Playing, performing, writing, and recording. As guitarists, we can improve in one or more of those areas—maybe even all of them.

It’s one thing to want to hone your skills in general, but knowing where to start is the challenge. That’s why we put together a list of resolutions for guitarists, which includes some of our team’s personal goals in 2025! We hope a few inspire you on your musical journey this year.

Improve Your Playing and Theory Skills

“I want to become a better guitar player.” That’s a great sentiment, but it doesn’t mean much without concrete goals. It’s important to think about what being a good guitarist means to you.

With that in mind, here are a few ideas for you to focus on in 2025.

Branch Out Into a New Genre

We all have our main or go-to genres, but there’s so much to appreciate in other types of guitar playing.

Here’s our specific challenge for you—in 2025, learn 10 songs outside your normal genre, note-for-note. That’s less than one new song per month. Bonus points if each new genre is unique! At the end of the year, we’re willing to bet that you’ll find more than one or two tricks to incorporate into your usual style.

Learn a Favorite Album All the Way Through

Learning how to play your favorite songs is one of the great joys of playing guitar.

This year, we challenge you to not just learn one or two songs by your favorite performer—we challenge you to learn how to play every song from one of your favorite albums to the best of your ability. Yes, every song.

Hopefully, you come out of this exercise with a newfound appreciation for a beloved album, and maybe even some new techniques or ideas you can pull into your own music.

Nail Down One New Concept or Technique

Learning a guitar technique is easy. Nailing it is the hard part.

This year, instead of floating around between several techniques or concepts, choose one and do your best to get it down flawlessly. A few you could work on include:

• Sweep picking
• Hybrid picking
• Tapping
• Pinch harmonics
• Fingerstyle
• Arpeggio positions

Film yourself exercising that technique today and again at the end of the year. You’ll see the difference dedicated practice makes.

Learn to Read and Write Traditional Chord Charts

We know the jokes about guitarists and reading music. Fair or not, being able to read a basic chord chart is a wonderful skill to have. By learning how to read and write a traditional chord chart—not a tab or lyric sheet—you can quickly insert yourself into any set, better communicate with other performers, and become a more hireable guitarist.

Most guitarists start by learning songs from sheets that list the chords above the song’s lyrics. This works alright if you already know the song, but it isn’t helpful if you aren’t familiar with the tune.

As the name implies, a well-written chord chart will guide you through a song’s chord changes, measure-by-measure. With a little practice, you’ll jump right into any song when presented with a chord chart—even if you’ve never heard it before.

Memorize the Fretboard

Finding any note at a moment’s notice is a great skill for a guitarist. While many of us learn how to find notes on the E and A strings thanks to bar chords, not everyone can find all 12 notes on all six (or more) strings.

There is no shortage of techniques and lessons for learning the fretboard, one of which involves octaves. Learning the different octave shapes, or patterns, is intuitive and easy to apply. If you can already find a note—B, for example—on the E and A strings, finding that B on any other string becomes a matter of applying those octave shapes.

Take a Structured Online Guitar Course or In-Person Lessons

Online guitar resources are plentiful and affordable, if not completely free. There are hundreds of talented teachers on YouTube and TikTok delivering everything from detailed song tutorials to quick-and-dirty tips to improve your playing.

However, online learning has its limitations. For one, a lot of online guitar resources aren’t particularly structured and almost none of them are tailored to your skills and goals.

If you feel you could use more structure in your guitar education, complete an online guitar course or take a handful of in-person lessons this year. Multi-week online guitar programs from Berklee, Pickup Music, and the like help you improve in general, or in your genre of choice. Meanwhile, an in-person guitar teacher can give you personalized recommendations to help you meet your playing goals.

Unlike YouTube, structured and in-person lessons aren’t (usually) free, but a great program or teacher is well-worth the investment.

Become Your Own Guitar Tech

Working on your instrument is a wonderful skill to work on this year. Not only will it save you money in the long run, it will help you build a new appreciation for and connection to your guitars.

Learn How to Complete a Setup

A proper setup is essential for getting the most out of your guitar. At its most basic level, a setup includes fine-tuning intonation, checking neck relief, and dialing in string height (action). A more thorough setup could include cleaning and polishing frets, cleaning and conditioning the fingerboard, checking and possibly adjusting pickup height, and even cleaning and securing electronics.

Different guitars have different setup needs, so be sure to find a setup guide that’s relevant to your instrument. For example, setting up a guitar without a vibrato system is simpler than setting up a guitar with one, and each vibrato system will have its own needs. As you learn the ropes of setting up your instrument, go slowly, check your work, and have patience with yourself.

Swap in New Pickups

Changing pickups is a time-honored guitarist tradition, and a lot of us rely on techs for this relatively straightforward bit of guitar surgery.

You can save money—and enjoy your new pickups right away—if you learn how to install them by yourself. This involves making sure you have the right tools and learning how to solder, but don’t be intimidated! You can sign up for our free Pickup Installation 101 Course to learn everything you need to know about swapping pickups, building wiring harnesses, and more.

Build a Partscaster

If you’re already familiar with working on a guitar and its electronics—or are looking for a heftier goal in 2025—why don’t you build a partscaster?

Assembling a partscaster isn’t like putting together toy blocks. You need to ensure proper alignment, drill holes, install wiring, and more. And, at the end of all that, you have to complete a full setup—adjust the truss rod, cut the nut, set the action, and intonate your guitar.

It’s a lot of work, but in the end, you have a guitar that you built for yourself with your wants and needs in mind, and that’s priceless.

Get Yourself Out There

While there’s nothing wrong with playing your music for yourself, there’s something special about getting together with other musicians. If you want to expand your musical community this year, here are some specific resolutions to keep.

Find a Local Online Community for Musicians

Gone are the days of posting personal ads to find new musician friends. These days, even smaller communities often have online groups dedicated to meeting other musicians.

Facebook Groups are a fantastic resource for finding other guitarists, bassists, drummers, and more. Of course, there’s a chance there isn’t already a local musician group for your area. If that’s the case, you can simply make your own group! Name it something easy to search for, like “Musicians of Santa Barbara,” ask a few friends to share, and encourage interaction among members.

Perform at an Open Mic Night

Open mic nights are great places to build your performance skills, test out new material, and meet fellow musicians. It’s likely that your area already has a few standing open mic nights—they’re often weekly or monthly events at local venues, coffee shops, and taprooms.

Like with Facebook Groups, you can start your own open mic night! Local businesses may be interested in hosting your event on slower nights of the week as a method of drawing a built-in crowd of performers and their friends. Keep in mind that either you or your venue will need to have a basic P.A. system to have a successful open mic night, and you’ll need to promote your new event as it gains steam.

Join or Start a Band

There are few things as scary, exhilarating, and rewarding as playing live music with a full band. But you need to join or start a band, first.

The key to a successful band is making sure your musical interests and goals are aligned. If you want to release professionally-recorded music and tour the world, you need to find band members who want the same. If your goal with a band is hanging out with your friends and playing a few gigs a year, that’s great, too! Just make sure the rest of the band is on the same page, and remember to have fun.

Write & Record

Writing and recording music can be daunting at first. But, as with most things, it gets easier with time. Even if you don’t plan on playing your music in front of anyone else, writing can be wildly fulfilling. If one of your resolutions is to write and record this year, here are some goals to consider.

Spend 15 Minutes a Day Writing for a Month

Writing is a muscle—you have to exercise it if you want to get stronger.

Pick a month and commit to spending 15 minutes writing each day. You can go longer, but try to make it at least 15 minutes. This could be writing a little chord progression, crafting a new riff, or refining a riff you’ve been working on.

What you come up with in those 15 minutes might not be magic, but you’ll come up with some ideas over the course of the month. You may even pop the kernels of a few great songs!

Write a Complete Song

It’s a lot easier to start a song than it is to finish it. In 2025, we challenge you to write at least one complete song.

The genre, theme, and structure are all up to you. Your song could be a seven-minute instrumental or a two-minute punk anthem. All that matters is that you create a piece of music that you think is cohesive and worthy of being recorded. Speaking of which…

Record Your Song at Home

There has never been a better time to record your songs.

Recording your music used to mean hiring musicians and booking studio time. Today, all you need is some kind of audio interface and a digital audio workstation (DAW) like GarageBand, Logic, or Audacity.

If it’s your first time recording, feel free to keep it simple. Or, if you’re up for the challenge, go for full-band instrumentation with your demo, whether that means working with other musicians or learning how to record with drum loops or virtual instruments.

Even if the final product isn’t ready for market, you can at least have the satisfaction of taking something you wrote to the finish line.

Enjoy the Journey

At the end of the year, you’ll hit some of your goals and will come short on a few, but that’s okay. Playing guitar isn’t a competition, it’s a lifelong journey, so do your best to enjoy it!

While we can’t help you with all of your resolutions in 2025, we can help you learn how to swap your pickups. Our Pickup Installation 101 online course is your free, step-by-step guide to install guitar pickups the right way. And it works. Most people complete their first pickup swap in 2-3 hours when following this course.

So go ahead, give it a go. And if you get stuck, no worries, you can always get in touch with the amazing Seymour Duncan Customer Service team, who are incredible at helping guitarists and budding techs finish the job! What have you got to lose?