If you’re just starting out, or if you have been doing this for a while and you’re looking at your favorite guitarist and thinking to yourself "how in heaven’s name does he do that?" then you’re reading the right article. Fact is most of players are often at a loss when it comes to understanding how to get to the higher level of playing that they often see their guitar heroes display. There are many routes you can take, but they all have a couple of things in common. Grab a cup of coffee, or a beer, and sit down for this article because it might change the way you look at guitar playing. No matter what you're into, from classical guitar to metal guitar, you will benefit from this. Some things may seem very simple but don’t be fooled into thinking they are less important. Other things may require you to start churning that gray matter a little bit to get the hang of them.

First in line is work!

This is a no-brainer but it still has to be said. No amount of articles and knowledge will be able to compensate for the willingness to work... Do the words "hard work" make your hair stand on end? As a guitarist you must be willing to work at your craft. You must have the self-discipline needed in order to practice on a regular basis. Having said that though, it is important to note that working smart will always beat working hard. So it is very important for you to break down your learning process and to have a clear idea where you’re going and the steps that you need to take order to get there. Imagine for a second being in a jungle as you’re trying to find your way out. Now, you might put in a lot of effort and walk daily for many miles through the hard jungle environment in order to find your path out, but if you don’t use your head and figure out a clear way towards your goal you might find that you’re just walking around in circles. It’s the same way when studying guitar. You must set your compass so you know the direction of your goal and you must also figure out what steps to take in order to reach that goal. How do you do that? Simple: just sit down and plan it out, write it down and create a sort of map towards your endpoint.

Let’s say you’re just starting out and, as a singer-songwriter, your goal is to get your guitar playing up and running so that you’re able to use your guitar to write songs and play them live. You would then figure out the steps you must take in order to achieve this. If you’re a singer songwriter then you must learn chords, which are the basis of creation for most singer songwriters. But you’d have to break the "learning chords chapter" in two. This is because you need to learn what the chords are from a musical standpoint, meaning that you must learn their names, the notes they contain and the relationship between those notes so that you know how they relate to each other in a song. This is the theoretical aspect of chords (not to mention that you should take a look at scales first). Of course you must also learn the actual chords on the guitar, the frets and the fingers used to play them and exercise these movements on the guitar fretboard until you get to the point where you feel comfortable changing quickly from one chord to the other. Having complete control of the mechanical movements of your fingers on the fretboard is also important because as you will start to write your song you’ll probably want to sing on top of your cords, so the ability to change chords fast and to do two things in parallel, play guitar and sing, is something that will need a little bit of work. Obviously if your goal is to become a shredding monster, to play killer leads that peel the paint off the walls, then not only is the goal changed but also the steps that must be taken in order to achieve this goal.

The more you can break down things so you can work them individually the faster your learning process will go, you will assimilate more and you’ll have more fun because it will become clear to you that you are on the right path and progress will be visible. Look at a player that you admire, within the genre that you like, and analyze the steps that you must take in order to get there. Having said that, I would like to add that there are some common points which make sense no matter which path you choose. Music theory for example will help no matter what route you take, and so will ear training etc…

The Captain of the ship!

One obvious quality of great guitar players is their incredible playing reflexes. But what is at the root core of incredible reflexes? You see a great player do something on guitar and you are amazed at the ease with which they can execute complex material, and master their instruments. But how do you get these incredible reflexes? An important key is understanding what are reflexes and how they are created.

Reflexes dwell in our subconscious mind. The subconscious is quite a beast, able to compute and execute literally thousands of operations per second. By comparison our conscious mind is a relative weakling able only to handle a couple of things at a time, and even then it struggles to do that. For example: it takes dozens of independent muscles to walk and use our hands, and yet we do all these things with great ease because our subconscious mind takes care of everything while our conscious mind only gives the commands… such as "walk". When you catch a baseball, play tennis, play a video game or any other activity that involves complicated procedures it is the subconscious mind that actually does the work while the conscious mind only gives the major commands. You can think of it like this: your conscious mind is like the captain of a ship who gives the orders, while your subconscious mind is like a ship and its crew that execute perfectly the orders. So, now that we understand this we must figure out a way to get our subconscious to do most of the "heavy lifting" while we consciously think about the big details.

The big problem here is that the subconscious is not directly accessible. As it turns out the only way to access it is through our conscious mind and repetition. Here is how the process works: the conscious mind repeats the action very very slowly (remember, it’s a weakling after all) and as repetition continues the action is delegated to the subconscious mind and forms a reflex. Now, here comes the big point that I want to make: it is extremely important is that the information passed along from our conscious mind to our subconscious be crystal clear. If we don’t take the time to consciously clarify the actions that we like our subconscious to perform later on we will probably end up not being able to perform those actions correctly. It’s like the captain of our ship turning to the crew and saying that if they should start the engines and just go without providing a destination or a clear path for getting there. You can imagine that in such a situation the crew would probably run around in circles and so would the ship. In much the same way we must clarify what we would like our subconscious to perform in order for it to understand what it has to do. This is done through repetition, but also through the "breakdown process" in which we take things apart and we see how they function. This leads to great reflexes… the kind of stuff that makes you stand back and say "wow, he’s incredible". Now that you know the formula, put it to work so you can have someone else say that about you.