This article is all about your guitar skills and strengths.
Specifically, I want you to identify what are your strengths so you can build you guitar playing development
because you’re going to get more progress, more quickly and with what feels fewer efforts
when you built your guitar trajectory on your strong side and less on your weaknesses.
You can create this diagram below for you to fill out so you can analyze your characteristics as a guitar player and
identify the best of them to be focused on.
This way you’ll get to deeply understand what are your “sweet spots” as a guitar player.
Building a guitar playing on your strengths is vital to your success.
Eric Clapton in Heavy Metal?
Let’s take for example Eric Clapton, who is undoubtedly one of the best known and most influential guitarists in rock and pop.
You will not find Eric Clapton’s super fast solos because he is not that kind of guitarist.
And he also knows that the features that distinguish him from others are his melodic lines,
the phrasing, his precise articulation that makes all his guitar solos exciting
without fluffy extra notes and others technical abilities.
Therefore, if you are a guitarist of this type, heavy metal may have been a little harder for you to get by because some of the aesthetics of the genre rely on lightning speed picking, sweep, tapping and other unique techniques.
So what you should decide to do?
Obviously, it’s not to practice on your weaknesses day in and day out and to get something
that is not naturally a strength for you but to work on the aspects of your guitar playing
that are your strengths to make sure you avoid those unnecessary challenges.
A common mistake of many guitar players
This attitude to your guitar skills is a difference to how many guitar players approach their guitar playing.
Many guitarists who are not mature enough guitarists thinking like:
“ Oh I’m not good at ……..so I need to spend an enormous amount of time to become…well, still not very good at that.”
On the other hand,
If you work on those things that are in your wheelhouse that are naturally easy for you to do,
and you strengthen those, you’ll find that you can become one of the best in this and more than that,
you’ll sound as close to yourself.
The tricky hidden guitar skills
One of the most tricky parts of it is that your strengths are often hidden in plain sight because those are things that come easily to you and because of that fact you tend not to pay attention to them and to appreciate yourself of doing them with excellence.
The truth is that is not easy for everyone, but for you it is.
Questions for you to identify your strengths:
- What do others people around you say you’re naturally good at?
- What were you good at as a kid/guitar student?
- What do you learn quickly?
- What comes easily to you that’s difficult to others?
You don’t need to replicate others style but to look inside of you and find out what are those things that you do,
that you enjoy, that comes easy to you, and then you can build your guitar figure around it.
This way, the people that listen to your guitar playing can see and sense that you are authentic,
and try to impact them with a truth and unique music present you have in your hand.
The diagram of your guitar strengths
This diagram designed to let you understand where is this intersection is between three parts of your past
that is the highest likelihood of holding these little characteristics of you as a guitar player
with which you can distinguish yourself from others guitarists.
This intersection is your successful spot.
The first circle is your experience or your skills
The second circle is your education and your knowledge – whether is in a structured environment or whether you were a self-thought
The third circle is all about your natural abilities and your talents
So with all of the three circles, you can analyze your past and your kind of uniqueness.
The overlapping space is where you feel most natural and confident and able to capture your full potential as a guitarist very effectively.
Conclusion
Double down on your talent,
It’s important things for you to realize and it takes a soul investigation.
You’ve got to dig in and to understand who you are, what comes naturally to you, what have you done than most of the people.
Be in alignment with this “best zone” you created out of all the three categorize.
When you find it for yourself, you’ll be able to deliver your message to the world much more clearly
