Cameron Mizell

I’ve written an article for MusicianWages.com called “15 Guitar Tips for Non-Guitarists” geared towards professional musicians that are picking up the guitar as a secondary instrument. The article covers the basics: how to hold the guitar comfortably, strumming and picking techniques, and tips for playing chords. These are tips I give my beginning students as well, or even remind intermediate players from time to time.

As the title suggests, that article is written for non-guitarists–people that have a lot of experience learning another instrument and simply want to play some guitar as well. Here are some extra tips for beginners who have never learned another instrument. And although I’m writing with guitar students in mind, I believe these concepts can help relieve some of the frustration that comes with learning any instrument.

1. Warm Up

When you first pick the guitar up every day, take a few minutes to play slowly. Let your fingers get used to feeling the instrument. Whatever you’re learning, slow it down and play it with very little tension. If you’re a beginner, you’re exercising new muscles in your hands and they’re going to get a little sore. Even after you’ve been playing for a while, you still need to warm up to avoid injuries.

2. Visualize

If you’re having trouble with a chord change or picking out a solo line, stop playing. Take your hands off the guitar and just imagine yourself playing it a few times. Picture your hands moving and imagine the sound the guitar will create. Then try playing it slowly. The physical coordination of your fingers might still be difficult, but once your mind understands what you are trying to do, it’s much easier to get it right.

3. Repetition

Repetition creates new connections between neurons in your brain, called synapses. When you learn something new, like a C major scale, your brain creates new synapses. The connections are reinforced with repetition. There is no shortcut to this process, you simply have to put in the practice time. But even 15 minutes of focused repetition will help you learn very quickly.

4. Break It Down

When you’re learning a new song on guitar, break it into pieces that can be practiced easily, then connect the pieces together. For new songs, spend a little time on each section individually before you try to play it start to finish. If you’re working on a new solo, focus on one phrase at a time, and then practice connecting each phrase. It’s a lot easier to handle many smaller pieces than one big piece.

5. Sleep On It

When you sleep your brain continues working on those synapses. Just like lifting weights requires recovery time for your muscles to get stronger, your brain needs some recovery time to process what you’ve just learned. Practicing right before bed (or a nap) is probably the best way to learn something new. Try it for yourself–go over something brand new in the half hour before you go to bed. The next morning, pick up your guitar and try playing it. It’s much easier than it was last night, right? Noticing progress one day to the next is a great motivator to keep practicing.

6. Playing vs. Practicing

There’s a difference between playing the guitar and learning the guitar. Be aware of which one you’re doing. I’ve had students come to a lesson and play a new song they learned, but they stumble through the whole thing because they never slowed down to work out the rough spots. I encourage everyone to learn a few songs early on just so they have something fun to play, but I also make sure they dedicate some of their playing time as practice time.

7. Don’t be Afraid of Mistakes

When you learn something new, you will make a lot of mistakes. I always tell myself those mistakes are bound to happen, so I might as well get them out of the way now. What’s more important is that you identify the trouble spots, and then break the passage down to fix the trouble spots. This is where a good teacher can really come in handy.

8. Practice Recovering from Mistakes

Since mistakes are bound to happen from time to time, learn how to get through it and keep playing. A metronome is a great tool for this exercise. The beat keeps moving and so should the music, whether you hit the chord or not. Don’t stop every time you mess up, just catch up at the next downbeat. Imagine the music happening on it’s own, your job is to simply play along not sabotage it.

9. Learn with Friends

Learn the same songs as your friends. You don’t have to start a band, but having other people to play with will motivate you to learn your part and learn it well. Not to mention it’s a lot of fun.

10. Get a Good Instrument

Now, I never like to use gear as an excuse, but most cheap guitars are simply difficult to play. If your strings are too high from the fretboard or the guitar keeps going out of tune, you won’t enjoy playing every day. If you really want to play guitar, it’s worth the investment to buy a decent instrument and pay to have it set up by a guitar tech for optimal performance. If you need more advice in these areas, I’ve also written articles about buying your first guitar and basic set ups for fretted instruments.

Guitar lessons

If you’d like some personalized help with your guitar playing, I am available to teach private lessons in person or via Skype. I can do weekly lessons (30-60 minutes, limited spots available) or one-off brush up lessons (1 hour minimum). Please email me for more details.

Back in 2004, before I came to NYC, I recorded my two bands in Indiana–an 8 piece funk band called The Eddie Goza 7, and my original jazz trio. You can download the album for free over at Bandcamp.

To me, this music sounds like a past life. Once I moved to Brooklyn, I merged the two bands into a jazz/funk trio and began working on the music for Life Is Loud. But since this album might be completely new to some of you, I’d like you to have it. If you’ve bought it already, I thank you for your support and promise there are more goodies in store for you soon!

I’m working hard on my third album, and in preparation of it’s release, I want as many people as possible to be aware of my music. If you feel inclined, please tell your friends, use the ShareThis link below the post, or even embed one of the Bandcamp players on your blog.

Thanks again for all the support!

- Cameron

Have a listen to one of the new tracks from Tributary entitled “Swell.” I’ve posted it over on my Tumblr blog. Click here for the preview.

A more in depth preview of the whole album will be posted here on my site in the coming weeks!

Being among the first to adapt to a new idea can either be a huge advantage or a huge waste of time. Adapting to a new idea after everyone else is almost always a huge waste of time.

I’ve been thinking about this more and more as people ask me about building a web presence and developing internet marking strategies for musicians. We don’t need to look any further than the major record labels to see what happens when you resist change. The world might be a very different place, at least for musicians, if labels had been quick to monetize downloads. But they missed the bus are having a really hard time adapting to the new landscape.

When it comes to independent musicians, especially those like me that are relatively obscure, the only advantage we have is our adaptability. Change while the changing is good and stay ahead of the curve.

One way to avoid getting lost in the crowd is to arrive before the crowd. When MOG first hit the internet back in 2006, I immediately created a profile and started talking about the music I was listening to and the music I was making. A few months in I was one of their first featured artists. I don’t use MOG anymore and the site has changed quite a bit, but I know I’m still in the sphere of consciousness (or iTunes’ library) of several of the Moggers I connected with because they either joined my mailing list or we’ve since connected on similar music sites. I credit a number of these connections to having that feature early on.

I’ve been seeing a similar pattern on Twitter.  I was nowhere near the first to use Twitter, but luckily some friends pestered me enough to create a profile that in 2008 I signed up. At first I was just one more person staring at my screen, scratching my head over what I could possibly write in 140 characters that anybody would care about. Eventually I got in my own groove and figured out how to make Twitter work for me.

As more of my musician friends start using Twitter, I notice they have greater difficulty getting followers. The site has grown so much that people are less likely to follow others. Once you’re following a few hundred people, it’s hard to follow many more and be able to pay attention to what’s going on. I wouldn’t go as far as to say joining Twitter at this point is a waste of time, but it definitely takes more patience and effort to make it effective.

A third and final example would be the use of iMixes to promote your music on iTunes. I started doing this with a few other musicians in 2006. We all saw a significant bump in our sales. Four years later, the strategy is still helpful but not nearly as effective. Not only are more musicians are doing it, but the iTunes Store has evolved and unfortunately doesn’t recommend music as deeply as it once did.

I guess my point here is that regardless of how pointless a new social media website appears, or how few people are doing it, you have to give it a shot.  You may end up wasting some time, but the hits will be well worth the misses. At the very least, you’re building a larger internet footprint, making it easier for more people to follow links back to your website. Your website, naturally, should be at the center of your web presence.

If you want to know where to go next, get your music on Bandcamp and The Sixty One. I’m also checking out Fairtalizer. There’s something new every week. Good luck!

Since returning from Nashville I’ve finally been able to really get my head around the nearly 50 gigabytes of music Brad, Kenneth and I recorded at Seaside Lounge last September. We recorded to 16 track, 2″ tape and then imported each track of each take into the computer. In December I got a brand spankin’ new iMac and Logic Pro to help edit and mix the album. Since I was new to Logic, I had to spend some time poking around and honing my skills on other tracks. No way I was going to use the new trio album as a testing ground!

Taking some time away from the recordings has helped give me a fresh perspective on the music, which really helps with this next step. I hear the tunes differently now. I’m a bit more objective. I’ve cut down some of the vamps and chosen shorter or simpler solos when appropriate. Some of the “mistakes” that initially bothered me now sound like the kind of rawness an album like this needs. This was three guys sweating it out in a tracking room for two 10 hour days, just having a good time. That’s how it needs to sound.

The music isn’t ready for the world to hear just yet, and I don’t have a release date, but I do have a title: Tributary.