Fun Guitar Practice Strategy That Makes You More Creative

You become a better guitarist by learning how to integrate musical skills together smoothly. This refers to:

*Combining your skills together (including any skill, technique or musical concept).
*Practicing creativity while going through the learning process with any new musical skill.

The following video demonstrates how to practice integrating different aspects of your guitar playing together to form cool licks:

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Question: “But Tom Hess, is it really possible to practice creativity on guitar?”

Answer: All guitar players can become more creative by practicing at it. Creativity is what happens when you master a certain skill and are able to integrate it with other skills you have. Practicing integration is what helps you become a more creative musician.

Here is a guitar practice circuit that improves your ability to integrate musical skills together:

Perform these steps continuously (don’t stop between them):

Step 1: Choose any phrase, arpeggio, scale run, riff or lick to work on.

Step 2: Play through this idea several times to acclimate it to your ears.

Step 3: Create four variations of the original idea. For instance:

*Alter the note rhythms.
*Use legato technique to emphasize notes in the place of picked notes

*Use bends and vibrato on some of the notes.

This free online guitar guide shows you many examples of creating phrasing variations with your guitar licks.

Step 4: Make 5 new guitar licks while keeping the rhythm of the original idea the same. Change all the pitches, but maintain the same rhythms of those pitches.

Step 5: Play using rubato. Play faster and slower while not playing in time. This guitar playing video shows many examples of how to do rubato phrasing on lead guitar.

Step 6: Change the first few notes and keep everything else as it was in the original idea. Come up with 5 variations.

Step 7: Change the notes in the middle of the idea and keep everything else as it was originally. Think of with 5 variations.

Step 8: Change the last few notes of the idea and keep everything else as it was originally. Make 5 variations.

Complete steps 2-8 with the new variations you thought of for fifteen minutes. Then start over by using a completely new musical idea.

Help For Moving Through This Guitar Practice Circuit:

*Choose an idea to work with that isn’t too hard to play. This keeps you from constantly thinking about making mistakes so you can focus on fluency and creativity.

*Focus on not stopping between steps. Move from each step to the next as fast as you can. This improves your fluency and musical creativity at a faster rate. Track how much time it takes you to move from one step to the next. This is one method for measuring your improvement with fluency and integration.

*Think about the aspects of creativity and fluency that give you the most trouble and write them down. So, write it down if you are struggling to play the first notes of a phrase with different pitches or using different rhythms for notes. When you do this, you find out what you need to work on to get better.

FAQ:

Question: “Tom Hess, what if I am unable to think of variations to use with arpeggio patterns?”

Answer: Here are a couple of ideas:

1. Use rests (silence) at random points in the middle of an arpeggio rather than using the exact same rhythm for every note.

1. Play your arpeggios with varying sizes (3, 4, or 5 string arpeggios). This alters the pitch range and makes the arpeggio sound more interesting and creative.

Question: “Tom Hess, what’s the best way to use circuit training for guitar practice?”

Answer: Set a time to practice guitar playing fluency in the same way you would schedule practice for any other skill. When you practice effectively, you utilize your time in the best way possible to improve weaker areas of your playing and achieve your musical goals faster.

Use this guitar practicing circuit like a test for improving your fluency and integration skills. Work with this circuit a couple of times per week to test yourself. Then use the rest of the time improving these skills so you can become more creative.

This free online guitar guide shows you many examples of creating phrasing variations with your guitar licks