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

  1. Set up the guitar close-by
  2. Pick up the guitar and play at least TWICE a day. Can be for 5 min or 5 h, but do it twice.
  3. Choose your inspiration. Pick a few specific guitar players that you look up to and that you want you playing to sound like.
  4. Pick a few good teachers to guide you and that resonate with your learning style.

Things to focus on

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.

600

600

  1. 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
  2. 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
  3. 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.