If you have weak areas in your musical skill-set, it not only will show up when you play for fun, but it will also have a detrimental effect when you play with others. In this post, I’m going to show you the 5 biggest red flags of musical weakness, and most importantly, what you can do to fix them...



Today we’re talking about Red Flags to watch out for when it comes to your musical ability. 

In this video I’m going to try and help you learn to identify whether you have any of these red flags going on in your playing or maybe in your knowledge for harmony and theory.

Because if you do, and you can fix them, you’re going to be able to move forward as a much better musician, as well as, (of course) a better guitarist...

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1. The 1st red flag to look for has to with technical ability. When it comes to ability, it’s important to understand that you don’t need to get perfection levels so that they’re on parr of being “robotic” in how you alternate pick or how you strum.

Fix this by instead, adopting the pursuit of good technique with a focus on cleaning up anything in your playing for where you know there’s an imbalance.

Maybe you have a sloppy fretting-hand that needs work to clean up your scales or chord fretting or perhaps you have a pick hand that doesn’t track the strings all too well.

Regardless what the glitches are, be on the look-out for any imbalance and then create a technical routine to address fixing it.




2. The next red flag area is your comprehension for rhythm, including; beat structure, time /feel and meter.

One thing I’ll often notice with my private classes, is when I get a student who’s upset about their inability to play smooth rhythm guitar parts (so that the part maintains a solid groove within the structure of the beat), they simply have no clue about rhythm duration.

Fix this by learning what all the parts of rhythm are (Meter, Beat, Tempo), and learn as much as possible about controlling the beat. Use clapping, singing and pick scratch drills to help build better skill. My "Rhythm Guitar" course covers all of this in great detail.

I’ll notice that, once the student understands the names along with the feel associated to every musical beat duration (along with how time signatures and tempos operate), they go from having a lousy feel for time, to making incredible strides in their understanding and performance of rhythm parts.




3. The next red flag area is listening skills. If you have trouble hearing musical ideas, and /or if you are unsure of how high or how low a musical tone is being played in a song, you really need to work on your ear.

The best way to fix this is by dedicating time to the study of Ear Training (which initially involves a lot of singing to be able to internalize the sound of notes). My Ear Training course is phenomenal for this type of training.

When you practice singing through the various; scales, chords and arpeggios - what you’re really doing is internalizing each musical tone and you’re learning a lot about applying musical pitch through your own body.

And, from that work of singing, your body will start being able to very quickly recognize sound at a whole new level of skill and ability.




4. The next red flag of musical weakness is not having the ability to be able to improvise on your instrument.

This is a critical creative skill for musicians of all levels playing any instrument and it simply isn't stressed enough.

Fix this area by forcing yourself to begin making up musical ideas. Arranging music through improvisation is one of the cornerstones of musicianship because improvisation, (even at its most simplistic level), is the first step toward being able to compose music.

My "Guitar Soloing" course goes into great detail about how to build soloing skill through learning 20 different fully involved leads.

When we begin working on improvising it becomes a tremendous help for improving every musicians ear training skills. Think of it another way, when you can improvise, you’re constantly tapping into the music that you are hearing in your head.




5. The final Red Flag area I want to end with has to do with gaining a clear understanding about general music theory. If you’re weak at understanding why Major is different from Minor. Or, if you don’t know why a suspended chord is called a suspended, or if you don’t know what an arpeggio is, or what a key signature is, or what chords that are diatonic do. It would be good to learn about this stuff.

Fix this by starting out with learning all of the musical keys. Then, study the musical intervals. Learn chord construction next and afterwards learn how harmony operates. My Core Guitar Curriculum (Introductory, Intermediate and Advanced), courses cover these topics in great detail.

Learning about all of this information not only helps make you a wiser musician, but you’ll compose music a lot faster and you’ll understand what you’re doing a lot better.

Plus, after learning your basic theory skills, you could make some extra money teaching it to others!



CONCLUSION:
Well, I hope that this lesson on considering all of these "red flags of musical weakness," was interesting for you. Even if it only gave you one new idea or practice principle to start working on it was well worth the read.

If you’d like to learn more about how to further develop your guitar playing - join my web-site as a free member and start taking a look at all of my “Guitar” Courses.

They cover a ton of specific information on improving general and advanced playing skill. I’ve got a wide assortment of lesson plans and all come with very detailed videos along with PDF worksheets that you can download and print out to start covering all types of; exercises, Music Theory, rhythm training and technical drills.

The lessons are all well planned and easy to follow – and they work in a very organized way. To help you get better at playing guitar in record time. 





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If you’d like to learn more about topics like this one and many others, join my members site as a free member and start looking through my, “Guitar Courses.”

I’ve spent over 25 years working with hundreds of guitar students creating thousands of detailed step-by-step guitar lessons for both my website members and my private students.

The result is the most comprehensive guitar course that covers every aspect of beginner to advanced playing ideas to help you improve your playing.


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My Guitar Technique eBook is 28 pages of jam-packed exercises, drills and studies for mastering all of your technical skills at playing Guitar.