The Purpose of Guitar Practice

I think it’s really helpful to have a very clear idea of what guitar practice is, what it isn’t, and what it’s for.

First, let’s look at what it is not:

• Guitar Practice is not about playing and learning songs – yes, I know you can ‘practice’ songs, but that should be a separate activity… not something you include in your regular daily practice routine. (Unless you are a beginner and are following a course where simple songs are part of what you’re learning.)
• Guitar Practice is not sitting down saying, “What should I do today?” You need a highly focused practice schedule that’s designed to help you move on with your fingering, picking and muscle-memory skills. To help you internalize things so you can do them on auto-pilot… without having to think about them too much.
• Guitar practice is not sitting on a sofa noodling. Noodling is good, but don’t say it’s part of your practice.

So what IS guitar practice?

Firstly, practice is a regular daily activity where you work on several goals with an end in mind. Regular is the ‘key’ word here.

• Working on specific goals on a DAILY basis build momentum. Things happen so much faster with regular daily practice. Better to do 20-30 minutes every day than to do 1-2 hours once or twice a week.
• If you don’t practice every day (at least SIX days a week, anyway), you lose sight of what your goals are. You also have to spend time catching up because your fingers/muscle-memory will not be adjusting to what you are training them to do. And you will have forgotten what you’re meant to be doing. It’s like you are always starting from ‘square 1′, or from ‘behind the 8 ball’.
• Practice is where you sit down, fully conscious and alert and focus intently on what you are trying to perfect. You need to be aware of your whole body and ensure it’s relaxed throughout your entire practice session.
• Practice is where you do everything very slowly and accurately. And as relaxed as possible. Speed comes from accuracy. If you play things too fast you’ll make too many mistakes. If you’re not careful, you will get into the bad habit of practicing ‘mistakes’ instead of perfect and accurate.
• Practice is where you are  ‘programming’ your body (especially your hands and fingers) to perform how you want them to.
• Practice is a mind-set. You set your goals (simple ones) and work out a plan to achieve them. It’s all about focus, attitude and direction.

Effective practice is about working on specific goals with a desired end in mind.

Most people don’t have a properly set out practice regime. They usually decide what they will do, arbitrarily, when they sit down to do some practice. What they “practice” depends on what they “feel” like at that moment.That’s not a good way to make fast progress.

An integrated approach is much better. Once where you decide what areas you need to work on then setting aside a block of practice time for each of them.

How much time you dedicate to daily practice, will determine how many different – integrated- goals you can work on. I usually suggest having 4-5 goals and work on them for 10-15 minutes each. So, four goals would mean 40-60 minutes practice per day.

How many goals you have at once, also depends on how far you are along the learning trail. If you’re a beginner, you may only have one or two goals.

What should I practice?

Bearing in mind that practice is about ‘programming’ your hands and fingers to do things on auto-pilot… there are several areas where you can focus:

1. Chords – start with simple chords and then build on them to create more advanced chords.
2. Scales – scale patterns, arpeggio patterns, triad patterns etc.
3. Technique – picking, strumming, bending, vibrato, hammer-on’s and pull-off’s, slides, muting etc.
4. Chord Sequences – learning the fretboard patterns and movements for common chord sequences – first with simple chords then advanced chords
5. Rhythm – different rhythm patterns and timings. Learning to keep time.

Those basic categories can be expanded to include more complex ideas as you progress. But the basic premise is to start very slow and simple, then build on that to add more complexity and more comprehensive skills.

Of course, what you learn when you practice guitar should be applied to songs, or, time spent with backing tracks.. so you get some real-world experience using what you learn. In others words, you need to make music. You need to develop a ‘feel’ for everything and how it works in the context of real music. Just practicing things without applying them is a waste of time.

TIP: Recording your practice sessions and listening to them later will help a lot. You will ‘hear’ what you are good at and what needs more work.

What’s coming up?

There will be more ‘Guitar Practice Tips’ articles coming up where we’ll get more specific. Also, the other sections on the site will also include examples of how to practice the ideas presented.

How to Practice Guitar