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John Petrucci will make you a better player in 3 easy steps

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2. Divide your parts

"Let's say you're working on a long section of music or a solo," says Petrucci. "It really helps if you break everything down into separate parts instead of looking at it as one long unbroken piece.

"Chop it up. Invariably, there'll be parts you can play better than others. So take the parts that are giving you difficulty and work on them, but work on them independent of the other parts.

"You might have a series of arpeggios that you can't nail. Isolate them. Work on them. Practice them for days on end. Before you know it, you'll become very familiar with how to play them. Then you can incorporate them back into the rest of the solo.

"But - and this is a very big but - the minute you do that, you must practice the entire piece or the whole solo from beginning to end. Think about it: If you're playing it live, that's what's expected of you. You don't get a chance to break things up on stage. So work things out in parts in your practice room, then flesh the whole thing out later. It's a great way to work."

3. Practice unplugged

"Guitar players love to hide behind walls of distortion and sustain that comes from their amps," says Petrucci. "But a lot of the time, it's a way of covering up sloppy playing.

"Unplug yourself. Either play with your guitar unplugged or if you really want to use an amp, turn it way down and bag the distortion and sustain.

"Put the time in. Hear your mistakes. Yeah, it sucks, it's humbling. But if you work on your mistakes, they'll eventually go away"

"You'll be amazed at how quickly you'll develop a smooth, clean style of playing and you'll lose all of your slop.

"If you can play a legato run without sustain, you're golden - and it'll sound ten times more awesome when you can finally plug in, crank it up and wail. But you have to be able to play it accurately and smoothly beforehand.

"When I think of a lot of the players I admire, they could always play their parts without hiding behind distortion and sustain. Put the time in. Hear your mistakes. Yeah, it sucks, it's humbling, it makes you want to throw the guitar out the window. But if you work on your mistakes, they'll eventually go away, and you'll become a strong player."

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