Source: Andrew Clark video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4N-fimyJqv0
These tips are of course very subjective, but there’s some good stuff in that video:
Thing’s he’d ignore:
- Reading sheet music
- Modes
Rules to improve guitar playing fast
- Set up the guitar close-by
- Pick up the guitar and play at least TWICE a day. Can be for 5 min or 5 h, but do it twice.
- Choose your inspiration. Pick a few specific guitar players that you look up to and that you want you playing to sound like.
- Pick a few good teachers to guide you and that resonate with your learning style.
Things to focus on
- Learn to play by ear. Learn to recognise the difference between major and minor chords. Then work up to putting a massive focus on being able to find the key and chords of a song completely by ear. Those basic skills will unlock a lot of opportunities.
- Develop your rhythm. It’s the most important skill you can have and spans any style and genre. Good exercise: Muted picking along to songs.
- Improvisation. Start training your brain to think creatively about the instrument. Noodle around the pentatonic scale or a major scale over some songs you like. E.g. “Slow dancing in a burning room” by John Mayer, and use the following E major scale or E major/C# pentatonic scale, or any combination of both of them, over the song.


- Learn some essential music theory. The major scale, and why it’s so important. How major and minor keys work. How chords are made. Andrew Clark’s music theory handbook
- Learn some fretboard navigation systems. Octave centres, the homebase, horizontal and vertical CAGED system. Put a good bit of time into building up the fretboard understanding. This will allow you to play comfortably in any key at all times. Andrew Clark’s fretboard guidebook
- Jam with others. As soon as you can play a chord with a beat, you’re ready. Find someone to play with, choose some chords, pick a tempo, start playing, take turns improvising. E.g. C major, a minor, F major, G major. One person cycles through these chords, the other noodles over the C major/A minor pentatonic scale.