video here: Habits Guitarists Should Develop IMMEDIATELY