Unlock Your Guitar: Strategic Practice for Real-World Playing

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Ever felt that frustrating disconnect between what you practice and what you can actually play in the moment? Steve Stein tackles one of the most overlooked aspects of guitar mastery: the crucial difference between long-term practice and short-term play strategies.

Discover why most guitarists struggle with confidence when called to play in different keys. Steve reveals how our typical approach of learning "positions" creates a fragmented understanding that falls apart under pressure. The solution? A complete visualization approach that transforms how you see the fretboard. Rather than memorizing disconnected patterns, Steve shows how developing a "holistic visual" of scales in specific "vehicle keys" builds the foundation for genuine musical freedom.

The conversation takes a practical turn when addressing those inevitable moments when we must perform before we've fully developed our skills. Steve shares tactical approaches for navigating unfamiliar musical territory without the stress of feeling completely lost. This balanced methodology acknowledges both the ideal (complete mastery) and the reality (sometimes we need to make music right now). You'll learn how to make smart decisions about which elements deserve your deeper practice time based on your actual playing situations.

Whether you're struggling with scales, improvisation, or simply feeling lost on the fretboard, this episode offers a refreshing perspective that will transform your practice routine and boost your playing confidence. For those ready to take the next step, Steve introduces the Guitar Zoom Academy as a resource for personalized guidance through this process of building both long-term mastery and practical playing skills.

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
Hey, steve Stine here from GuitarZoom.
I'd like to talk to you aboutlong-term practice versus
short-term play and what thedifferences and how that might
be beneficial for you, dependingon what your goals are.
So I'm gonna take an example ofscales.
Okay, so the longest term playwhich I'll probably be dead

(00:20):
before then would be I wannalearn every scale ever in every
key ever and visualize themperfectly on my fretboard.
That would be the longest termplay and that would negate
everything else that I wouldneed to work on as a guitar
player.
But let's just use that as anexample.
So we scale that down and westart being more realistic.

(00:43):
Okay, I want to learn how tosee the pentatonic minor scale
absolutely, without question,automatically, across my entire
fretboard, and I'm going to usethe key of A minor or D minor or
something like that as myvehicle to learn this.

(01:04):
Okay, one thing I want to sayto you that I firmly believe is
true, and you might disagreewith me, but we often, as guitar
players and as guitarinstructors, use terms like well
, if you wanted to play in thekey of B minor, all you do is
move everything up.
Okay, that's from A minor, forinstance, and there is truth to

(01:25):
that, but the reality is is whenyou move things on the
fretboard, everything gets kindof garbled up in your mind.
It may be not for you, but formost people that's the way it
works, and so that would be ashort term play, and we'll get
to that in a second.
But what I want you to thinkabout is if somebody called out

(01:45):
a key and you wanted toimprovise in that key so the key
of G major the first thingyou'd think is what do I know
about that key?
Let's say you were going to tryand solo over the top of that.
So what do I know about thatkey visually on my fretboard?
And you either know it in aconfident, absolute, holistic

(02:06):
visual of your fretboard or youknow little pieces, components,
right, I know this position, Ikind of know this position.
I can't really see this one.
And then that's oftentimeswhere you run into problems.
When you're trying to jam withpeople, certainly when you're
trying to play on stage, yourconfidence level goes down
because you're not exactly sure,but yet you feel obligated as a

(02:28):
guitar player to try and doeverything.
So you go into these placeswhere mistakes might potentially
happen, and then you knoweverything starts falling apart.
So what I want you to thinkabout is this long-term play.
If you decided to choose aparticular scale, a particular
key as the vehicle so I want tolearn major pentatonic but I'm

(02:48):
going to use G as my vehicle.
Or I want to learn minorpentatonic because I play a lot
of rock and metal stuff and I'mgoing to use E minor as my
vehicle Okay, that's fine,whatever.
And I'm going to use E minor asmy vehicle Okay, that's fine,
whatever, whatever it is thatthat works for you.
And I guarantee you, if youspend enough time again large
picture, learning to visualizethe entire fretboard, not just

(03:13):
little components I kind of knowthis sort of know this and you
have to be honest with yourselfwith this kind of mentality you
know you.
You either really really doknow it or you really don't.
So you sort of know it.
That's kind of a short-termplay and again, we'll get to
that in a second.
So in the long-term play youwant to keep developing that, so
you can just go anywhere in thekey of E minor and you're

(03:37):
golden.
It doesn't matter where you go,you've got this whole thing
developed.
And then maybe you choose adifferent key, like A minor.
Now, again, we can use thatslide rule mentality.
Well, we can just move it down,but the truth is it's still
going to lack thiscomfortability, this confidence,
this automation that your Eminor does, because you can see

(03:58):
it as a big picture.
And that's why I try and getpeople to understand from the
big perspective.
Think about the keys, thinkabout the scales that are most
relevant to you, most pertinentto you, most interesting to you,
and start working those out ina long-term play.
So when you look down, you wantto see G major.
You're not comparing it toother things, you just see G

(04:19):
major and it's right there.
Or you want A minor, and it'sright there, that's what it is,
okay.
So you're sort of marking off,checking off these important
keys that you play in a lot.
And yes, there areconsistencies and there are
relationships of these thingsand how they move around.
There's no doubt about it.
But the mentality is is if youcan learn to see it as an entire

(04:44):
component, it's way easier andthere's a lot more confidence in
that, because there's nothingto think about.
You're not trying to slide rulein your brain, you're just
doing it.
So that brings us to theshort-term play.
So the short-term play is forwhatever reason.
Us to the short-term play.
So the short-term play is forwhatever reason.
You need to be able to accessthis information right now.
Maybe you're jamming, maybeyou're going to get up and play
with a band and it's in aparticular key and maybe that's

(05:07):
not your home key, maybe that'snot your comfort key, right.
So now you're going to beplaying in the key of B flat or
something like that, and youalready know that there's
limitations on this, becausethis isn't something that you've
been working on on the biggerscale.
So you need to developshort-term plays, abilities of

(05:28):
maybe it's only a position or acouple of positions or some
visual element within thosepositions of our triads or
arpeggios or whatever it mightbe, the cage system or whatever
it is that's interesting to youand, again, relative to what you
see as valuable, and you don'tfeel bad about that, you're just

(05:49):
getting through the musicalsituation that you're finding
yourself in and every musiciandoes this.
It's the truth.
It doesn't mean that we're notgood or it just means, for this
particular moment in time,jamming this song with this band
on stage.
I don't have the entire thingworked out and I don't have time

(06:10):
to worry about it.
I can either say, no, I'm notgoing to do this, or yes, I'm
going to do this and I'm goingto minimize my full potential
here because I don't have accessto it.
So then when I get done, I canmake that sound as musical as I
possibly can with thisshort-term play, and then what I
can do is I can always go backto my bat cave and then make

(06:34):
decisions on whether or not thathas to become something of
priority.
Right, if all of a sudden, Istart playing in, you know, a
jazz band and we're playing in Bflat all the time, I now
recognize that that has tobecome something that I spend
more time with, as opposed to Eminor because I'm playing in a
rock band or a metal band or youknow again.
These are just examples, butyou get the idea.

(06:56):
So you have to make thesedecisions on things, and I think
it's really important tounderstand that in the real
world because we can say youknow, for the next year or
whatever, I want to work on thisand you should.
And I think that's wonderfuland I guarantee you, if you
really put the work in, youdevelop a higher level of

(07:16):
confidence in yourself becauseyou just don't question.
You're not constantlyquestioning, well, what does
this do?
And I can't remember how thisconnects together and whatever,
and you certainly don't want tobe thinking about that when you
jump on stage.
You've got to find a bettershort-term plan for that.
So, just letting you know, ifyou're interested, check out
Guitar Zoom Academy.
You can just look that up, do asearch for that.

(07:36):
These are the kind of thingsthat we work with with you is
understanding what and why andhow and making a game plan with
you and then working with youover the course of time to
develop whatever these thingsare that you find that are
necessary for you.
So if you're passionate andyou're frustrated and you love
playing guitar and it's time tomake a change, all you got to do

(07:58):
is reach out and let us know.
So, anyway, take care, staypositive and I'll talk.