Lesson 4: Mix It Up 

Playing guitar is can look like a synchronized dance between your right and left hand. 💃   Both do different things but combined properly can produce amazing sounds.

For reaching this synchrony, we have to develop specific left hand skills, right hand skills and both hand skills. That's why mixing during practice between different skills of guitar playing, such as focusing first on right-hand strumming patterns and minutes later switching the focus to left-hand skills like chord transitions can be effective to keep the brain actively engaged.

This method prevents mental and physical fatigue by continually presenting new challenges in different ways, which helps maintain high levels of attention and interest. By frequently switching focus during your practice, you also encourage the brain to integrate these skills more holistically, enhancing fluidity and versatility in your playing.

Implementing Alternate Practice

• Right Hand Focus:
  
  You could begin with dedicated practice on right-hand techniques, such as focusing on right hand picking or strumming, concentrating intensely for several minutes to refine these skills on this specific hand. 
• Left Hand Focus
  
  Minutes after, when your right hand is a bit fatigued you can  shift your focus to the left hand, working on chord formations or finger placements. This not only breaks the monotony but also ensures that both hands develop equally.
• Cycle of Alternation
  
  Continue alternating between the right, left-hand skills and both (like playing the song you're practicing) , returning to the right hand after a session with the left hand. This cycle helps to reinforce the skills learned in each session while keeping the practice engaging.
  
  
  

Strategies for Effective Alternation

• Timed Segments:
  
  Consider using a timer to allocate specific durations for each practice focus, ensuring balanced attention to all techniques. Or just keep going until you feel you are starting to get fatigued o that specific hand and change. 
  
  
• Integration Sessions:
  
  After individual hand practice, integrate the techniques practiced with both hands by playing complete songs or more complex exercises that use both hands together. Its important to put in context of realm music what you practice.
   

Don't forget to regularly assess your performance and adjust the difficulty and focus of your practice based on areas that require more attention or improvement.

Practice Challenge

Lets put the alternate practice in "practice" . So lets start and pick a song you want to learn. Once you have lets break it down into 3 components :

Right hand main strumming pattern, smooth clear sounding chord transitions and playing the transitions while strumming.

• Step 1 : 
  
  Get the strumming right by isolating the right hand by muting the strings with the left hand so we can focus 100% on the rhythm.
   
• Step 2:
  
  Now focus on the left hand and work through the chord transitions and make sure you can play the transition of each with the bpm of the song (without the strumming pattern) just by playing the beat when the chord changes.
   
• Step 3 :
  
  Mix the strumming pattern you practiced in step 1 with one or 2 chords of the song, to eventually make the full transition by keeping the strumming. Start in a slow tempo in the metronome and speed it up gradually until reaching the right bpm.  🎸✨