How do I improve my playing?
“I am a self-taught musician (playing drums, guitar and piano) and I‘ve been at it for five years now. For a while I thought I was doing ok and I was constantly trying to learn more, but last year I started to felt like I hadn’t been improving anymore. How do I get my playing really better?”
This is something I can strongly relate to. Every musician has these episodes of feelings, that there’s any progress happening. Let me share with you 3 things, that I perceive as very helpful and essential in this issue.
1. Take lessons from an actual teacher and not from YouTube. Videos are an amazing resource, but it won’t give you any feedback on how you are doing. You don’t have to spend all your money on a teacher, but take at least two or three lessons with them, because they can correct some badly taught habits and show you the right direction.
2. Practice daily. Yes, it can be painful, but with this routine, you will see the progress almost immediately – in music vocabulary it means “about two weeks”. 🙂
3. Start playing with more people. This works like some kind of magic, because you get totally different perspective than by playing alone and also it will motivate you to practice more.