May 14, 2019 by Klaus Crow
Another fresh new year ahead of us. A year full of potential and possibilities. I always write down new resolutions and ideas in my Moleskin notebook that will motivate and inspire me to do creative and exciting things. This year I bought a yellow colored volant.
With all these lovely ideas and ‘awesome things to do’ I need a plan to fit them into my weekly schedule and stick to it. Waking up early is always a great motivator for me.
It sounds funny, because waking up doesn’t sound that great to many, but if you have a plan to accomplish some great things early in the morning you feel amazing afterwards. And when you stick to it for a while and persevere, the more that amazing feeling will grow.
Although I do my best to realize these goals, I don’t know if I am able to do all of these things in one year or maybe my course will change. Like John Lennon said: “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” and that’s a good thing. Life should be spontaneous and full of surprises.
On the other hand as Lewis Carroll stated “If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there.”, so it’s nice to give your life some direction and give your self a sense of purpose.
So here are my plans for 2016:
– Wake up early (5 a.m.)
– Create a repertoire of my favorite songs and learn them by heart.
– Improve my jazz guitar skills. Practice daily for 30 minutes effective and efficiently.
(Working on jazz standards, chords, scales, intervals, arpeggios, improvisation and studying jazz videos)
– Cook exciting lunches and dinners. I love Jamie Oliver’s 30 minute meals
– No computers and mobile device on weekends. (except for Spotify)
(This means more time to play guitar)
– Create more video guitar lessons for Guitarhabits
– Read one book a month.
(Starting with “The 7 habits of highly effective families”)
– Continue WHM
– Think and act outside of the box.
– Write daily.
– Inbox zero.
Now it’s your turn!
How do you want to spend your days in 2016? What do you want to achieve or improve? Where do you want to be as a guitar player a year from now?
Do you want to be able to play your favorite song? Do you want to have a repertoire of songs under your belt so you can perform anytime and anywhere? Ever thought of starting your own band? Plan a gig?
What about learning a new style of music like blues, jazz, country, classical or flamenco? You might want improve your right hand technique and dive into some fingerpicking, alternate picking, sweep picking, hybrid picking or that John Mayer slap-strum technique?
Are you into solo guitar playing and do you want to master the skill of improvisation?
This is your year. You can make it happen in 2016!
Write down your most wanted dream goal. Everyday take 10 to 20 minutes to develop the skills and become the musician you want to be a year from now.
Let 2016 be the year that will change everything. Just take a small step every single day and watch the change happening!
I wish you a really awesome, challenging and happy new year!
Warm regards,
Klaus Crow
I’d love to hear your resolutions and goals for 2016. Please share them in the comments.
My New Years Resolutions:
Daily:
Read the Bible
Exercise
Play piano
Clean/organize something I don’t usually clean/organize
Weekly:
pick up trash, clean my car, play guitar
Monthly:
Read a book, study about belief systems and how to accomplish my New Years Resolutions!
Thank you for encouraging me with my guitar playing! And thanks for mentioning the book you are going to read, it sounds like a good one! I’m thinking about reading: The Biology of Belief by Dr. Bruce Lipton
Hi Karen,
What a great list of resolutions. Love it! It always nice to see what others are up to in the new year. It’s inspiring.
The biology of belief also seems like a great book. I will put that on my ‘books to read’ list.
Thanks for sharing!
I just talked to my music teacher about this and here’s what I came up with:
Goals For 2016
Improvisation – Improve skills, be able to sit in on all styles
Play & practice with blood, passion Practice like it’s the most important / last time you will ever play
Make scale book that I want to keep current, like a songbook
Fiddle tunes, simple chords and melodies for jams
Add Gospel song or three (Little Brown Church? )
Add sing a long (Sitting On Top Of the World?)
Add a Spanish language song(s) La Partida?
Develop Set List – songs I can play at the drop of a hat
Be able to play them hung over, headache, no sleep, depressed, or distracted.
Play through setlist once a week (Sundays), play at different locations
Licks – Learn some – Work through licks books
Positive language – 1) no negative / self defeating talk about my own playing 2) value having my head in the right place 3) I’ll just play and let other people think I’m good or bad 4) the only bad playing is no playing 5) get out of my own way
For 2016 – ONLY play scales w a backing track, no metronome, open to improv.
Ear training pitch pipe, sing scales, intervals
There is something special about making your resolutions public.
I am new to your site so thank you for all the information you share!
I am here to set my resolutions!
-practice scales, arpeggios, learning the guitar neck up and down and all around!
-learn guitar songs by hearing them and not by easily looking up guitar tabs
THANK YOU!
My resolutions this year are:
-practice scales and modes daily
-write at least 2 songs per month
-continue to grow as a performer
I love this post and this opportunity to share goals with this community! Wishing everyone the best here in 2016!
I realy like Klaus’s new years resolutions . have been playing for about a year ,3 months with a guitar teacher. who was yelling at me .i am really struggling hard at putting the chords together..i know the C , C ADD9 ,G7 , F , A , Am , D, D7, E , Em and a couple of others, I almost have the fretboard memorized why’ll learning some basic theory , my old guitar teacher would yell at me because I was not learning as fast as he thought I should ,and believe me I wanted to learn,,,now I have a really good teacher tommarrow will be my 4th lesson with him ..I am not really sure what goals to set for this year…I really want to learn some songs , but I am more interested in becoming a good guitar player and don’t want to get ahead of my teacher…what do you think?
My guitar-specific goal is to reduce the number of things I try to cram into my 1-hour practice sessions. To-date, in an effort to fit everything in, I’ve been trying to cram about 6 different things into little time slots. Some exercises are between 3-5 minutes, and a couple others run 8-10 minutes. I’d always been taught that this was the way to make progress and “get everything in.” I just started taking lessons with a new teacher who advocates me focusing only on 2-3 things per day–thereby giving each exercise/concept 20-30 minutes of attention instead. What are your thoughts on this? I’m essentially a guitar repair guy 1st, but of course I love playing too, so I’m a lifelong student :D