No Secrets, Just Practice

Anthony Stauffer of StevieSnacks.com recently wrote an article titled No Secrets, Just Practice providing his thoughts about what it takes to get better, responding in part to my article The Secret to Becoming a Better Guitarist. In that article, I posited that there actually are no secrets; Anthony agrees, but says that there are shortcuts:

My thoughts on this are similar with one exception. There are shortcuts. I spent hours, upon hours learning the things I teach here. I can tell you more in a one hour lesson than I learned in 6 months. But here's the catch. During that 6 months, I was playing. A lot. So while I might not have had as much information as someone with my lessons will have, that forced me to play all the time just to make something sound good.

I agree with him. Finding a good teacher will help immensely. Whether it be online lessons like Anthony provides at Stevie Snacks, or in-person lessons with an instructor at a local music store, I highly recommend finding a teacher that you can relate to. However, regardless of whether you find a teacher or decide to learn by listening to albums, it's going to take time to improve. While I'm extremely grateful that you're visiting this site and reading what I write, I can only provide information. I can't play for you (nor would you probably want me to!). If you want to get better at playing the guitar, you're going to have to play the guitar. It's that simple and that hard.