Practice, Practice, Practice.

We all know that nobody is born perfect. Sure, some people are blessed with natural talent, but the only way the best guitarists in the world reached that status is because they practiced their a** off. The good news is that if you love music, and you love playing the guitar, practice is fun. However, we all need to set-up a practice plan especially on those infamous days where the last thing you feel like doing is playing guitar.

Today, GuitarLessonsCritic.com would like to present a few tips for establishing a reliable practice plan that will allow you to learn to play the guitar.

How frequently should I practice?

Every day. We all miss a day from time to time, but if you are really serious about mastering the guitar you need to play every…single…day. It may seem overwhelming at first, but you will be surprised just how quickly you can get into a good practice routine with the right practice plan. The good news is that even though we recommend trying to play guitar every single day the amount of time required is actually not that demanding.

Okay, How long should I play every day?

30 minutes.

Most veteran guitarists practice way more than that, but in as little as 30 minutes of distraction free practice you will be surprised how quickly you can pick up a guitar. Since playing an instrument is closely tied to muscle memory, practicing for an alert 30 minutes every single day will develop your muscle memory effectively. In fact, while you can easily practice for more than 30 minutes a day, practicing too much each day usually forces beginner guitarists to pick-up bad habits because the fatigue leads to a loss of focus.

Think about it: 30 minutes x 7 = 210 minutes of practice per week OR 3.5 hours

210 minutes x 4 = 840 minutes of practice per month OR 14 hours

At that rate, you are destine to play the guitar for a good 84 hours

Sounds like a lot, right?

How do I establish a practice plan?

Unlike the old days, where any expert would say you need to take up guitar lessons the guitar is much more DIY these days. However, that does not mean you have to do everything yourself. A few select individuals are driven enough to completely develop a practice plan on their own, but the reality is most of us could at least use a little direction.

While a great deal of free material is available on the web, we HIGHLY recommend you at least invest a little money into a self-taught guitar course. To save you some time, we rated the best online guitar courses.

What else do I need to know?

The guitar will take some time to learn. It truly is a wonderful instrument to play yet it takes some time to comprehend exactly what it’s capable of producing.

Similar to sports, it’s important to master the fundamentals before you progress too far. Once you lock down the fundamentals, the guitar suddenly becomes a lot more playable (and did we mention understandable?). If you can survive in the trenches for a year or two developing your fundamentals and progressing through the techniques the guitar will mold to you.