Thursday, October 1, 2009

Guitar Improvement - Learn Faster By Playing With Your Eyes Closed

By Kyle Hoffman

Guitarists can give some pretty good advice every now and then, but you know when something they tell you for guitar improvement sounds a little screwy. You might actually be wondering how having your eyes closed when you're trying to maneuver across an instrument with over twenty frets with six strings can be beneficial!

Actually, learning to play with your eyes closed will give you a much better understanding of your own playing habits, help you to better recognize parts of the guitar, and develop your ability to learn by ear. Check out these 6 reasons how playing with your eyes closed can push more improvement into your skills.

1. Improving your chord knowledge isn't as stressful. Moving between chords as a beginning guitarist might not be the smoothest thing to accomplish, but practicing with your eyes closed can help you address what you actually feel. When you really want to absorb the formations of those chords, remove your sight and you'll find your muscle memory starting to kick in.

2. You can increase your understanding of the fret board. Flying all over the fret board can be overwhelming when you're having a hard time keeping up, but learning to identify the frets without seeing them would probably help you out. Try doing some difficult runs that take you across a few frets without your eyes and see if it helps to recognize the subtle distances on the guitar neck.

3. You'll learn to not over-look your mistakes. If you don't learn to right your mistakes you might not make as much improvement as you were hoping on the guitar. By shutting your eyes when you play, you'll hear those minor mistakes loud and clear and get more motivation to turn them into correct phrases.

4. Your memory of the songs will improve. If you're planning on performing in a band where you have to remember a number of fairly long songs, that can be overwhelming. Try practicing the tough sections with your eyes closed so your hands will be able to remember the motions when your vision seems to fail you.

5. You can learn the stylistic features of the song more intently. Being able to play songs is very important, but being able to interpret them from the vantage point of the composer makes a real musician. Learning to improve through the work in your fingers will train you to listen for the subtle nuances that give the songs certain emotions and depth.

6. Song tempos will stand out more. Playing out of tempo is a problem that is becoming pretty intolerable as a musician and will lessen your chances of being used for a band. If you rely on your fingers and ears as opposed to your eyes you'll find that adjusting to the song's natural speed is a bit easier.

Learning to connect better with your instrument in any fashion that you find reliable is a good thing. The next time that you have a guitar practice, see if you can improve upon your skills by taking your eyes away from the fret board and relying on your ears and fingers.

About the Author:

0 comments:

Post a Comment