Ask Brendan is a monthly column where Guitar Educator, Brendan Burns, answers questions about music and the pursuit of Understanding and Mastering the guitar.

Understanding the Guitar Checklist

January 04

Q: I’ve been playing guitar for 8 years now, and I’m a little stuck with my playing. I’m not really sure what I need or want to work on. When I have a project, then I’m clear and I know what to do, but when I’m on my own I’m not that effective as a practicer. You talk a lot about “Understanding the Guitar” and “Mastering the Instrument” a lot. How do I know what I need to do to get there? Or even better, do you have any suggestions on bringing focus to my practice time?

B: Your second question reminds me that I want to talk about practicing in an “Ask Brendan” column. I’ll try to get to that soon.

As far as Understanding the Guitar goes, it’s closely related to what you experience when you have a project. Most likely, when you have a project in front of you, you have a set of tasks that are due at a specific time. Whether you write out a plan to execute each task, or just start working on the most important thing first, you are devising a way to accomplish the end goal.

The same techniques used in project management allow us the ability to put together our own set of goals and tasks for “Understanding of the Guitar.” When you know what you want to do musically, the necessary tasks to reach that goal make themselves evident just like with any other deadline.

The only hole in this plan is that maybe you don’t know what you want to become, or maybe you don’t have any idea how to get there. With the latter, this is where teachers and books come in. They often have the ability to enlighten and awe.

Assignment: Take some time and think about some goals you have as a musician. On a blank piece of paper, write down these goals. With each goal, think about what you would need to do to reach this goal, and then write it down and attach it with an arrow to the specific goal. These are your “to do’s.” Take a look at your “to do’s” and see if there are any prerequisites necessary to accomplishing them. If there are any, write them down and attach them with arrows to the appropriate “to do.”

Now you’ve built something like a family tree of information. If done successfully, working on small components (prerequisites of “to do’s”) lead to accomplishing big goals.

When working on these small components be sure to reference the big goal that you are trying to accomplish. This can help give your practice context and value. This especially helps out when the particular exercise is challenging, or if you’re not in a good mood. Some things can be taken care of in a weeks, some things take years.

When using a system like this, practice time can become an incredibly focused and driven experience.

I’ve included a page from the practice plan I’m using. Large (click here)
Medium (click here)

I hope this helps,

Brendan