Guitar Instructional DVD: Increase Your Playing Level

Find out how your favorite players reached their goals. Often times this is hard to do since you can’t always sit down and talk to some very famous musicians. But interviews exist as well as a few biographies on some musicians (especially dead ones).

Despite the fact that many successful don’t really talk much about this, you can find some that do. Believe me, becoming successful is a lot more than just practicing and luck! REMEMBER that their strategies won’t necessarily work for you because your goals may be different than theirs were. Still you can learn from it.

Believe in yourself. You have probably heard that phrase many times before. Its unfortunate how many people still refuse to invest their own beliefs into themselves. I wrote an article on Perseverance which deals indirectly with believing in yourself. Please read it if you have a problem believing that you can reach your goals.

The only time one needs to learn lots of different styles of music is because your goals REQUIRE it. If you truly love a lot of styles and want to learn them all, then go ahead and do that. If you want to be a studio musician or a jobber, then you will need that versatility. Its very hard to be REALLY good at many styles.

Ultimately you should work backwards. State your ultimate goals (on paper) then make a bunch of short and medium range goals. Think of reaching your goals as a relay race, NOT as a marathon. Each short term and medium term goal is the end of one segment of your plan and the beginning of the next segment (just like a relay race.) There are many benefits of looking at things this way as you will discover for yourself in your own way.

But for many people, it is a very disconcerting experience. I have gotten letters from people who have read some things I have written, and become afraid to practice! They are so aware of, and on their guard against, excess muscle tension, and the devastating effects for the developing player, they are afraid to touch a string!

I believe “Self Expression” is the pinnacle of all art. Anything less, “is less” in my opinion. I’m not going to debate that view or try to persuade any of you to also believe it. Instead I am going to assume you already hold that view and discuss ways in which I may be able to offer you both philosophical and practical advice.

Think about the masters of music. Mozart was probably most naturally gifted in only three of the musical areas: technical skill, a great ear (perfect pitch), a great musical memory. But he had to work hard at all the other areas of music just like everybody else.