You’ve been teaching yourself ukulele for a couple months now and play religiously every day.

You even know a handful of beginner ukulele chords and a strumming pattern.

You want to continue to see improvement.

But you don’t want to pick up bad habits.

And you also don’t know if you’re even using your time wisely to learn the most important things.

You’ve heard it’s possible to learn an instrument by teaching yourself. Heck, your neighbor Jim said he learned the “self taught” way. However, if you’ve never played an instrument before, how do you know if you’re on the right track? What are the best practices for teaching yourself? And is it even possible?

If I were to go back in time and learn ukulele again, I could probably list 100 mistakes I made, but out of all of those, I would absolutely avoid making these 3 mistakes.

I want to warn you though – some of what I’m about to say might make you feel uncomfortable.

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Making the decision to learn a musical instrument like the ukulele is exciting, however as a beginner, you might be wondering:

“How often should I practice?”

How you answer this question lays the foundation for your ability to make the music you love!

Let’s look at the optimal practice frequency for ukulele players at different skill levels – beginner, intermediate, and advanced.

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Learning to play an instrument as an adult shouldn’t be the same as when you were a kid.

If you learned music as a kid, there was probably a big focus on traditional music education. You know what I’m talking about… scales, classical music, rote memorization, theory, ticking metronomes, rulers smacking your knuckles if you mess up, and all that fun stuff!

And a big reason for the “traditional” approach is, when you’re a kid, time is on your side… you have time to follow through the “twelve grades of playing piano” over the next 12 years.

But as an adult, you don’t want to spend 12 years… you want to play music as soon as possible.

Of course I’d be lying to you if I told you that you don’t need to practice.

You need to practice.

But what you practice is SUPER important.

For most adults, the starting goal is to be able to take your favorite song, look up the chords, and play it!

Note: This is a very reasonable and attainable goal for new players who have just started playing the ukulele.

To do this, here are the most important skills you need to develop in your practice and nothing else.

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In my 30 years of playing music, there’s one trait that’s helped me practice ukulele and improve the most as a musician.

It’s helped me so much so that I…

Lose track of the time when I practice…

Have more fun when I practice…

And, have more patience for myself when I can’t perform.

Yesterday, I was working on practicing a particularly difficult bluegrass solo on guitar by the great flatpicker Tony Rice (I’m a lifelong ukulele player but also play guitar and piano!). The solo is a short, lightning fast 8-bar passage in the song Nine Pound Hammer, and for me, it’s just… hard.

Every time I step on the gas it falls apart.

I fail.

I practiced this solo for nearly two hours yesterday without taking a break, and you know what?

I had the time of my life.

In fact, I’ve been working on this solo for almost a year and I get excited every time I sit down.

And it got me thinking, why is this so much fun for me to keep failing?

For me, the answer is simple.

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