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Question Mark

Learn Music Faster – Ask Questions

It takes a bit of confidence to ask questions – whether it’s to you teacher or other musicians. But it really will help you progress with music faster.

No matter how good a teacher or a course is, there may still be bits that don’t quite make sense to you the first time round – or even the tenth! There are a whole bundle of reasons for this. It doesn’t really matter what they are. The important thing is that when you don’t understand something, ask about it.

Open Mouth

Learn Music Faster – Use Your Voice

“What?” I hear you cry, “We’re guitarists not singers, we shouldn’t have to engage our vocal chords. That’s not what we signed up for.” But employing your voice while you practice can make an enormous difference to the speed you learn things.

Hand cupping ear

Learn Music Faster – Listen to Yourself

This one always makes me laugh, because we’re making music, yet the number of students who don’t pay attention to how they actually sound is remarkable.

I understand why it happens. When we learn an instrument we start to focus on the physical aspects, the mechanics of it; which finger to put where, how to hold it, posture, breathing, technique and so on. With all that going through our heads we don’t have a lot of attention left to listen to the noise we’re making.

Metronome

Learn Music Faster – Use a metronome (or loops, beats, etc)

The more I play with more and more top musicians, the more convinced I am that having great rhythm is the most important skill a musician can have.

I’m not talking about being able to play complex rhythms, just being able to play reliably keeping really good time. Even if you only know a handful of chords but you can play really consistent, tight, in time, eighth note rhythms you will soon a reputation as a good player. You will impress far more people than…

Wristwatch

Learn Music Faster – Never Miss a Lesson

If a student misses a session in the first three or four weeks of lessons, that’s usually a warning sign that they’re going to be an unreliable student and not progress as quickly as others.

If someone misses more than one lesson in a three month period that’s often an indicator they won’t learn as fast. The same applies if they miss more than one lesson in a row.

This is more than just about missing teaching time…

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