If only there was some magic pill or technique to make it easy....but then everybody would be an awesome guitar player, and where's the fun in that :-).

Practice is important, but you need to practice efficiently and with focus. You also need realistic short term and long term goals.

There is soooo much ground to cover in learning music and the guitar, and it can be overwhelming. Without focus, you'll want to learn it all at once. If you do that, you will soon feel overwhelmed and will likely give up because you will feel like you are just spinning your wheels.

These are things I came to fully realize about 4 months ago. I've been playing guitar for 30 years, but never really progressed beyond an intermediate level.

I'll use myself as an example to help illustrate my point.

My overarching long term goal: be a good enough rhythm and lead guitar player to play in a cover band of classic rock, progressive rock, and hard rock.

Notice I didn't say I want to be the next Joe Satriani or Steve Vai. Those are legitimate goals, but not for me.

My intermediate goals - learn songs, learn the notes on the fretbaord, learn some music theory to help my improvisation, develop my ear, and learn to read tab more efficiently.

My immediate short term goals:
For this I would write out a monthly plan 3 months at a time. I had decided that learning a song a month was a decent goal. So for each month, I identified a song to work on. I had bought a book (The Fretboard Workbook by Barrett Tagliarino) to help me with learning the fretabord. Chapters from that book were made into part of my plan. Each week I would concentrate on a particular note across the fretboard.

My daily routine:
I can set aside 1 hour a day to practice. I mapped out how much time of that hour would be spent learning the fretboard, learning a song, practicing improvising, etc.


There is another and equally important benefit of mapping out your practice in this way - it helps your motivation!!! It does this by showing your progress in a very tangible way. You will accomplish your monthly/weekly goals and you can tell because they are small and measurable. You'll have success to celebrate.

There is also great benefit to recording yourself playing often. This gives you more feedback on how well you are progressing. I did this at one point and was shocked at how well good playing sounded over a particular backing track. It was very motivating!

And one last thing...you need to be flexible with your plan. Treat your plan as a guideline and make adjustments as needed. Some things may come easier to you than initially thought...sometimes the reverse is true. You may decide to modify some longer term goals as you move on because you suddenly find you love to play the blues and want to focus on that!! This is all fine!

Life can also get in the way. You lost a week, or a month because of a family matter? No worries, scratch that week or month off and move forward without looking back.

For me, I had an opportunity to join a band at a local music store. So now my focus is learning the parts I need to learn for the songs we are playing. Once the band thing is done, I'll go back to my original plan.

So even though things are changing, I still have focus because I have a plan. Actually, the band fits into my long term goal, so I've only made some tweaks to my near term goals.

So, in summary:
- Set realistic long, intermediate, and short term goals.
- Write a monthly plan incorporating your goals.
- Lay out a daily practice routine.
- Record yourself often!
- Celebrate your successes as you accomplish your goals!
- Be flexible and make adjustments as necessary. Keep moving forward regardless of what has happened in the past.

I can tell you from my own experience and from what I've observed of others in the is forum - it works!

Hope that makes sense!!