Practice = Results

I love to practice. Does that make me weird? ..... OK.... I'm already weird, but practicing is such an important thing to do! Without practicing, you won't be able to improve. It's pretty much the same thing as staring at your guitar across the room and waiting for it to play you a concert. It ain't gonna happen! So get off your but's and practice.

Sometimes it can be hard to determine what to practice, or how much of one thing you should practice. When those questions come up just remember this saying: "Don't practice something until you get it right. Practice it until you can't get it wrong." Ok? But what does that mean? It means that you need to continually practice. Find something that is hard or something that you can't do... Yet. Take some time, maybe 10 minutes, or 20 minutes, or whatever you feel might be enough for that moment, and just practice that. As an example, I've sat down and practiced just one small section of the guitar solo from "You Look Good In My Shirt" by Keith Urban for at least a grand total of two hours so far over the past week. I'm still working out the ending of the solo, but I can now play almost the whole thing and stay in time with the song.

It's also good to keep in mind that you should keep proper posture and form when you're playing. If you have poor posture or form, you will be making it harder on yourself without really knowing it. It will prevent you from really being the musician you could really be. If something feels wrong and like you aren't really able to do it, then try it a different way. You don't always have to follow one method or technique.

I also received some really good advice a couple weeks ago. I was playing at a jam session with local musicians and one of the older ones that was really good at guitar (much better than I am) told me something I'll always remember. He said "Whenever you practice, practice with your eyes closed. You need to feel the distance between the frets." I took this in instantly, because it made so much sense to me. You don't really need your eyes to play the guitar. Just do a Google search for blind guitarists and you'll find several that were great. You need to learn to become one with the guitar. Now, before you tape your eyes shut when practicing, you should make sure you know what it is that you're practicing. If you don't first know what you're practicing, it will make it much harder to play it blind. So go back and forth with it and do what you can.

I'm just going to end this blog with a couple quotes related to practice that I really admire. I hope they inspire you a little bit more to go and practice!!!

"Tomorrow’s victory is today’s practice.” ― Chris Bradford

"Practice like you've never won, perform like you've never lost"

-Bernard F. Asuncion

"You miss 100% of the shots you don't take"

-Wayne Gretzky (how could I not add this one?!)

"I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times." -Bruce Lee