New Year’s Resolutions to Get Better at Guitar • Acoustic Tuesday 123

I’m allergic to New Year’s resolutions…HOWEVER, I am all for New Year’s resolutions that are guitar-geek focused!

This week on Acoustic Tuesday, I’m giving you 10 guitar geek New Year’s resolutions. Each one is designed to give you ideas and help you see how 2020 can be your best year on guitar.

As always, you can watch Acoustic Tuesday at 10am every Tuesday.

This Week on Acoustic Tuesday

I know everyone is excited about the New Year. What I’m most excited about is how 2020 is going to be your best year of guitar playing yet!

I’m going to offer 10 New Year’s resolution ideas that cover everything like…

• guitar maintenance
• personal growth
• practicing fundamentals
• and so much more!

Without further ado, here are my 10 guitar geek New Year’s resolutions!

10 – More Diligent Guitar Care

An easy guitar geek New Year’s resolution can be taking better care of your guitars.

To learn more about some of my favorite polish made by the folks at Music Nomad, check out this video.

9 – Record Your Guitar Playing

For a bolder New Year’s resolution, you can set a goal to record yourself playing guitar. When you record yourself playing, you actually allow yourself to become a better guitar player — here’s how…

It plays into one of my pillars of guitar practice: Reflect and Evaluate. By recording yourself, you can see opportunities for growth, while also allowing yourself to celebrate small wins.

So, for 2020, highly consider recording your guitar playing as your New Year’s resolution.

For ideas, Reverb has a great video tutorial on how to record yourself with an acoustic guitar.

8 – See A Live Show

Even if you don’t pick this as an official New Year’s resolution, seeing a live show has enormous impacts on your guitar playing.

Not only is it an enjoyable experience you can share with friends or family, but you can also see live performances of your favorite songs from your favorite artists!

I had this happen to me when I saw Charlie Parr and Dead Horses a few weeks ago … and they actually invited me up to play!!!

Here’s some footage of that awesome night.https://www.youtube.com/embed/_apaOHgRANI?feature=oembed

7 – Learn Basic Acoustic Guitar Setup

A great New Year’s resolution for getting better at guitar is to have the confidence to set up your guitar. Stew Mac has great videos on guitar maintenance that you absolutely should check out.

There are a lot of great resources out there to learn basic acoustic guitar setup. I have some great videos on changing your strings, as well as plenty more guitar maintenance videos.

6 – Plan A Guitar Geek Day Trip Or Vacation

For a New Year’s resolution you can share with family and friends, try planning a day trip or vacation to a culturally historic or significant place for guitar geeks.

Whether this means taking a trip to the Delta Blues Museum or going to a guitar maker in your town, this New Year’s resolution can include all your friends and family. It doesn’t have to be extravagant, but make sure you have fun!

5 – Teach A Guitar Lesson

Regardless of where you are on your guitar journey, I want you to check out this video from Victor Wooten: https://youtu.be/3yRMbH36HRE

Music is a language, and we are all teachers and students.

For your New Year’s resolution, consider showing another guitar player a new chord, technique, or more. In fact, Billy Strings absolutely drives this point home, so be sure to check out that clip in the video!

4 – Volunteer Your Musical Offerings

Sharing your music is one of the most incredibly powerful things you can share with someone. For your New Year’s resolution, why not volunteer your guitar playing to a charity event, an elderly care facility, or a school.

3 – Attend Or Play An Open Mic

This can be a big obstacle for many guitar players. However, playing or attending an open mic is a great way to meet fellow guitar geeks and learn tons of new techniques.

For your New Year’s resolution, really think about attending an open mic — and if you need motivation, bring a friend or your spouse along!

2 – Focus On A Specific Artist or Technique For The Year

If you are interested or fascinated by a specific player, why not focus on their style and learn it as your New Year’s resolution?

In fact, if you’re interested in the blues at all, I have a free 5-day blues challenge coming up in January. You’ll learn a new 12-bar blues progression each day for 5 days, how to infuse licks into rhythm guitar, and so much more! Details coming soon!

1 – Make fun your main objective on the guitar

Whether you want to or not, this NEEDS to be at least one of your New Year’s resolutions. There’s no reason you should delay fun on the guitar.

Until next week, keep on plucking