Lately I've tried a new approach to learning songs during my practices. We all know you need to mix it up a bit when practicing, even though we all need to do several hundred hours of technique practice.

So we end up playing songs at the end of our sessions. I've started learning songs I know on the first 3 strings. It teaches me the chord shapes on those first 3 and allows me to move songs all over the neck, creating better accompaniment for bass lines.

And if you learn any pop songs, you'll realize very quickly that the guitar usually isn't playing beyond the 3rd string, so learning 4th, 5th, and 6th string root positions only can really hurt us developmentally.

Have a look at the video, and post your own practice techniques. This is another good one of me sucking. Big time.

Still do this from time to time, and I play a lot better now.

This is how I've started playing Sugar, by Maroon 5: