Effective Ways to Improve Your Guitar Playing

[Newmusician93]

I've been learning guitar for a year now and I'm trying to get in soloing and all that but are there effective ways to get there? To be honest I just spam the solos I want to learn and try to make them listenable but it isn't really a good strategy from what I've learnt.

Are there any theories like scaling I should learn to be effective with getting solos up to speed? Also, should I focus on learning techniques like vibrato or tapping?

[GearNerd]

Learn songs. The song will teach you what you need to know. Once you've squeezed the learning out of a song, find another. I spent a lot of time on random scales, noodling, never really was musical. Learning songs to completion changed things significantly.

[MetalPlayer]

Mental preparation: Visualize and practice in your head. In effect, you’re increasing your practice time this way.

[UKPete24]

Spend more time each day practicing. After a year you’ll have made more progress than if you hadn’t! An increase in velocity, if not quite speed.