Before I started using the Next Level Guitar Lessons course I had been playing guitar for many years. If I had already been playing for years then you are probably wondering why I would even need to start a course like this. The truth is that even though I had spent years playing guitar I never got real serious with it and I still wasn’t very good.
It’s sad to say but I was really not much past the level of “beginner” even though I had been playing for years. I couldn’t even play a basic blues shuffle so you could say I wasn’t even past that stage really.
I think the problem that a lot of people have is that they just pick up the guitar and play the chords and songs they already know. When you just play what you already play you don’t really get any better because you’re not learning anything new.
This seems blindingly obvious to me now but for some reason I never really picked up on it until I decided to get serious with my guitar playing and start using Next Level Guitar.
You should be learning something new every single time you pick up the guitar and with this course (and with any other good guitar lessons) that’s exactly what you are going to be doing. The whole idea behind “next level” is that you only get to that next level by pushing yourself to do something that you find hard to do.
This is an incredibly vital point; if you find yourself spending a lot of time with your guitar playing stuff that comes easily to you then you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. It’s important to always be challenging yourself.
Ear training is another area that I would strongly suggest getting serious with. A cool way to get started with ear training is to take an easy song that you know really well like “Row Row Row Your Boat or “Twinkle Twinkle Little Star” and to play the melody on your keyboard. Listen closely to the intervals of the melody. You should be able to reproduce them yourself without the piano. You can sing the notes into a digital tuner to test yourself. This is also great practice for singing.
For musicians who are interested in recording music at a home studio check out the Home Studio Music Recording Blog which includes some suggestions on The Best Free Guitar Lessons.