Guitars : Have Guitar Lessons Got Your Playing Stuck In A Rut? Here's The Answer

Do you rely on guitar tab to learn new songs? Do you ever feel like your playing all the sounds the same? Is your learning stuck in a rut?

Many guitarists feel like they have hit a wall in their practice, and they can’t improve or change how they sound, no matter how many new chords of scales they learn.

Would you like to know why you feel like this? The answer probably comes down to your lack of ear training.

Now I know this can strike fear into your guitarists heart if you’ve tried to learn by ear, and failed hopelessly. But if you look at all the greatest guitarists there’s ever been (especially the self-taught ones) you’ll see that many of them learnt to play by listening to records and mimicking the sound – not by practicing tab off the internet.

Now I know ear training can be difficult at first. But it is something you should try to incorporate into your practice as regularly as possible if you want to see a real improvement in the solos and melodies you make on guitar.

A good way of training your ear, is to learn to recognize different the different chords within a key. You’ll soon learn to hear which chord you’re hearing within the key. The next thing to learn is the sound of different intervals within a scale.

Now that may seem a bit confusing to you if you’re not familiar with music theory. So you may need to do a little background research. But if you learn to hear the intervals within a scale, you will see how a flatted 3rd always sounds like a flat 3rd no matter what chord or key you’re playing in. Or how the sweet sound of a 6th chord comes from adding the 6th degree of the scale to the 1/3/5 of a major chord.

Now if all these seems confusing to you, I recommend you study a little basic music theory. I know as guitarists we tend to be allergic to reading music and understanding music theory.

Not reading music, that’s understandable. But neglecting music theory? That’s not a good idea. Although it can be a little tedious, the breakthrough you will see in your playing will definitely make it all worthwhile.

I hope you understand the power of the point I’m making, and I hope you will use this idea to improve your guitar playing and break out of any rut you experience.

David Taylor is owner of the Guitar Secrets Blog, where he gives free beginner guitar lessons, as well as a unique take on how to improve as you become more advanced. For more free useful ideas of learning guitar, be sure to check out his blog right now.