Disclaimer – Clickbait titles are, sadly, required to get Google’s attention. There IS no one best way to practice guitar. But I can share what I’ve learned. And I will.
The best type of playing a guitarist can do is with others. Playing with other musicians, especially those who are at your level or higher, is the best way to improve your overall skills. But it’s not likely you can do this every day. So…
- Practice with a metronome/drum machine/backing track. The difference between a bad player and a good one can often be their sense of timing. If you are the type of player who picks up a guitar and plays your favorite blues licks/rock riffs and puts it back down again, your sense of rhythm is going to slowly deteriorate.
- Speaking of backing tracks, there are some great ones online that you can practice your improvisation with. Here are some great ones:
- Tom Bailey Music
- chusss Music (for your best Santana-style playing)
- MyDarnJamTracks – This track is a personal fave
- You can also step into the shoes of your fave guitarist and play to backing tracks that have everything in the track except lead guitar. Angus Young, anyone?
- Making up/recording riff ideas is a good way to practice your riff-writing abilities. Use your iPhone to record your riffs for later inspiration. What’s that? You have an Android phone? Same idea. Just figure out an easy way to get the ideas from your phone to your recording playback setup.
- Scales and arpeggios are good for more than just speed metal players. Knowing your scales and modes can be very valuable even for singer-songwriters. At a minimum, it’s a good idea to know how to play all the way up the neck in major/minor for the most popular keys.
- Same thing for chords. Learning and practicing the different positions can be beneficial for all players.
- YouTube Tutorials are available for almost any song you can think of. You can learn guitar parts and/or solos. Make a list of such videos and bookmark them. Then you can pull them up when you can’t figure out what to play.
- If you own several guitars, rotate through them. Different instruments can often inspire you to play different things.
Just some ideas for you. Regardless of how you spend your time, one thing is true – you’ll get better at guitar by playing it. You can’t improve if it’s sitting in the case.
(Image captured from one of my fave YouTube Shows, the Doug and Pat Show.)
