If you love playing guitar as much as I do, you’re probably eager to improve. For my part, I’m always looking to get a step ahead, to discover some new secret to guitar progress that I never would have thought of on my own.

If you’re a beginner guitarist who doesn’t want to stay a beginner for long, here are 5 guitar hacks you’ll be glad to know about!

The golden rule for making fast progress on the guitar is to play slowly. Slow playing is the shortest road to improvement.

The main reason slow practice works is because it allows you to play better (more accurately and musically) with less effort. The better your playing, the more you stand to improve. Once you’re playing a piece well at a slow tempo, speeding things up will feel easy and natural.

You’ll find that forcing speed just doesn’t work. The trick is to stay calm and focus on the accuracy of your movements. Once you learn accuracy, you’ll discover that fast playing is just around the corner. The key is to be patient and trust in the strategy.

Fortunately, you’ll find that slow playing is also quite peaceful. You won’t be making too many mistakes if you’re going slow, which means you’re less likely to get frustrated with yourself or the guitar. Ideally, you’ll be lulled into a sort of meditative state, where you feel content with the present moment.

If you want to learn more about the benefits of slow playing, you should check out this awesome video.

One mistake many beginner guitarists make is to practice in long, infrequent sessions. They’re likely to practice a few times a week rather than daily, and they’re not likely to pick up the guitar more than once a day.

The problem with longer sessions, especially for beginners, is that they can be boring and discouraging.

In addition, new guitar players often develop sloppy technique if they practice for too long at once. Maybe they sit with their back straight for the first ten minutes of a 1-hour session, but then they might get lazy and slouch for the next fifty minutes. In effect, they’re training a slouching posture.

Meanwhile, short sessions tend to be more focused. If you’re only practicing for 10 minutes, you’ll find it easier to meet your technical and musical goals. Plus, you’ll probably be leaving your sessions wanting more, which is always better than leaving with a bad taste in your mouth.

My advice to you is to forget about the total hours you put into the guitar. Some guitarists make a point to say they play 1-4 hours a day or more. What I’d have you do is simply practice as frequently as possible, and forget the hours.

Pick up the guitar for a few minutes morning, afternoon, and evening. See if you can’t do as many as 4 or 5 short practices every day. You’ll improve much faster if guitar time doesn’t feel like some foreign thing. Rather, it should be as natural a part of your day as eating, drinking, or socializing.

If you ever go to the gym, you know that most people work out their bodies in a similar way. They train each of their muscle groups separately, with each exercise divided into a certain number of sets, with a certain number of reps per set. For instance, you might see someone do 3 sets of 10 push-ups, then 3 sets of 25 crunches, and so forth.

Even though guitar playing is ultimately about making music, we still need to train up our physical playing mechanism.

Everyone knows that football players need to work out their bodies in order to play well come game time. So it is with guitarists. We need our hands and fingers to be nimble and strong, and the easiest way to make that happen is to work them out.

We tend to call these sorts of workouts “technical exercises.” We might isolate hammer-ons for five minutes, then pull-offs, and then do some plucking exercises with the right hand.

Suppose you specifically work on barre chords every day. You’ll soon find that whenever a barre chord comes up in a piece you’re playing, it’ll feel much easier.

After all, every barre chord relies on the same muscle groups, and if those muscles are strong, then barring will become effortless. (If you’re someone who struggles with barre chords, you should probably read this post).

The main thing is to hit the guitar gym as often as possible. If you give your hands and fingers a workout in the practice room, they won’t let you down during performances.

When you’re learning a new piece, one of the best ways to practice is to simply listen to it as often as possible.

For instance, if you’re learning to play “Imagine,” then you should listen to it over and over until John Lennon’s voice rings clearly in your head. Basically, you should know the song inside and out, from the melody line to the accompaniment.

This will accomplish a few things. For one, you’ll develop a strong opinion on how the piece ought to sound. This strong opinion will quickly manifest in the practice room, with you having an investment in playing each section perfectly.

The better you know a piece by ear, the more each small mistake will seem like a huge one, and the less of them you’ll be willing to make.

Another benefit that comes from listening is that it’s actually a really helpful form of practice all by itself. Remember that even if you see yourself as a guitar player, you’re really just a musician who plays the guitar. The key to improving as a musician? Study the music itself! This means you should set aside plenty of listening time.

If you feel like you’re too busy to listen to a lot of music, keep in mind that you can multi-task. Make a playlist of the songs you’re learning and play it on repeat while you’re cleaning, cooking, working out, walking, etc. I’ll often play music in the background while I’m playing with my cats!

Perhaps the biggest obstacle that many of us face is self-doubt. At times, we lack the belief in ourselves that’s needed to facilitate any sort of personal change. And yes, getting better at guitar playing really is just a form of self-transformation, and it’s one we should all embrace.

If you believe that you lack the natural talent to be a good player, your odds of becoming such a player will go down dramatically. If, on the contrary, you believe that you’re destined to be an excellent musician, then you’re halfway to becoming one in reality.

All of this is to say, what you habitually tell yourself about your guitar playing (your rate of progress, your potential, your natural ability, etc.) will go a long way in determining your musical destiny. The more negative narratives you form about yourself, the more obstacles you must overcome.

The simple truth is that mental obstacles are just as significant as physical obstacles, if not more so. If you can train yourself to believe that you will become all that you want to be as a guitarist, then you’ll be that much closer to making your dream a reality. For more on this line of thinking, I recommend you check out this post as well.