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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 The guitar is usually considered a portable instrument. Compared to a piano this is true, but let's face it, that bulky dreadnought doesn't fit easily into the average pocket. This is why it can be a good idea to consider a smaller instrument when you want to practice any place you go.
There are plenty of small instruments you could try. But I'm going to tell you about one that is very useful to any guitar player.
I bought a ukulele for my son a little over a year ago. I figured rightly that its small neck and four strings would be easier for his seven year old hands to play. But I hadn't realized just how much I would come to like it myself. It's a great portable guitar practice tool.
The ukulele's neck is like a guitar neck cut at the fifth fret and with only the top four strings. The similar layout means you can easily get your bearings.
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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 Without ear training playing guitar is a bit like painting by numbers. You put colours in the spaces indicated to recreate a painting. But you're not really making music and you don't really learn why one colour works better than another.
Only when you can hear its language can you really claim to make music and this is a good reason to make ear training a part of your study.
But as we all know, guitar practice time is limited, and adding ear training to our daily list of things to work on is not an easy commitment to make. Fortunately, there are many ways to develop your musical ear without your guitar. Here are a few ideas you could try.
Ear Training CDsA good place to start on ear training is with a set of ear training CDs. These will offer you exercises to train your ear to recognize intervals, notes, chords, rhythms and so on. |
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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 There are lots of ways to learn guitar without having your guitar to hand. In this article we'll look at one very easy way to learn guitar songs faster that will also improve your performance skills because you will know the songs you play better.
Why Do You Make Mistakes?Many of the playing mistakes you make arise not from a lack of skill, but from the simple fact that you're unsure what comes next. With doubt like this in your mind you often end up making an error.
Develop detailed knowledge of the songs you play, really memorize them, and you will be able to play with more confidence, make less mistakes, and be more relaxed so you can enjoy playing more.
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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 Here's a simple exercise you can use to build your chord knowledge when you're not playing guitar. Exercises you can do when you don't have your guitar help you to get extra mileage from your limited guitar practice time. You can work on them any time and any place, all you need is a few spare minutes.
One of the best ways you can make good use of your time away from the guitar is to build your knowledge of chords. No matter how long you've been playing there is always something new to learn about them. There are endless sources of new ideas and information. Find yourself some chord theory books, lessons from Internet, or study the chords used in your favourite songs and those of the great song writers.
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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 There are two kinds of guitarist, those who know their fretboard and those who don't. Although simply memorizing all the notes won't make you into Jimi Hendrix overnight, you can be sure that the best guitarists are all in the camp of "those who do". Fortunately, you can learn a lot about the fretboard without eating up your precious practice time.
Although there are lots of different techniques for learning your fretboard the real key is repetition. Repetition helps you learn and refreshes the knowledge so you don't lost it. Here are ten different ways you can get your dose of repetition while not playing your guitar.
Fretboard Learning Exercises- Pick a note, name all the places it occurs on the guitar.
- Pick a fret, name the notes on all strings.
- Pick a chord position, name all the notes in it and their place in the chord position. Name their scale degree too.
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Written by Gary Fletcher
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 Can you improve your guitar playing when you don't have your guitar handy to practice on? As this next post will show you--the answer is "yes".
While practice is really the best way to improve for many of us this time is limited. You might have a day job, or studies, a family to take care of, and little necessities like shopping, cooking and cleaning that all fill your day.
But often you have spare time during these activities, like when you wait at the supermarket checkout, and some of them don't require all your concentration. That's when you can use the ideas below to work on your guitar skills.
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