A lot of people has heard of the saying “Practice Makes Perfect”, and that is the biggest lie I’ve ever heard.

Practice makes permanent, not perfect. You practice the wrong way for 20 years, you are going to play the wrong way for the next 20 years.

My goal in this post is to give you some very effective practice tips that will whip your playing into shape, but keep you safe.

“All I’m doing is practicing the guitar, what’s so unsafe about that?”

I’m glad you asked!

I started noticing a reoccurring theme among veteran players that I used to see play. A lot of them complained of hand and wrist fatigue. A lot of them had to where braces while playing, because they’ve spent years practicing the wrong way, and now they have carpel tunnel.

Playing the guitar can add a lot of strain on your muscles and tendons within your hand and wrist. So it’s very important that you take your practicing time very seriously. Use it as a time to sharpen your musical abilities, but also use it as a way to get your hands into shape.

Would you repeatedly go out and try to bench press 500 pounds, if you’ve never worked out before? No!

Because you could wind up killing yourself. But if you go out without proper training, conditioning and warming up, you can kill your chances at becoming the Rockstar of your dreams.

Exercise 1 – Stretch, Stretch, Stretch

Don’t dare pick up the guitar until you’ve spent at least 5 minutes stretching your hand. This will loosen up your muscles and tendons, and get the blood flowing to your hands. This is imperative to having endurance in your playing. Muscles need oxygen, and the blood it what get’s it there. So stretch your fingers, hands, wrist, and forearms.

Exercise 2 – Timing, Timing, Timing

Get a metronome, always play with a metronome, live, breath, eat with a metronome. You have to develop your timing. That’s the most important part about being a musician. That’s what set’s the greats, from the wannabe guitarist.

If you ever think that you don’t need a metronome, then you show your inexperience.

Exercise 3 – Use chromatic scales

These are no brainier exercises, with the sole purpose of conditioning your hands in mind. ItÆs the quickest way to increase your speed and dexterity, and since you donÆt have to worry about what whether or not you’re playing the right note; it’s and easy exercise you can do anywhere, anytime.

I used to sit for hours a day just practicing the chromatic exercise below, and I owe my speed and agility to just that one exercise.

Practice this every single day, and you’ll be able to zip around the fretboard in no time flat.

E|—————————————–1-2-3-4———-|
B|———————————1-2-3-4——————|
G|————————-1-2-3-4————————–|
D|—————–1-2-3-4———————————-|
A|———1-2-3-4——————————————|
E|-1-2-3-4————————————————–|

Once you play this then, reverse it:

E|-1-2-3-4——————————————|
B|———1-2-3-4———————————-|
G|—————–1-2-3-4————————–|
D|————————-1-2-3-4——————|
A|———————————1-2-3-4———-|
E|—————————————–1-2-3-4–|

Always practice using alternate picking!

Once you’ve done both of those exercise, then move everything up one fret and play it again. Once you’ve don’t that, then move everything up a fret and play it again.

Try to work all the way up the 11 fret and back down again.

If you start feeling a burn (which you will), then finish that exercise, and then stretch your arms, wrist, and fingers before continuing.

If you follow these tips then you’ll be the Schwarzenegger of monster guitar solos.

Your tone determines your greatness. If you have great tone, then you really don’t have to be the best guitarist in the world, but you’ll get respect.

Guitarist are on a never ending search for THE tone.

Even the rock greats like Clapton, are constantly changing their guitars, effects, amps, anything to make that slight difference in their tone so they can be 100% satisfied.

One note on a rig that has superb tone, will always beat out a thousand notes on an “ok” rig.

So what I want to cover in this post is a few ways to get the perfect tone you’ve been searching for, even if you’re on a budget.

Start With The Wood -

The type of wood that makes up your guitar, is going to drastically effect the tone. The two most common woods used for the fret board of a guitar is maple (light, blonde color), and rosewood (a dark, brown color).

Maple woods are always going to be brighter. Think the brighter the color, the brighter the tone. You’re going to get a lot more clarity in your playing, and a ton that will cut through the mix.

Maple woods are used in a wide variety of guitars, in a wide variety of styles.

In country, you’ll have a twangier sounding axe. In reggae, a nice poppy, crisp tone. Throw a Fender Strat with a maple neck through a fender deluxe reverb, and you’ll have one of the most beautiful rhythm tones that’s ever been made.

Rosewood fretboards – Raw, gritty, fat, rich, and my personal favorite.

Think of the tone of Stevie Ray Vaughn. The way the guitar growled at you. Rosewoods are going to give you a fatter tone. Very common in 60Æs era Strats and Gibsons.

If you want a guitar tone that’ll bite you, then go with a Rosewood fret board. Just don’t go cheap!

Maple necks are often times finished which will lead to a somewhat smoother playing experience.

Rosewoods are unfinished, and on cheaper guitars often very dry. This can be irritating for the guitarist.

But a rosewood fret board on a nice high end guitar is pure ecstasy.

Next The Pick-Ups -

For the most part you have two choices. Single coil, or hum buckers. Single coils are versatile, and is going to give you a lot of clarity in the playing, but hum buckers are going to give you a nice fat, rich tone.

What a hum bucker is, is basically two single coils stacked side-by-side. This doubles the signal, thus doubling the fatness of the tone.

Hum buckers are going to give you a very big sounding tone. Great for jazz, heavy rock, or anything that you want to get some chunk out of your guitar.

Single coils tend not to hold extreme high gain situations very well, but they make for some of the best rhythm tones.

Single coil pickups really shine through any Class A/B tube amps, like the fender series amps, although they sound amazing through Class A amps like your Vox and Marshalls.

There’s Only One Choice For Your Amp –

Tube! Nothing but tube, and don’t even think about using anything else. If you have more of a strat style guitar, I would suggest sticking to the Fender Series amps.

I personally don’t like using hum buckers, or any of your Les Paul type guitars through Fender Amps, because I find it to brittle sounding. For your Gibson type guitars I would suggest sticking with a Vox, or you could even go with a Marshall (although they’re quality has significantly dropped in recent years).

Use effects very sparingly. Most people try to use effects to get tones, and that’s not what they are designed to be. They are to enhance the tone that you already have. So start with your guitar, and amp first.

That’s like saying I’m going to dump salt on cheap steak to make it taste like a t-bone. Just start with a better cut of meat, and chances are you don’t even need to add seasonings.

I’ve dedicated this post to the most important decision you’ll ever make in your life. How to chose the perfect rock guitar for under $500.

This is a subject that shouldn’t be taken lightly, because current statistics prove that the your guitar will out last your first marriage 10 to 1!

After owning a very decent collection of guitars in my day, I wanted to pass on some knowledge that will help your buying decision, and give you some tips that will make sure that with whatever you decide to purchase you’ll be happy.

Let’s begin:

1st step to choosing the perfect guitar – Opt for tone over looks any day!

Whether you’re new to the guitar or not, it’s easy to get caught up in a guitar that ‘looks cool’, but rest assured after you lay out the dough for that axe the hype will quickly fade if it sounds like crap.

Tone is king. Nothing will make the worlds greatest guitarist sound like horrible faster than a crappy sounding guitar. Not only for the obvious reasons (it sounds like crap), but because it’s near impossible to play good on a rig that you’re not 100% satisfied with.

The licks you used to be able to shred through with ease now sounds like pure mush, and that KILLS your confidence no matter how good of a player you are.

Lack of confidence means hesitation. That hesitation will make you sound sloppy, which will soon bring an overwhelming embarrassment that will take weeks to recover from.

If you’re looking at a guitar in the entry level market ($500 or less) then I would highly suggest staying away from Ibanez, Jackson, Danelectro, or any type of flying V, SG, or explorer type bodies.

Although these companies/brands have some sought after models in the higher price range, the cheaper counter parts have second rate electronics. (aka – crap tone)

2nd step to choosing the perfect guitar – Cheap guitar shouldn’t equal cheap craftsmanship!

The first thing you should always do is tune up the guitar (with an actual tuner, not your ear!). Play around with it, and play hard. Then re-check the tuning after about 10 minutes. If there is a drastic difference in the pitch, then that’s a little indicator that the guitar isn’t made well at all.

Itís normal for a guitar, even expensive ones, to lose tune in music shops. This is caused from dead, old, strings that are either rusted or have a years worth of caked on finger grease.

But if after playing it for ten minutes, it’s so out of tune that you can’t even distinguish what key you’re playing in, then you need to set that guitar down, and run far, far away.

This could be cause from defective hardware, often times cheap or improperly installed tremolo systems.

That’s a problem that you can not fix without paying almost as much for the repair as you did for the entire guitar in the first place.

My recommendation: If you want a good entry level guitar, that you can make sure will sound great, play great, and it’s something that you can actually keep long term, then look at a Jimmy Vaughn Signature Fender Strat.

This would be my first go to guitar for under $500 hands down. It’s built to last, sounds great, and no matter what style you want to play you’ll feel comfortable playing it on that.

Now if you want to up your budget a little bit, then we can definitely get you into an axe thatís tailored made for you, but we’ll have to deal with that on another post.