Advanced Guitar Coaching


EVER WONDERED HOW GREAT PLAYERS BECOME GREAT?

Is your playing stuck in a rut? Would you like to know how your favourite Guitar players developed their musical skills? Unable to break your speed barrier? Want to make your playing stand out from the crowd? Lack of Theory holding your playing back? Are you an Advanced Player having trouble with a specific technique? Maybe you want to go Professional OR are in preparation for an Advanced Grading?

Acoustic Guitar The fact of the matter is that whether novice, intermediate or Advanced you need to be careful when choosing advice regarding your practice routines.
Nobody wants to practice in ways that don’t yield maximum results in the shortest time and it’s a sad truth that much of the huge amount of Guitar information available today (some not all!) is rife with practice myths and misconceptions, often if you look enough you will even find conflicting views on the same subject!
There are some things that you can only learn from someone who understands the philosophy and mind-set behind becoming an outstanding Guitarist and yes that’s right – playing Guitar is a mind-set also, you’re only ever going to be as good as your mind-set allows.

Breaking down these sorts of psychological barrier, learning how to increase your ability to focus (which can help in cutting down on mistakes), spotting and correcting “sloppy” playing which can become ingrained through incorrect technique, adding Theory to your knowledge base (useful for so many different reasons I couldn’t list them all here!) is all part of what forms the philosophy that HUBRIS Advanced Guitar Tuition is based on.

It’s about kicking open the doors of your potential, finally understanding what it was that was holding your playing back and brushing it off!

When I said earlier that you need to be careful when picking advice on how to practice, here’s some examples of the kind of advice that I took to be true when I began playing but which actually made improving my technique and skills more difficult than it needed to be:

  1. ALWAYS play slowly if you want to be able to play fast Practising something at a slower tempo prevents ingraining mistakes and “sloppy” technique (especially when material is brand new) but at some point you need to push yourself “to the edge of your ability” in order to speed up and really excel as a player, speed is useful for reasons other than being able to “shred” – the faster your fingers can move accurately the better and with that in mind HUBRIS music has a number of sure ways to increase your speed and accuracy.
  2. ALWAYS hold your pick, left hand etc. “this way” be wary of the word “always”, there are no absolutes, there are more and less efficient techniques with no one way being the right way! Eg. things like your individual hand size and shape can make a big difference, also a specific technique might work better with a different pick hold, it all depends on you the player. How you hold your pick and place your left/right hand can be as unique as you are.
  3. NEVER play scales/arpeggios etc. using distortion If your favoured style of music uses distorted Guitar sounds then it stands to reason that part of mastering that style is mastering the sound that comes with it. Eg. Playing with distortion makes you realise the importance of muting with your pick hand and so forth, a heavily distorted Guitar sound without some applied muting can sound “messy”, you wouldn’t know this unless you practised with the sound.
  4. Learning Theory will ruin my Creativity and Originality Learning Music Theory is like learning to read and write a language, the greater your knowledge of it the greater the breadth of what you can express through that language will be. In short it opens doors to avenues of expression that you may never have known existed otherwise.
    • You have to Practice “X” number of hours a day for “X” number of years to be really good

    Only partially true! As shown above its quite easy to practice yourself into a dead end as a result of bad advice, the wrong mind-set or lack of direction (to name a few) – The key is to find the most efficient and effective ways to use the practice time you have.


Unbalanced Practice Regimes

Another incredibly common factor affecting those intermediate/advanced players that feel they have hit a wall with their playing is Unbalanced Practice Routines.

Making a large amount of progress in some areas and not others makes your Guitar playing unbalanced because the skills that progress disproportionately fast too others can never be applied fully eg. Playing fast is pointless without the accuracy to articulate phrases etc. at speed. Working on your upper speed limit while neglecting to work on your accuracy while playing at that speed is therefore very counter productive.

This tends to occur for a number of reasons but at the top of the list is:

The Guitarist making the incorrect assumption that they must learn and master certain skills before beginning to practice others – to excel, avoiding this kind of linear (one thing following another) approach to your practice routine is very important! You would be amazed at the phenomenal progress you can make with a properly optimised Practice Regime tailored to your specific needs!

So this is what it all comes down to; you might be hardworking, dedicated and passionate about your playing but, I’m sorry, you will never reach that upper level, that professional, beyond Grade 8 level of skill and finesse if you are practising in the wrong way!

If you have a “Hit a Wall” as a player, if your finding that a burning passion is not enough or if you are looking to push to that next level then I believe I can help – I’ve been there!, I’ve felt the frustration and I’ve pushed through it to become a Grade 8 professional musician with over 20 yrs of experience. Truth be told, with the right guidance, techniques can often be learned quickly and easily, problems can be surpassed simply, practices can be streamlined to balance your playing or improve a specific area you want to focus on or MASSIVELY cut down on the amount of time it takes you to hit your musical goals and so much more…

Keep Shredding!

Matt (HUBRIS music)
Mob: 07450 215 271

For more information OR if you have any questions about Practice Regimes, How the sessions Work or anything else why not call, text or message (using the contact form below) with any questions.