Guitar Lesson - How To Practice Guitar
Guitar Chords: How To Solo Over Chords With The Minor Pentatonic Scale
If desire is the most important part of learning guitar(without it you wouldn't have even started), then concentration is the most important part of practicing guitar.
I often say to people that 20 minutes of focused practice can beat, hands down, 2 hours of 'normal' practice, or just goofing about.
Many people are discouraged when they are told how much time they must put into practice. The truth is, you don't have to practice all the time to be a good guitarist.
(I'm not saying you shouldn't have time to goof off and play around. But if you want to improve quickly, you must keep playing guitar and practicing guitar separate.)
Let me tell you now...
It isn't how much time you put into practice, it's the quality of the practice that matters.
When I play guitar, I play to have fun, I play to perform for people, and I play for the fun of playing! That's why I started learning guitar in the first place.
But when I practice guitar, I focus and concentrate on what I'm trying to achieve, and I work on the goals that I want to complete.
You see, if you completely focus on one thing you are more likely to do it well.
This may sound simple too to some. Some of you may be thinking "this is great, I only need to practice 20 minutes a day and ill improve more than I would if I practicing 2 hours a day".
Well that's not exactly true.
Its how focused your practice is that counts, not how long you practice. Can you really focus for 2 hours?
Let me give you this small example to illustrate my point.
Picture a red triangle inside a black box.
Close your eyes, and keep that image in your mind for 5 seconds without letting a single thing distract you - no other thought must enter your mind for that 5 seconds...
How well did you do? Be honest with yourself.
This isn't an easy thing to do. Most people find this difficult at first. Its difficult to keep a focused mind like this.
I hope this example has shown you that it's not that easy to keep focused attention & concentration for look periods of time.
But still, you must always remember that its quality and not quantity of practice that makes the difference between a great player and an average player.
This is a perfect time to tell you that you shouldn't be spending hours and hours 'practicing', because you simply can't focus for that amount of time.
If you are practicing for a solid 2 hours or more you are probably not helping your development as a guitarist that much.
A much better way of using this time is to practice in bursts.
A good idea would be to practice in bursts of 20 minutes or so. You can vary it depending on what you feel like doing, but try not to practice for long periods of time in one go. It's not helping as much as you think it might be.
Also, it's important to take breaks from what you're practicing. You can do something else for awhile, go for a walk, watch TV, or maybe just play around and have fun with your guitar and loosen up a bit before you start focusing on practice again.
It is important for you to have a definition in your own mind of 'practicing guitar' and 'playing guitar'.
This will keep you more focused and allow you to reach your goals as a guitarist much easier.
An exercise for you to try to help you further develop concentration is to sit silently and count slowly from one to ten in your mind.
If anything should interrupt your counting, whether it is a noise, a stray thought, or the awareness of your own breathing, you must start over from one.
Again, it's unlikely you will be able to achieve this straight-away. It's a hard thing to do. However how out and 'Zen' this exercise may seem, it will re-focus your mind on the task in hand, and it'll help you learn faster if you can stay focused on what you're practicing.
You should try this exercise whenever you start to feel like you're loosing your focus.
I often say to people that 20 minutes of focused practice can beat, hands down, 2 hours of 'normal' practice, or just goofing about.
Many people are discouraged when they are told how much time they must put into practice. The truth is, you don't have to practice all the time to be a good guitarist.
(I'm not saying you shouldn't have time to goof off and play around. But if you want to improve quickly, you must keep playing guitar and practicing guitar separate.)
Let me tell you now...
It isn't how much time you put into practice, it's the quality of the practice that matters.
When I play guitar, I play to have fun, I play to perform for people, and I play for the fun of playing! That's why I started learning guitar in the first place.
But when I practice guitar, I focus and concentrate on what I'm trying to achieve, and I work on the goals that I want to complete.
You see, if you completely focus on one thing you are more likely to do it well.
This may sound simple too to some. Some of you may be thinking "this is great, I only need to practice 20 minutes a day and ill improve more than I would if I practicing 2 hours a day".
Well that's not exactly true.
Its how focused your practice is that counts, not how long you practice. Can you really focus for 2 hours?
Let me give you this small example to illustrate my point.
Picture a red triangle inside a black box.
Close your eyes, and keep that image in your mind for 5 seconds without letting a single thing distract you - no other thought must enter your mind for that 5 seconds...
How well did you do? Be honest with yourself.
This isn't an easy thing to do. Most people find this difficult at first. Its difficult to keep a focused mind like this.
I hope this example has shown you that it's not that easy to keep focused attention & concentration for look periods of time.
But still, you must always remember that its quality and not quantity of practice that makes the difference between a great player and an average player.
This is a perfect time to tell you that you shouldn't be spending hours and hours 'practicing', because you simply can't focus for that amount of time.
If you are practicing for a solid 2 hours or more you are probably not helping your development as a guitarist that much.
A much better way of using this time is to practice in bursts.
A good idea would be to practice in bursts of 20 minutes or so. You can vary it depending on what you feel like doing, but try not to practice for long periods of time in one go. It's not helping as much as you think it might be.
Also, it's important to take breaks from what you're practicing. You can do something else for awhile, go for a walk, watch TV, or maybe just play around and have fun with your guitar and loosen up a bit before you start focusing on practice again.
It is important for you to have a definition in your own mind of 'practicing guitar' and 'playing guitar'.
This will keep you more focused and allow you to reach your goals as a guitarist much easier.
An exercise for you to try to help you further develop concentration is to sit silently and count slowly from one to ten in your mind.
If anything should interrupt your counting, whether it is a noise, a stray thought, or the awareness of your own breathing, you must start over from one.
Again, it's unlikely you will be able to achieve this straight-away. It's a hard thing to do. However how out and 'Zen' this exercise may seem, it will re-focus your mind on the task in hand, and it'll help you learn faster if you can stay focused on what you're practicing.
You should try this exercise whenever you start to feel like you're loosing your focus.
Guitar Chords: How To Solo Over Chords With The Minor Pentatonic Scale
Soloing over guitar chords is easy when you know how to use the minor pentatonic scale. Add spice and power to your solo's with these simple but highly effective techniques.
The humble minor pentatonic scale is what most guitar players start with when learning to solo. Trouble is, they don't learn to use the scale to it's best potential.
Here, I'll show you an easy way to use the pentatonic scale to solo over the three most common guitar chord types: Major, minor and dominant 7th chords.
1. Major Chords
A Major chord always has a relative minor chord. The easy way to find the 'relative' minor of any major chord on a guitar is to take the note three half-steps (3 frets) below the root note of the major chord.
For example: a C major chord - the root note is C. On a guitar, the note 3 frets below a C note is A. Therefore, A minor is the relative minor of C major.
So to solo over a C major chord, use the A minor pentatonic scale and you can't go wrong.
Another example: F major chord - three frets below the root of F, you will find D. So you use a D minor pentatonic scale over an F major chord.
Another example: G major chord - three frets below the G root note you'll find E. So... you use the E minor pentatonic to solo over a G chord.
Now, you may have noticed that I listed C, F and G major chords there. Coincidentally, They are the 1, 4 and 5 chords of the 'KEY' of C Major. This applies to all instruments, not just guitar.
More about this later...
2. Minor Chords
These are easy... just use the minor pentatonic of what ever the minor chord is. E.g. Use D minor pentatonic for a D minor chord, an E minor pentatonic for an E minor chord, an A minor pentatonic for an A minor Chord.
Now, did you notice I used D, E and A minor chords as the example? Did you also notice that these chords are the 2, 3 and 6 chords of the 'KEY' of C Major?
More about that later, too...
3. Dominant 7th Chords
You have a couple of choices here. But basically, you would use the relative minor pentatonic, or the minor pentatonic a tone below the root of the dom7 chord.
For example, over G7, you could use either E minor pent (relative minor), or D min pentatonic.
The reason you could use the D minor pentatonic over a G7 chord is because the Dmi chord and G7 chord often go together in chord progressions. Forcing a Dmi sound over a G7 chord gives a G7sus sound.
4. Thinking From a 'KEY" Perspective
OK, what we have looked at is the KEY of C Major. And basically you can use just the A minor pentatonic alone for ALL the chords in C, or you can also use the D and E minor pentatonics to add some color and more conformity to the chords being used at the time.
Remember, these principles apply to whatever chord you are playing at any time, but can also be applied on a KEY basis,which is a more encompassing picture.
The Key of C Major has these chords:
C, Dm, Em, F, G7, Am, Bmin7b5.
Ami pent can be used over them all, or just the C and Am chords.
D min pentatonic can be used over the F and Dm chords.
E minor can be used over the Em and G7 chords.
We didn't mention the 7 chord (Bmi7b5) because it's not used very much. But a good choice is the Dm pentatonic. In fact, though, you can use either of the three pentatonics from the C Major scale - Am, Dm or Em. Try them, see which you like best.
I hope you enjoyed this article. You can find more information about guitar chords at my site: http://www.Free-Guitar-Chords.com
The idea of using pentatonics for different chords is a powerful one, don't overlook the cool sounds you can create with such a simple device.
Also, in a future article, I'll be discussing 'Pentatonic Substitution' where I'll show you how to use substitute and altered pentatonics for even more sound choices.
