Disciplined practice "routine" vs intuitive jamming etc

Playing Technique
#1

Im always torn between these 2 basic approaches. Ive been playing for 30 years this year and except for maybe ONE time where I did a “30 day challenge”, I have yet to ever develop anything resembling a “routine”

Yet im still torn.

I go thru this type of thing over and over:

  1. see an idea in a vid or hear it in a song
  2. think ‘wow, id love to have that under my fingers’
  3. decide to work out an exercise or routine for it
  4. 3 hrs of random jamming later I am no closer to having a “routine” lol

is this semi normal??

I can say im pretty good but of course after 30 years I SHOULD be. But I dunno that anything I do would blow anyone away.

So should I keep moving along intuitively OR use a more disciplined approach and aim for some techniques a bit out of my reach (fast 2nps penta stuff or maybe fast sweep arpeggios) and start them slowly with correct mechanics etc etc

the fear is always sort of “well if I strictly practice this one exercise, wont I be losing my abilities on these other ones??”

any ideas??

Thanks, JJ

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Daily Guitar routine
#2

Most likely a very common struggle.

I’m guilty of the opposite.

I spend the bulk of my time on focused practice in a few areas including technique and theory.
Hopefully combined.

Once I get that done I just noodle a bit and because Im very warmed up by then, fingers and creativity are good

I use to be the opposite and got tired of wishing I could sweep etc and just bit the bullet and spent time focusing on it.

This approach for me is great as My skill constantly improved which directly correlates to my playing.

However there are the guys who never played a scale and can play circles around me so I cant say what is right for you.

But I see me in your post so all I can say for sure is I don’t regret focusing my practice.

Its a weird thing in that I spend a lot of time starting from scratch and stressed/questioning my existence. Lol

But I think it starts with a goal.
What exactly do you want.

I also hop all over the place because my interests change. One week It might be country twang then metal then hendrix. But I focus

I also think this is ok because most all of the material crosses over in at least some way.

But I ramble.
Just wanted to let ya know I too struggle with the way I CHOOSE to spend my time.

That way I’m not a victim of fate.

I’m fully responsible for if I learn something.

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#3

yeah, if I had an ounce of focus id be dangerous

its the same with songwriting:

ok, im gonna do some Zep sounding stuff! then 5 minutes later its “VH2 rules!!” then the next day “I should really write some Creed/STP style stuff”

in the end I write nothing lol

but as far as lead guitar i am deffo putting in the hours per week and I continue to improve, which is cool…but there aint no focus going on lol. if there IS any its some sort of subconscious level stuff

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#4

Lol, it boiled down to this for me.
But, I’m sick.

I have to hate myself enough to change.

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#5

haha, sort of a bizarro version of Planet Fitness

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#6

Totally. I have never had any sort of “routine”. I won’t say that discipline is bad - but I will say that the term is vague and a lot people interpret the term in a way that does not help them. For example, when it comes to learning physical playing technique, as we teach here, very often that means “repetitive exercises for X minutes with technique A, then repetitive exercises for Y minutes with technique B” and so on. And after years of looking at this, conducting interviews with experts in learning, and learning completely new playing techniques well into my 40s, I can tell you with almost dead certainty that this is simply not a good way to acquire new physical skills.

So it depends what it is you are trying to “discipline”, and what you mean by the term. Something in the realm of “goal-directed yet experimental” is probably the best way to describe the optimal approach to both physical skill acquisition and musical vocabulary building.

In other words, something not that far off from what you are currently doing. I would certainly not feel guilty about this because your intuition is steering you the right way.

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#7

yeah its pretty crazy to again be in a very strong learning curve after 30 yrs (btw, thanks for opening up new ideas for me 4ish yrs ago)

the catch though is that while the “intuitive” approach IS probably great for slowly extrapolating outward from what I know (nice scale work, tight little sequences, string bending etc)…there are some things that I dont think ill ever really get without some serious discipline.

for example 4 and 5 string arpeggios, especially when they are strung together…Vinnie Moore style pedal point licks…stuff like Yngwies arps in Rising Force etc

while my playing is strong in certain ways, one conspicuous missing element would be something like Jake E Lee outro to Bark at the Moon or virtually any other long sort of flashy lines

if I started a line like that it would break down and id land on my feet and maybe nobody would know but it leaves a hole in my playing

(Im just thinking out loud here lol)

edit, more thinking out loud…sounds almost like Im not using “chunking” at all come to think of it

another example

Jake E. Lee, Bark @ the Moon, pre chorus, 16th note riffs
#8

Again, depends what you mean by “discipline”. Obviously you need to try to do the things you want to do. But if you find that you have to force yourself to try instead of the jamming stuff you really prefer doing, maybe you’re not really that interested in learning these techniques. Nothing wrong with that!

If you are genuinely interested but just never had any instruction on how to do certain movements, and that’s why you get distracted and go off and do other things, that’s fine too of course. But clamping down hard on X minutes for this and Y minutes for that is not what we think actually works best for learning new skills. There is more natural variation in what the best practicers do than the popular image of slamming away for hours and hours. This includes putting it down for sometimes days at a time because you don’t feel like it. That variation isn’t just laziness. It’s the player reading their biofeedback and knowing when your brain is ready for new stuff or not having it. That’s a big part of learning to practice better.

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#9

I take 99% of what I practice from the book The One Thing and just repeatedly perform a technique or core challenge over and over and over again until I master it. Claus Levin talks about this a lot on YouTube. I personally did exclusive tremolo picking and single string runs for nearly a full calendar year, and after that obsessed over The Pop Tarts lick, practicing it for three months to the exclusion of almost all else except a break here and there for learning a metal song.

I think there are two components to practice: adherence, and efficacy.

Certain types of practice as Troy mentions are (likely) superior to others on a case study/scientific basis. This touches on the concept of efficacy, or what types of practice are more efficient at building the desired motor patterns. On the other hand, you have what I have come to call adherence. Adherence basically refers to what type of practice you personally enjoy, and its ability to keep you practicing each and every day. In the long run, all that matters is you keep practicing. It does no one any good to stop practicing their instrument - except for strategic breaks here and there - and whatever differences there are in terms of efficiency between practice methods won’t matter if you aren’t playing at all. So if intuitive jamming is what gets the juices flowing and obsessive practice over one challenge turns you off, then I think you have your answer as to what you should be doing.

#10

This is a little misleading. Nobody practices 24 hours a day, and I’m pretty sure you’re not advocating that anyone do that. Stopping practicing at some point is not just beneficial - it’s necessary. Sleep is also necessary for learning, and we’re not practicing when we’re sleeping. There is quite a bit of research supporting the need for significant breaks and rest in motor learning, and time spent not constantly performing the activity you’re trying to work on is necessary.

If what you really mean is that someone might get the best results by practicing at least a little bit every day, that’s quite a different statement than saying “not playing at all” is going to make your practice strategies “not matter”. That’s just incorrect and sends the wrong message.

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#11

I thought it was pretty clear that I meant practicing a little every day, and not practicing non-stop every day which is dangerous and absurd. I would never recommend that. I feel like your response was over-the-top aggressive on a simple clarification issue, and quite frankly, a little rude, Troy.

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#12

Sorry! My apologies, not my intent. I will leave my unedited rudeness up there so everyone can read it. It happens.

Yes, to be clear, I was pretty sure you didn’t mean that someone should practice constantly all the time. But I do think a lot of people think that, including readers of this forum. I have responded to threads here from players who feel guilty if they do less than 4-8 hours a day. Which is nuts. So I was just trying to clarify. Sorry again.

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#13

It’s all good Troy, no harm done. After re-reading your message, I actually think you’re in the right and I understand where you are coming from. One thing I constantly, constantly forget on this forum (and elsewhere) is that it’s really easy to forget that certain bits of advice can be totally misunderstood, or, in another vein, can seem obvious/“easy” to grasp to you, but not to others. I feel like my post could have been worded better because where over-practicing and RSI, and focal dystonia, etc. are concerned, it could seem like I was suggesting non-stop obsessive practice. From a personal standpoint I have really been making a concerted effort not to practice multiple, multiple hours a day despite how great the results can be. In the future I will be more careful of my wording.

So my apologies as well, I know you’re coming from a good place.

#14

No worries! I’m probably just a little hung up on the massive amounts of practice time that I see some people applying. Especially on this forum, not practicing “enough” is not an issue anyone has!

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#15

haha, good stuff guys…love the banter. We are all passionate about our musical ideas and beliefs.

you have to take the word “discipline” with huge grains of salt when I say it. Im probably an outlier off the OTHER side of the scale. In reality I should say “focus”

I guess my belief is that there are certain types of licks that one will NEVER play “by accident” or by “winging it”. For instance a Paganini Caprice lol. One is (generally) going to sit there and work that out pickstroke by stroke etc and maybe eventually get it to speed. Its not like you will be jamming one day and accidentally play the 5th caprice or Chopin Fantasie! lol

So I guess I just fantasize about ACTUALLY taking a lick or solo that is a bit out of reach for me and working it out stroke for stroke and gradually building it up to speed etc. I fantasize about it because I doubt ive ever actually done it lol

As far as the AMOUNT of practice I feel im probably intuitively at the sweet spot for me. I generally wont play/practice more than 3-4 days in a row and I never bash away until I feel arthritic lol. I feel ive made great strides over the last several years so I think the amount is good.

The head knowledge, technique knowledge, music theory etc is all good too. I generally know the mechanical theory for way more stuff than I can currently do. Like, I pretty much know the pickstrokes etc for 3-4-5 string arps but I havent spent enough time focusing on them to be able to actually make music with them lol.

Generally I warm u then go thru certain licks sort of “randomly” though in reality its probably about 10 pet licks that im gaining efficiency on. I might do a lick 10-20 times, go on to something else. Lots of random trying of lick variation using certain areas of the fretboard perhaps. If something seems cool I might start working on it a bit.

its pretty varied too and I seem to be making good progress on varied stuff such as:

  1. descending pent box stuff cascade style. But also using uwps on the top two strings leading to dwps pentatonic from G string downward. In other words hitting the top note with EITHER upstroke or downstroke and still ending up using dwps from G string on down etc

  2. long descending uwps runs using mostly 4nps…vaguely similar to an uwps version of the Black Star lick

  3. crap tons of random VH/Trowerish bluesy box playing with every pickstroke possible

  4. ascending single string stuff

  5. bits and pieces of arps including a decent amount of 2 string arp stuff

and its ALL improving nicely so Im not complaining. I just wonder how much better Id be if I actually used a metronome and charted out progress etc etc. Im more along the lines of starting out slowly and getting warmed up and then just wailing out stuff and trying to smooth it out.

Maybe its the age old question, which is better? 1) playing various licks with only a loose focus for an hour (or whatever amount of time), or 2) playing one or two licks with certain key movements for that period of time?

I guess I feel like I need some longer, really planned out licks in my repertoire. Thats sort of the missing element.

Im probably way above average at improvising because thats ALL I DO lol. But as I said, u cant improvise a Bach piece.

In any case, thanks for listening guys. Im positive that just being here in this environment will up my game considerably. Eventually Ill get up some clips so yall can hear the playing instead of just the description

Thanks, JJ

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#16

Interestingly, this is a cultural commonplace that relates to guitarists. Deena Weinstein, professor of sociology and famous for her study “Heavy Metal: A Cultural Sociology” from 1991, recently (2013) published a musicsociological/cultural historical article about the emergence of the “guitar god” in the 1960s as a phenomenon of the 60s youth culture as a result of technologies, media, economy and so on. She claims that the 60s guitar virtuosi were not only a “a model for future generations of lead guitarists” and for people who wanted to emulate them (and buy guitar brands!), but also that these guitarists were “romantic heroes” challenging 60s clishés like egalitarianism and collective behaviour by their charismatic exhibition of power and skills that let them stand out in a crowd. Some teademarks illustrate this phenomenon: Besides the “guitar face” we all know:

“Another seemingly irrational practice of guitarists of all stripes is their tendency to have a guitar constantly in their hands. Hanging with friends, family, fans, or band mates, watching TV alone or seated on a moving tour-bus—they are absentmindedly and silently fingering their instrument. This behavior can be read as neurotic or masturbatory, but it has the practical effect of keeping fingers and hands limber and imprinting chords and runs into the nervous system. Even when they are not holding it, most lead guitarists want to have their guitar at the ready everywhere, including, they readily admit, at their bedsides, at home, or on the road. Here again, an appeal to neurosis is possible, but there is also a practical explanation. The lead guitarist is enjoined, is required by the romantic ideology, to write his own music. That same ideology deems the creation of music to be an inspiration, not some common task that one can plan to accomplish. It is the antithesis of those 9 to 5 cubicle workers at the Brill Building in New York in the 1950s, churning out pop songs day in and day out. Under the sign of romanticism, inspiration comes at its own whim.” (Weinstein, 2013, p. 150)

  • Weinstein, Deena, Rock’s Guitar Gods - Avatars of the 60s, in: Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 70 (2013), pp. 139-154.
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#17

Well yeah, it gets into a lot of psychobabble I guess. Some people will never feel adequate or whatever so they want to publicly display how hard they are working or how bad they want it or whatever. Then they can lament about the “natural” players who never practice.

Ben Hogan the golfer comes to mind as far as the “romantic” figure of the golfer living on the driving range beating balls for hours. A fellow golfer said something like “Hogan had to get up on the cross every day”

Of course we have the example of the pale and skinny Steve Vai doing his famous “10 hr workout” lol.

Personally i dont think im in danger of slipping over into guitar asceticism lol. But yeah, some of the younger guys on the forum might be tempted to develop arthritis over the summer breaks lol.

I sort of keep in mind Steve Morse for how hard he picks and also for how he is now pretty devastated with carpal tunnel or whatever symptoms he is having.
(not judging him btw)
AFAIK Vito Bratta is pretty much crippled up too (notice how u havent heard from him in like 25 years?) and he was known as a guy who practiced 14 hrs/day etc

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