Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lesson - Practice Techniques to Prepare For Performance

Normally when you consider practicing your acoustic guitar there are chords to play, scales to learn, and exercises to do over and over. These are great and do help you get better at playing your acoustic guitar. But there are many techniques that are good for a beginner acoustic guitar lesson that are generally left untaught. Later you will wonder why no one taught this information.

Braun Hand Blender

Not everyone's goal with the acoustic guitar is to perform but for many it is. Being able to do something at home on your acoustic guitar, with light, no pressure, and in a chair is significantly different than an actual performance. It's good practice to practice for the performance.

Braun Hand Blender

Play without looking at your hands.

If you do perform, you won't always have the luxury of looking at your hands because sometimes it's dark or even smoky in that environment. Start practicing songs that you know without looking at your fingers to make the chords. If you have problems as a beginner forming the chords at all, once you get a chord, try to do it without looking. This will test your fingers memory on how well you have really learned the chords and songs.

Sing while playing.

It's not everyone's goal to become a singer while playing the guitar, but this is a great exercise to build rhythm. Your strumming pattern the the melody line in the song will be two completely different rhythms at once. It's a mental challenge to get both to work together. If you hate singing, try to hum or whistle the song just for the sake of practice. If you want to sing while playing, you need to start early so that both will work together more efficiently.

Stand and use a strap while playing.

This doesn't have to be done 100% of the time while you practice, but from time to time you should practice standing up. It's much different than playing when the guitar is right there on your lap. It's quite a bit more difficult. The things you thought you could play accurately and correctly are many times much harder. This is a good exercise because it helps prepare you for more realistic performance conditions.

Beginner Acoustic Guitar Lesson - Practice Techniques to Prepare For Performance
Braun Hand Blender