Practice Routine

[Ribar]

Sup guys,

Well in the last few months i have become very busy with work/school and my band is finally starting to play more gigs so time is not on my side. Today i decided to come up with a practice routine that i hope will take me to my next level. I want to dedicate 1 hour every day to practicing guitar.

Key areas i wanted to focus on are:

Warm up - 5 min
Alternate Picking - 25 min
Hammer/Pull of's 10 min
Learning new Solos/Songs/licks 20 min

What do you guys think?I have theSpeed Mechanics For Lead Guitar, and will use exercises from the book.

I have allays been bluesy/rock guitar player with big bands, slow melodic lines etc. I want to get more in to speed picking, tapping just to have more tools that i can add to my bag of tricks.

Thanks for any suggestions,
Ribar

[djdrdave]

I have that book from years ago and decided to play through it again because of threads on here. Mark Tremonti has been a student of his.

Perhaps we could correspond about it. I have similar goals as you as I may fill in for a cover band as well.

I think you are arrange your practice time in a reasonable method.

I'm thinking of recording myself on the exercises as I go through. For the songs I need to learn I can already record myself with the Tascam GB-10 I picked up last month. It allows you to record your part with the original.

[Ribar]

Originally Posted by djdrdave

I have that book from years ago and decided to play through it again because of threads on here. Mark Tremonti has been a student of his.

Perhaps we could correspond about it. I have similar goals as you as I may fill in for a cover band as well.

I think you are arrange your practice time in a reasonable method.

I'm thinking of recording myself on the exercises as I go through. For the songs I need to learn I can already record myself with the Tascam GB-10 I picked up last month. It allows you to record your part with the original.

Cool yah it would be fun to track progress, like on weekly bases, and see what works and what doesn't etc.

I think recording is a good idea, i have Pro Tools set up at home, so i could just record my practice sessions on there and see how i improve over time.

I am starting today with my practice and ill keep you posted how it goes.

Ribar.

[Bryan T]

Originally Posted by Ribar

Key areas i wanted to focus on are:

Warm up - 5 min
Alternate Picking - 25 min
Hammer/Pull of's 10 min
Learning new Solos/Songs/licks 20 min

Spending only 1/3 of your practice time on music seems like a bad idea.

What would you do practicing alternate picking for 25 minutes? Personally, I'd pick a piece of music that uses alternate picking and work on that.

[docbop]

Sleep less practice more.

You need to be playing music more. Swap out the technique stuff for songs that require those techniques to play. Where is you music study time or is that while at work. Learning licks is useless unless you study them, how they were constructed, so you can then create your own. Don't see any ear training where's that in your schedule. Is that what you do driving to school and work.

Hint that is how I squeeze more music time into my schedule working/studying while driving, at day-job, try to use all time available. You can get a lot done using the guitar in your head. There is mental practice and physical practice time.

[guitarjazz]

Play fiddle tunes to practice alternate picking. Go through the Mel Bay Modern Guitar Method for other short pieces. When you get good, play the Bach Two-Part Inventions.

[djdrdave]

Originally Posted by docbop

Sleep less practice more.

You need to be playing music more. Swap out the technique stuff for songs that require those techniques to play. Where is you music study time or is that while at work. Learning licks is useless unless you study them, how they were constructed, so you can then create your own. Don't see any ear training where's that in your schedule. Is that what you do driving to school and work.

Hint that is how I squeeze more music time into my schedule working/studying while driving, at day-job, try to use all time available. You can get a lot done using the guitar in your head. There is mental practice and physical practice time.

I was wondering if there were any studies on mental practice without a guitar in hand. I know i've seen these for physical tasks where they broke people up into groups that practice free throws 100% of the time vs those that practiced mentally part of the time etc.

I just don't want to get caught doing air guitar while at work!

[cram]

Someone mentioned lack of sleep in favor of time on the guitar...

For learning, it is always best to get as much sleep as you can. That is not to be meant simply as "well wisher" advice. Timing matters as well in relation to sleep. For myself - learning a song or something new is done best right before or up to the time I'll go to sleep. I find if it's the last thing I do before going to bed, I tend to learn things quicker.
I swore by it in academics and continue to do professional research at that time when needed.

[Sunil]

Originally Posted by cram

Someone mentioned lack of sleep in favor of time on the guitar...

For learning, it is always best to get as much sleep as you can. That is not to be meant simply as "well wisher" advice. Timing matters as well in relation to sleep. For myself - learning a song or something new is done best right before or up to the time I'll go to sleep. I find if it's the last thing I do before going to bed, I tend to learn things quicker.
I swore by it in academics and continue to do professional research at that time when needed.

Here's a related article on the topic of sleep and music practice (PDF file). Can't underestimate its importance.

Chris Standring has a cool little article on the "Art of Practicing" you may find interesting: http://www.playjazzguitar.com/articl..._practice.html. It's jazz-centric, but can apply to whatever style you play.

Cheers,

-- Sunil

[ndemattheis]

I feel your pain. Its hard to develop serious chops in an hour a day. I would dedicate some of your practice time to rhythm playing. Most of your time playing in a cover band will probably spent playing rhythm, so it makes sense to inlude this in your practice regiment. A strong sense of rythm will improve your overall musicianship and also help with your improvisation.

[Sunil]

Originally Posted by ndemattheis

I feel your pain. Its hard to develop serious chops in an hour a day. I would dedicate some of your practice time to rhythm playing. Most of your time playing in a cover band will probably spent playing rhythm, so it makes sense to inlude this in your practice regiment. A strong sense of rythm will improve your overall musicianship and also help with your improvisation.

Totally agree. Rhythm playing is something far too many guitar players ignore working on (I'm among the guilty). When I recently made it a point to devote practice time to working on rhythm specifically, I saw more immediate benefits in my soloing and playing of composed melodies: groove, phrasing, more interesting and varied rhythmic ideas applied to improvised melodies, better compositional development in my improvisations (e.g. pacing and build-up), etc.

In a cover band situation, strong rhythmic chops is what separates the men from the boys (women from girls).

-- Sunil

[docbop]

Originally Posted by djdrdave

I was wondering if there were any studies on mental practice without a guitar in hand. I know i've seen these for physical tasks where they broke people up into groups that practice free throws 100% of the time vs those that practiced mentally part of the time etc.

I just don't want to get caught doing air guitar while at work!

it's the same as sports example the brain doesn't know the difference between a physical or visualized experience. Also helps to learn things by separating the mental aspect from the physical when practicing. So work on the mental aspect, where is a note, what finger, what scale degrees are those, hows the rhythm sound, and on and on. Do the mental in your head will help optimize the time you have with the physical instrument.

In general it takes between 10-100 repetitions to learn a new physical skill. Where we get messed up is trying to learn the mental at same time as learning the physical one slows the other down. And I don't mean playing air guitar with the incredible guitar in your head is a set of hands too.

All this is part of learning cycles that Howard Roberts used to talk about.

[Dickie Fredericks]

I gotta throw it out there but....

Start working on chord / melody NOW. Dont wait till you're in your 40's to do it.

You grab a piece of music and it helps EVERYTHING

Sight reading
Chord forms and inversion
Related scales (I suck at this)

My chord melody leaves much to be desired. But, when I play a song however feeble I may be in my attempt I am always satisfied with my progress and effort.

You know, cause it sounds like music hehe.

With chord melody you are working on EVERYTHING all at once.

When I started really playing guitar I just bught a record each week and learned the whole thing as best I could. Solos, chords, lyrics. All of it.

CM is much the same.

Hope this helps.

[cram]

Originally Posted by Sunil

Here's a related article on the topic of sleep and music practice (PDF file). Can't underestimate its importance.

Chris Standring has a cool little article on the "Art of Practicing" you may find interesting: http://www.playjazzguitar.com/articl..._practice.html. It's jazz-centric, but can apply to whatever style you play.

Cheers,

-- Sunil

Wow. Thanks!

This pretty much sums my crude understanding -

When you’re learning a new piece that you have ample time to practice, keeping the role of sleep in mind can also help you practice more efficiently. The primary thing that improved with sleep for the people in these studies was speed (at least that’s what the experimenters were measuring). Since the amount of daytime improvement and learning after sleep aren’t related, spending hours and hours on a really tricky fast passage on the first few days of practicing isn’t as efficient as getting it fluent at a slower tempo and then just leaving it until the next day. The next day, not only will you be able to play it faster, but you’ll spend much less time getting it to a faster tempo than you would’ve the day before.

[Ribar]

Originally Posted by Sunil

Here's a related article on the topic of sleep and music practice (PDF file). Can't underestimate its importance.

Chris Standring has a cool little article on the "Art of Practicing" you may find interesting: http://www.playjazzguitar.com/articl..._practice.html. It's jazz-centric, but can apply to whatever style you play.

Cheers,

-- Sunil

Thank you for that link Sunil, i found it very informative i think i have the same approach as him, and after last nights first practice where i forced my self to practice rather then noodle i found what he talks about true.

1. I planed on practicing for one hour, i ended up practicing for two plus hours last night, and if it wasnt time to go to bad i would have practiced more.

2. I feel like the i am putting in quality time on my instrument now that i have a game plan, and i know what my weak points are and working on things that will fix that gives me drive to practice even more.

3. I think time factor is needed only to get you going, but if you are truly serious about practicing and becoming better player, you will want to practice as much as you can.

Last night i worked on exercises that improve legato, and i just barely got into alternate picking. The book the Speed Mechanics For Lead Guitar is really great, and provides lots of great exercises that are used by greats.

The key is to understand the exercise and how to play it in your playing, not just being able to execute the line at fast speed. Lots of the exercises are based of pentatonic so its easy for me to see how they relate to that scale and the key.