{"id":6956,"date":"2016-09-25T23:56:23","date_gmt":"2016-09-26T06:56:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/?p=6956"},"modified":"2016-09-25T23:56:23","modified_gmt":"2016-09-26T06:56:23","slug":"how-to-practice-without-your-guitar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/how-to-practice-without-your-guitar\/","title":{"rendered":"How To Practice Without Your Guitar"},"content":{"rendered":"

At some point most all of us go through a time when we’d love to play… but just can’t.<\/p>\n

Often it’s some sort of medical thing, or maybe it’s an extended vacation or a family thing – whatever it is the end result is the same… you’re not going to be on the guitar for a while \ud83d\ude41<\/p>\n

And while that might seem like the end of it, there are a few different things you can do while your guitar waits for you to return:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Theory Time – Now is the perfect time to brush up (or start) on your music theory<\/a>. Improving your understanding of music is never a bad thing, but it often takes a back burner to technique and learning songs. So when you can’t do those things, theory becomes high on your list.<\/li>\n
  2. Counting \u00a0– You’ll hear me speak about active listening and this is a great time for it. Listen to a song and try to hear where the downbeats are. Try to count out loud and subdivide the beat into triplets, eighth notes, or sixteenth notes (whatever makes sense.) This is improving your ear which is much more important than your fingers when it comes down to playing faster and more in control.<\/li>\n
  3. Working Your Ear – Listen to songs and try to imagine what the chords are without a guitar in your hands. In a blues, try to know what the I chord is, the IV chord, and the V chord. It doesn’t really matter if you’re right or wrong, the process of trying to guess will do a ton for your ability to listen through the mix of a song.<\/li>\n
  4. Maintenance – Ever wanted to learn how to adjust the neck or intonate your guitar? Now might be a good time. I say, “might,” because often working on a guitar involves play-testing it and if you truly can’t play, that might not work out. But if you’re able to maybe at least pick it up and strum something you can check your work.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Of course, there may be other elements I haven’t thought of… so if you have something leave your suggestions in the comments below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    At some point most all of us go through a time when we’d love to play… but just can’t. Often it’s some sort of medical thing, or maybe it’s an extended vacation or a family thing – whatever it is the end result is the same… you’re not going to be on the guitar for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6956"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6957,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6956\/revisions\/6957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}