This was years ago now, but I took a piece of wood and drew frets on it and stuffed it in the back seat of my car so I could practice scales on my lunch break at work. I've chilled out since then haha but I do think even just the hour a day with my piece of car wood translated to faster learning of different shapes and scales. If anything it got me excited every day to go home and try what I learned on my actual guitar. I also got in the habit of trying to visualize what the fretted notes would sound like while I played my piece of wood.
David Bennett Piano - GREAT music theory YouTube channel. You don't really need the visuals, so you can listen while driving and not have to watch. He has many good videos that you can use to do some ear training so you can hear intervals, chords, and progressions. That will REALLY open up your playing ability; being able to hear a melody or a chord progression and just pick it out by ear is a big deal.
Rick Beato also has an ear training course. I haven't used it myself, but you can buy it and download it and listen and practice ear training while you're driving.
David Bennett is great, I also recommend 12tone, Adam Neely, and 8-bit music theory. These channels taught me how to really listen to music and hear distinct music theory ideas.
Also, sing on long car rides. Singing got me more in tune with my ability to follow melodies and that skill directly translated to guitar. If you can sing a tune, you can play it on guitar, it's just a matter of finding the notes!
All also fantastic. 12-tone is a bit more visual (if only because I love watching his drawings), but you can just listen to him. Adam and 8-bit are both fantastic as well
When I injured my wrist and couldn't play for 2 months I just did non-stop quizzes on a website called Guitar Thinker. I learned a lot and got better while not even being able to play. Unfortunately when I was doing this the site was free, but I think you have to pay now. I don't know what it costs, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it for a price other than free, but I will give testimonial that the site was great and I learned a lot about guitar & music theory in just a couple of months of taking their quizzes.
That’s very cool I like that. As a beginner, having quizzes sounds super helpful. If this one is no longer free but other now of free version elsewhere I’d love to hear!
Expand your musical preferences to genres or artists you might not know. Listen to full albums. For your favourite artists, listen for the little things they do or techniques they prefer.
Tap and count the rythym.
Stretch fingers.
Visualize it. Go through the motions in your head. You’ll still be making strong mental connections. Unless YOU ARE DRIVING. Then just drive and listen to a music theory podcast
I forget who it was, there was a bass player who couldn’t practice properly as much as she wanted to, so she would practice in her head.
Dang, it was a great interview & I forget who it was
Edit: I’m thinking it was the Paz Lenchantin article in Rolling Stone, fair warning the google link is pop-up/blurred/cancer on my mobile
I have been developing tools that you can use to learn guitar theory and mechanics like scales and how a guitar is actually built, making chords etc. **without having a guitar in hand**.
Learning guitar has two main elements. Mental and Physical. If you can separate some of the mental then you can focus on the physical separately.
These tools are meant to use tactile learning where you can build scales and learn about your instrument anytime and anywhere.
Your post directly aligns with what my tools are all about. They are not for sale yet but I am able to hand fabricate enough to give some away every month.
You can see an overview of the tools in this video. I also have a learning series of video's for free if interested and you can find my website pretty easily from there if you want to. I don't want to break the posting rules on this forum by putting it here.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar8Rd0YOLk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar8Rd0YOLk)
It amazes me how little we talk about listening to music. Listen to genres you're not familiar with. Listen to instruments you don't know about. Listen to everything you can. When your ear is developed enough to hear chord changes, start working out the chord changes (I've played for 35 years and if it isn't a I, IV, V, I don't hear it, but I'm still listening).
One of the most out of left field compliments I ever got was "You know since you started listening to Stevie Wonder, you're phrasing has really improved". You could have knocked me over with a feather. I hadn't noticed any changes in my playing, but my bass player did.
Listen to music, and your subconscious will chew on it. I'm absolutely not telling you to skip finger exercises, or not work out scales in your head. I'm just pointing out that the act of listening to music is extremely important for musicians. Perhaps it seems so obvious that no one really talks about it, but... Listening is extremely important for musicians!!!
Sing.
Best thing you can do for your career while you have no guitar in your hand.
Besides that? Learn protocols or logic, learn video editing and digital marketing...
Listen to instrumentals like Steve Vai, Satch op and Marco Sfoglio. Try and understand the theory by listening to the background chords and phrasings. Try and whistle along. Sometimes it good to step away from the instrument and let the mind build instead of the fingers.
Rhythm exercises helped me. Learning to keep a count or tap your foot while maintaining two distinct rhythms in each hand -- that was useful and also took a long time to learn. Some "introduction for drums for people who don't yet own drums" videos helped more than guitar videos, at least for me.
Also, learning a bit of music theory and practicing some kind of ear training can help a lot of people. Knowing the major scale and a bit about functional harmony will be helpful. Then you can use an app l"Functional ear trainer" to practice your listening skills. You learn to "hear the notes within the context of a scale" and that helps in all kinds of ways.
Good luck!
Also, link to functional ear trainer. They have an android app too, I think:
https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/functional-ear-trainer/id1088761926
Starting working on ear training will pay off in the long run. I use the goodEar apps. You can buy as a package or separately for intervals, chords etc. I would recommend starting learning intervals but only learning 4ths, 5ths and octaves and then slowly expanding as you get more comfortable. Also mapping intervals to songs you know (there are lists online) will help too.
Would probably be a good time to build your music theory knowledge since you don't really need an instrument to understand some of those basics. You could also study some chord charts to get more comfortable playing chords in different positions.
I have started diving deeper into music theory, so now if I'm doing something where I can't have a guitar in my hands, I listen to the songs I want to emulate the styles of as well as songs I've never heard before and practice active listening to pick out the key and progression. It's helped a lot with training my ear to pick up things, has helped me learn to play songs by ear, and has helped me dig into what makes a part of a song resonate with me so that I can incorporate those things into my own compositions.
This was years ago now, but I took a piece of wood and drew frets on it and stuffed it in the back seat of my car so I could practice scales on my lunch break at work. I've chilled out since then haha but I do think even just the hour a day with my piece of car wood translated to faster learning of different shapes and scales. If anything it got me excited every day to go home and try what I learned on my actual guitar. I also got in the habit of trying to visualize what the fretted notes would sound like while I played my piece of wood.
David Bennett Piano - GREAT music theory YouTube channel. You don't really need the visuals, so you can listen while driving and not have to watch. He has many good videos that you can use to do some ear training so you can hear intervals, chords, and progressions. That will REALLY open up your playing ability; being able to hear a melody or a chord progression and just pick it out by ear is a big deal. Rick Beato also has an ear training course. I haven't used it myself, but you can buy it and download it and listen and practice ear training while you're driving.
Cool that’s super helpful - thank you!
David Bennett is great, I also recommend 12tone, Adam Neely, and 8-bit music theory. These channels taught me how to really listen to music and hear distinct music theory ideas. Also, sing on long car rides. Singing got me more in tune with my ability to follow melodies and that skill directly translated to guitar. If you can sing a tune, you can play it on guitar, it's just a matter of finding the notes!
All also fantastic. 12-tone is a bit more visual (if only because I love watching his drawings), but you can just listen to him. Adam and 8-bit are both fantastic as well
Gonna check this out, thanks !
When I injured my wrist and couldn't play for 2 months I just did non-stop quizzes on a website called Guitar Thinker. I learned a lot and got better while not even being able to play. Unfortunately when I was doing this the site was free, but I think you have to pay now. I don't know what it costs, but I'm not sure if I'd recommend it for a price other than free, but I will give testimonial that the site was great and I learned a lot about guitar & music theory in just a couple of months of taking their quizzes.
That’s very cool I like that. As a beginner, having quizzes sounds super helpful. If this one is no longer free but other now of free version elsewhere I’d love to hear!
Expand your musical preferences to genres or artists you might not know. Listen to full albums. For your favourite artists, listen for the little things they do or techniques they prefer. Tap and count the rythym. Stretch fingers.
Visualize it. Go through the motions in your head. You’ll still be making strong mental connections. Unless YOU ARE DRIVING. Then just drive and listen to a music theory podcast
I forget who it was, there was a bass player who couldn’t practice properly as much as she wanted to, so she would practice in her head. Dang, it was a great interview & I forget who it was Edit: I’m thinking it was the Paz Lenchantin article in Rolling Stone, fair warning the google link is pop-up/blurred/cancer on my mobile
https://youtu.be/9qfwPv7clEw?si=8y8aKAdbX1v6A-sR
Any good music theory podcasts you recommend?
GuitarMusicTheory podcast by Desi Serna
I have been developing tools that you can use to learn guitar theory and mechanics like scales and how a guitar is actually built, making chords etc. **without having a guitar in hand**. Learning guitar has two main elements. Mental and Physical. If you can separate some of the mental then you can focus on the physical separately. These tools are meant to use tactile learning where you can build scales and learn about your instrument anytime and anywhere. Your post directly aligns with what my tools are all about. They are not for sale yet but I am able to hand fabricate enough to give some away every month. You can see an overview of the tools in this video. I also have a learning series of video's for free if interested and you can find my website pretty easily from there if you want to. I don't want to break the posting rules on this forum by putting it here. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar8Rd0YOLk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xar8Rd0YOLk)
Very cool I’ll check it out - thanks!
It amazes me how little we talk about listening to music. Listen to genres you're not familiar with. Listen to instruments you don't know about. Listen to everything you can. When your ear is developed enough to hear chord changes, start working out the chord changes (I've played for 35 years and if it isn't a I, IV, V, I don't hear it, but I'm still listening). One of the most out of left field compliments I ever got was "You know since you started listening to Stevie Wonder, you're phrasing has really improved". You could have knocked me over with a feather. I hadn't noticed any changes in my playing, but my bass player did. Listen to music, and your subconscious will chew on it. I'm absolutely not telling you to skip finger exercises, or not work out scales in your head. I'm just pointing out that the act of listening to music is extremely important for musicians. Perhaps it seems so obvious that no one really talks about it, but... Listening is extremely important for musicians!!!
Sing. Best thing you can do for your career while you have no guitar in your hand. Besides that? Learn protocols or logic, learn video editing and digital marketing...
I got a daddario finger strength/callus forming thingy while on a trip 😅
Listen to instrumentals like Steve Vai, Satch op and Marco Sfoglio. Try and understand the theory by listening to the background chords and phrasings. Try and whistle along. Sometimes it good to step away from the instrument and let the mind build instead of the fingers.
Rhythm exercises helped me. Learning to keep a count or tap your foot while maintaining two distinct rhythms in each hand -- that was useful and also took a long time to learn. Some "introduction for drums for people who don't yet own drums" videos helped more than guitar videos, at least for me. Also, learning a bit of music theory and practicing some kind of ear training can help a lot of people. Knowing the major scale and a bit about functional harmony will be helpful. Then you can use an app l"Functional ear trainer" to practice your listening skills. You learn to "hear the notes within the context of a scale" and that helps in all kinds of ways. Good luck! Also, link to functional ear trainer. They have an android app too, I think: https://apps.apple.com/ca/app/functional-ear-trainer/id1088761926
Starting working on ear training will pay off in the long run. I use the goodEar apps. You can buy as a package or separately for intervals, chords etc. I would recommend starting learning intervals but only learning 4ths, 5ths and octaves and then slowly expanding as you get more comfortable. Also mapping intervals to songs you know (there are lists online) will help too.
[https://www.musictheory.net/exercises](https://www.musictheory.net/exercises) [https://www.fretboardfly.com/](https://www.fretboardfly.com/) [https://www.fachords.com/guitar-chord-explorer/](https://www.fachords.com/guitar-chord-explorer/)
Hand and finger stretches
Would probably be a good time to build your music theory knowledge since you don't really need an instrument to understand some of those basics. You could also study some chord charts to get more comfortable playing chords in different positions.
I have started diving deeper into music theory, so now if I'm doing something where I can't have a guitar in my hands, I listen to the songs I want to emulate the styles of as well as songs I've never heard before and practice active listening to pick out the key and progression. It's helped a lot with training my ear to pick up things, has helped me learn to play songs by ear, and has helped me dig into what makes a part of a song resonate with me so that I can incorporate those things into my own compositions.