Chords for 8 Ways To Become A Great Guitarist

What's going on guys?
I decided to make something different for the channel today and come up with a
tutorial kind of tips and tricks style video on [C] how I think you can become a better guitar player
and a better [F] musician.
I made [C] a list of stuff that I [G] think could help point you in the right
direction, maybe help you guys bypass some of the mistakes that I've made over the years of
being a professional guitar player, and I've been fortunate enough to work with Skillshare.com on
this video.
I'll tell you guys more about what they do as we progress through the video, but for now
[Em] let's jump right into it and [F#] let's get to tip number one.
[G#m] The first thing that I want to tell
you guys [B] to do, and it sounds really cheesy [C#] and cliche because it is, but learn [B] your basics.
Learn
your [F#] basic chords and scales [G#] because it's just gonna help you be able to learn the things you
want to do.
You're [E] not going to be able to learn the songs that you like if you don't know kind of
like the [F#] structure behind them or [G#m] the chords that go with them.
That's gonna be a really [B] big part of
it.
I was fortunate enough to have my [F#] dad show me this stuff when I started learning about age 10,
but there's tons of awesome [C#] resources online now.
A big one that I used was I used [F#] Guitar Pro
software that will like play tabs and stuff back to [F#] you and then you could physically, [D#m] you know,
[F#] see like the chord chart for it or you could slow stuff down.
Kind of progress that way.
Another thing I want to add to the basics, and this is a pretty big, is clean your gear, guys.
I can't even [D#] count the number of times that I've been at someone's house and they had just an [E] old
dirty guitar sitting in the corner that was completely [F#] neglected and I cleaned it and
restrung it for them and it turns into like basically brand new again.
Make sure you change
the strings.
Tip number two, this one is really subjective, but I put it down on the list because
I personally find it [B] to be important.
Figuring out what your motive is.
Why do you want to become
better at guitar?
You're probably watching this video because you want to become a better guitar
player and [G#m] a better musician.
Do [D#m] you want to join a band?
Do you want to do it for fun just to [B] play
for family and friends?
Are you looking to become a professional and turn this into a career or are
you looking to make [F#] YouTube videos?
[G#] I don't know who [B] would ever want to do that, but I [C#] think that
finding what your [C] motive is and why you want to get better is going to [D#m] help you, you know, set
your [D#] end goals and then [B] you can start to gradually figure out the steps on how to get [C#] there.
Tip
number three, I absolutely love this one, [E] is learn songs [F#] that you're into.
Learn [G#] things that are going
to make it fun for you because [F#] it's really easy to get burnt out if you just stick to like chords
and basics and stuff.
I used to teach lessons and a major [G#] complaint that I would always get [C#] from
students when they started [B] working with me is that they would get really burnt [D#] out learning chords
and [D] scales that weren't enjoyable to them.
So [F#] what we did was we [D#] would learn the foundation for a
song and then start applying it to [C#m] songs that they really liked.
I had a student that really
loved learning Avenged Sevenfold [E] songs and we had a [F#] complete blast of learning those [G#m] together and it
made the process really enjoyable for both of [C#] us.
So I would say that's a really big one guys, learn
the [F#] basics and then apply it to songs you love and then it'll make everything just so much more fun.
Tip [G#m] number four, everyone asks me this a million [F#] times, how do I get faster?
How do I increase my
[B] speed?
How do I increase my accuracy?
Kind of how I've always done it [G#] is taking a song, you learn
the parts, you get it really tight on maybe [B] half or quarter speed and then you start [C#] to gradually
speed it up and increase that.
I already mentioned Guitar Pro tab software in this.
I would get the
interactive tabs off of ultimateguitar [G#].com for something that I wanted [E] to use and then I would
just decrease the speed of the playback and [F#] you know just gradually [G#m] increase it and get more
accurate, more precise.
[F#] That was a really big one when I was learning my Through the Fire [E] and Flames
cover a couple [B] months ago because so many of those parts are almost [F#] indistinguishable at full [B] speed
and you really need to slow it down, break it down in order to get those accurately.
Tip number five,
this is probably my favorite one of the entire [E] list and that's record [F#] yourself.
I record myself
[G#m] every single day and I'm constantly [C#] listening back to my playing, you know watching a video of my
playing and critiquing it and I think that that's a really [F#] really good way to get better.
[G#m] Compare
yourself to guitar players or [B] other musicians that you look up to and be like [F#] okay I'm not playing
this the way that they are, how can I improve that?
This is what they're doing differently than I am.
You don't need a fancy recording setup to do this, you can honestly just do it on your cell phone.
Take a [B] video of yourself even if it's not the greatest and then you can [F#] start to you know make
the steps to tighten your playing up.
I love the whole recording yourself thing because I think it
forces yourself to be critical on your playing and [F#] you know to tighten things up and get to where
you want to be.
That brings us to the [D#m] sponsor of today's video guys, Skillshare.com. I absolutely
love this website.
I wanted to work with them for a long time because I love what they do.
The best
way that I could explain it is it's basically just a giant knowledge exchange hub [E] where professionals
in various industries like tech, music, [D#m] production, sharing [G#] their knowledge as professionals and
helping [B] everyone just increase their skill [E] set.
When I make my YouTube videos I [F#] have to do so many
different things from editing video, recording [B] audio, taking and editing pictures which I've been
really into lately and it all comes together into the final product.
Skillshare is honestly one [D#] of
the most affordable [F#] websites that offer this [G#m] service.
It's about $10 a month for the premium
[B] subscription which gives you access to everything on the [F#] website.
I've personally been [B] using it for
Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom tutorials [B] because I've been getting really into photography.
[F#] First
500 of you guys to click my [C#] link in the description down below are going to get two months of premium
access to everything for free.
See if you like it.
I think a lot of you guys will love this.
Thank you so much Skillshare for sponsoring this video.
Let's get [E] back to the list.
Tip number six
is a bit more advanced.
Once you become [F#] kind of a little more [G#] established as a musician, learn to
collaborate with others.
Maybe [D#] work in a band setting.
Collaborate [E] with people online because
we have the ability to do that now and it's amazing.
[D#m] This is going to [G#] really diversify you
and make you a more valuable asset to a team.
If you [B] become really good at this people are going
to want to work with you a lot.
One thing I [F#] really love about collaboration is kind of exchanging of
skills with people.
I love working with a new guitar player, a new vocalist, a new producer that
I've never worked with before and we can kind of share [G#m] knowledge.
Tip number seven and this might
be a bit funny coming from me because [C#] I used to go completely against this.
Know when to show off
your skills and know when to kind of hold it down and really serve a song.
I've mentioned this in
some of my recent covers where I've talked about why I'm not playing crazy guitar [A#] over stuff and
I'm more so kind of holding it down and serving the song.
[D#] Bands are going to love that.
People
are going to want [B] to work with you a lot more and there's always going to be time to show off what
you've learned.
Tip number eight.
[G#] This is kind of cheesy but I find it to be really important.
Enjoy [B] the process.
If you're looking to become a professional [E] you might not make money at it at
first and you need to kind [F#] of just enjoy doing what you love to do.
The first few years that I
was making videos I made absolutely no money from it.
I just really loved doing it and I loved working
with my [F#] friends on it.
It was just a fun thing for us to do but it's very important to you know
just enjoy every [B] part about the process and enjoy [E] doing something that you're [D#m] very passionate about.
[G#] That pretty much concludes this video guys.
I hope that [B] some of these tips really helped [F#] you
you know maybe get [B] some insight into becoming [E] a better guitar player and a better [F#] musician.
Maybe [G#] help you bypass like I said some of the mistakes that [B] I've made along the way.
I want to
give a big shout out to my Patreon supporters as always.
You guys are a [F#] massive reason why I can [G#m] put
out so many videos and keep [B] increasing the quality of them like the music video we just [F#] released for
my single Home.
If you guys are interested in seeing what I offer on Patreon you can check
the link in the description down below.
Got tons of cool stuff on there like my music archive, my
tabs [E] archive, phone calls, much more.
As always thank you guys so [F#] much for watching and I'll see [G#m] you in the next one.
[G#m] _ _ [B] _ _ _ _ [E] _ _ _ _
_ _ [F#] _ _ [G#m] _ _ _ [N] _