Starting a Practice Schedule

An important part of learning to play guitar is that you do need to practice. You could know every chord shape, scale, mode, and musical concept there is to know, but if you can’t actually play them, than you can’t play them. The audience hears what you actually can play, so unless you solely want to be a songwriter or composer, you need to practice actually playing them. Setting up a good practice schedule is far more effective than trying to practice 18 hours every other Saturday or some other inconsistent overkill routine.

1) Practice the Same Time Each Day
One good thing to do when starting a practice schedule is to try to find a time of day where you can practice every day. If you try to do it at the same time every day, then you are going to be a lot less likely to blow it off. Try to make it part of your daily routine if you can. If you don’t set a specific time, you may find that you are going to procrastinate and eventually one day are going to skip it, and then maybe the next, and maybe the next, etc. If you skip practice for long enough, you will likely start to backslide in your progress, which is definitely a negative for any prospective guitarist.

2) Practicing Excessive Amounts of Time Doesn’t Help Much
For the vast majority of people, one hour a day of practice on any given technique is going to give virtually the same rate of progress as twelve hours a day of practice on that same technique. Muscle memory and hand strength can only develop so vast, and, while it can vary a bit from one person to the next, sitting around working on the same technique just isn’t going to make much difference. The key is to make sure you practice it every day, not just how much time you spend on it. Someone that practices one hour a day every day of the week will see much more progress than someone that practices for twelve hours on Saturday, even though the first person only actually practices seven hours a week.

If you actually do take a look at the longer guitar workouts that people like Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, or other virtuosos use, they aren’t literally practicing one thing for 3-10 hours a day. Almost never will you see any particular part of their workout routine actually last more than one hour, they just have a few different ones they string together. In addition, these routines often have ear training and composition aspects to them, so they also aren’t necessarily purely mechanical exercises for their entire length either. If you do decide to practice for more than an hour a day, it is important to think out a routine that works for you and your goals.

3) Remember That You Are Learning Guitar Because You Enjoy It
One thing a lot of people lose sight of when starting a practice routine is that they are learning to play guitar for enjoyment. The problem with this is that if you are too strict with your practice routine you increase the odds that you will skip it altogether or blow it off just to mess around with your guitar. Neither of these are going to help you make the progress that you want to, and the odds of this increase dramatically if you are going over an hour with your practice. Most multi-hour practice sessions will reserve the end of the session to basically just goofing around with the guitar and not work on actually any particular technique, though not in so many words. Having this sort of cool down at the end of your practice can really help to keep yourself focused on just why you are learning to play the guitar in the first place.

Keep on rockin'!