How
To Practice Guitar And Make A Lot Of Improvement When
You Don’t Have Much Time
How
you practice your guitar playing has everything to do with the rate of
improvement you make. Forget about natural talent, it’s work ethic that will
win every time!
However,
we all don’t have hours to dedicate to our guitar playing each day, and even if
you did, it doesn't guarantee you’ll improve and progress with your playing.
Why?
Because
if you practice incorrectly, you’ll make very slow progress at best. No amount
of bad practicing is going to see you improve your guitar playing. It’s
quality, not quantity when it comes to your guitar practice.
Today
I am going to provide a basic practice strategy for you, that you can adapt to
your own lifestyle.
Don’t
have much time to practice?
Great,
I am going to show you how you can milk every minute you dedicate to your
guitar playing, so you can make a lot of progress with minimal practice.
Don’t
Practice Things That Are Irrelevant To Your Playing
Before
you begin practicing, you must know what it is you are going to practice. I
suggest you write everything down you want to achieve with your guitar playing
(the big picture).
Then
break these things down into smaller pieces.
From
there arrange these smaller pieces into a daily practice routine.
Don’t
assume you have to practice everything. It will largely depend on what it is
you want to be able to do with your guitar playing.
Sure,
there are the fundamentals that are most important, but why practice shredding
if you don’t play a style that requires it, or why learn every chord under the
sun if you only want to play rock music, why learn to solo if you are only
interested in being a rhythm guitarist etc.
You
get the idea, right.
So
first know what is required of you to play guitar the way you want.
Developing
A Practice Schedule
From
here you should develop a practice schedule and rotate stuff in and out of it, don’t
feel like you have to practice everything, everyday,
all the time. You’ll go crazy trying to do that, and it just isn’t necessary.
For
example, let’s say you are currently focusing on the following items:
- Fingerpicking
- Arpeggios
- Strumming
- Music theory
- Rhythm/Timing
You
might arrange these practice items over a week like this:
Monday:
- Fingerpicking
- Arpeggios
- Strumming
Tuesday:
- Strumming
- Music theory concept
- Rhythm/Timing
Wednesday:
- Arpeggios
- Strumming
- Music theory concept
Thursday:
- Rhythm/Timing
- Fingerpicking
- Music theory concept
Friday:
- Fingerpicking
- Strumming
- Rhythm/Timing
Saturday:
- Arpeggios
- Music theory concept
- Rhythm/Timing
Sunday:
- Arpeggios
- Fingerpicking
- Strumming
* I have colour
coded each item above, so it’s easier for you to see the frequency at which
each item appears throughout the practice schedule across the course of a week
These
are just arbitrary examples of course, you will be more specific with your
schedule, but the idea is that over the course of a week, each item get’s sufficient practice, not necessarily everyday, but by rotating, you cover each item enough over
the week.
The
above schedule does not take into account any crossover. By this I mean items
that can be practiced simultaneously, for example strumming patterns in time
with a metronome. This works on both your rhythm/timing and strumming items in
the schedule.
This
is always good to do where possible and if suitable. Killing two birds with one
stone, if you like.
Your
practice schedule is not set in stone. It will naturally evolve as items come
in and out of it. This might happen for a number of reasons. For example, you
develop and move into more specific areas of guitar playing, or you simply are
going to work more on a specific area of your playing for the next week/month
or whatever.
Practice
takes practice, so you will always get better at practicing your guitar as you
do it more, and by following the steps in this article.
To
summarise:
•
Know what it is you want to be able to do with your guitar playing
• Create
a list of items from this to practice
• Set
up a schedule that rotates these items across 7 days of the week (you could set
your schedule to rotate across fewer, or even more days if you wish)
•
Practice each item accordingly
• Change
your schedule up regularly, be it after a few weeks, or a month
Author
Box:
Simon
Candy is a professional guitar instructor out of Melbourne, Australia, who
plays and teachers a number of styles including rock, blues, and jazz. He runs
both his own guitar school locally, as well as providing online
lessons for acoustic guitar players around the world.