Little tricks that make big difference

ALWAYS practice guitar with a metronome/drum machine/sequencer. The reasons for this are too many to be mentioned here.

- Never push yourself to playing speeds that make your hands cramp. A controlled and relaxed technique is always the result of patient practicing at "comfortable" metronome speeds, in other words you should practice a long time with a slow/comfortable metronome speed, instead of a short time with a fast/uncomfortable speed.

- Always strive to minimize left and right hand motion, if you goal is to play faster.

- If you like to play with distortion you should also pratice with a distorted sound, or else you will get a sloppy technique.

- The opposite is also true: Even if you hate the sound of clean guitar you should practice with it once in a while to make sure you're note missing any notes in the faster runs.

Practicing 20 minutes every day is much more effective than 2 hours once a week. The best is, of course, practicing 20 hours every day ;-) .

- If you are tired of the way you play you should throw your standard repertoire out of the window and focus on learning as much new material as you can, may it be new licks, songs or guitar styles, even if it feels very uncomfortable in the beginning.

- For fast progress, you should mainly practice the things that are the hardest for you. Trust me, it's worth effort.

- If your goal is to increase your soloing skills, you should spend an equal amount of time on metronome practicing, improvising and transcribing ( = playing other's, more experienced, player's solos).

- Making a practice schedule is a good idea if you practice regularly.
Stop playing if you feel any pain.