Is There An Optimum Number Of Practice Hours A Day?

Playing Technique
#91

Well, one thing about Yngwie that’s not mentioned is his love of Uli Jon Roth. Roth was doing Yngwie’s whole trip in the early - mid 70’s.

One listen to Sails of Charon, released in 1977, and you can see where Yngwie got pretty much his entire style from, so I think it’s disingenuous to suggest he created his approach to the instrument with no serious external influence beyond a Deep Purple record.

Then there’s Uli’s soloing on Catch Your Train, released in 1976, where he’s pretty much doing the same thing. So for sure, Yngwie had plenty of inspiration and straight up copping licks from Uli Jon Roth.

That said, this is a great discussion. There’s so much that goes into the things that you guys are talking about, but I think the conversation is straying away from its original intent. Not only did some of these players have innate abilities to progress faster on the instrument, but they were also in the right place at the right time to create everything from an incredible image, new recording techniques, changes in gear that facilitated the ability to play fast and clean (guitars that were better designed with lower action, advances in amplifier technology and the ability to produce smooth gain, etc.) EVH being a prime example of someone who brought in a completely new style of guitar that combined a Fender strat with the sonic capabilities of a Les Paul and getting the much-touted brown sound, which made for a smoother, cleaner distortion.

But the ability to reach the heights technically or even melodically as our favorite players, does not mean that you are going to be a spark plug for an entirely new style of playing, image and songwriting.

And in general, most of the players we’re talking about here did spend a tremendous amount of time with a guitar in their hands. People like Paul Gilbert, Jason Becker, Vinnie Moore and of course Rhoads, Van Halen and Yngwie, all had a formative period where they practiced a good 8 to 10 hours a day.

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#92

and who showed him how to pick it all??? lol

Uli is great but Yngwie kind of tripled or quadrupled Uli’s technique

#93

Of course, he had to figure it out for himself exactly how to play it, but my point is that he did not exist in a vacuum.

I do agree he certainly took Uli’s technique further, but if you listen to Uli, it’s really not that much further. Uli was pretty fully formed long before Yngwie came out.

I am decidedly a post-EVH guitar player. I started playing in 1982 when I was 14 and my favorite players and inspirations were Van Halen and Rhoads.

Due to my age at the time, I was not really into the earlier Scorpions stuff, although I did really dig Love Drive which is mostly Michael Schenker. I was more into the post Blackout Scorpions with Matthias Jabs. And of course I was totally into Yngwie when he came out. But years later when I finally went back to the earlier Scorpions stuff and heard Sails of Charon, I was kind of blown away by how it was pretty much Yngwie’s entire bag of tricks in a single song, more or less.

#94

agree to disagree. Thats kind of like saying EVH didnt take Claptons style that much further

#95

Well, I don’t think those two are comparable. Clapton inspired Eddie Van Halen, but EVH sounds absolutely nothing like Clapton. Yngwie sounds a lot like Uli Jon Roth. But certainly I don’t actually disagree with that. He did take it considerably further of course, I’m just saying I myself was pretty surprised at how good Uli really sounded for 1976.

Not to mention my point is less about their exact technical abilities, it’s more about the entire sound and style. The harmonic minor scales, the phrygian dominant, the arpeggios, the dark, classical influence. Now if you wanted to take Blackmore and say that Yngwie quadrupled him, that I would definitely agree with. But just to be clear I’m not really in disagreement with you. Yes Yngwie took Uli’s style considerably further, but if you go back and listen to Uli, he was incredibly technically-advanced for his time, also considering the gear that he was using.

#96

I thinks Sails of Charon is great and I can see the connection, but it’s an exaggeration to say that it has Yngwie’s entire bag of tricks for my money. It definitely points to what he would do but substantially different in phrasing, technique and context. That’s just me though…

#97

yeah, Blackmore was like a Neanderthal compared to Yngwie (and I love Rainbow and D.P. btw)

I just cringe when I see “bag of tricks” applied to Yngwie. uggh. Dude was a master musician. unfortunate choice of words I guess

#98

Thank u. My thoughts exactly.

#99

Oh dude definitely. I absolutely love Yngwie, think he’s one of the greatest guitarists of all time. He’s one of my guitar gods for sure. I’m sure we would be in agreement on most everything about him. Not to mention it’s a little difficult to have this conversation writing back and forth, the medium is limited. I’m sure if we sat down and had an actual face-to-face talk about this we could go on for hours and find ourselves mostly in agreement.

That said I don’t necessarily find the term bag of tricks to be demeaning. Every guitar player has their vocabulary, their licks, their tricks, their abilities. That’s all I meant. But I could see how you might feel it suggests some sort of charlatan, but that was not my intention.

And yes when I said that there was a bit of hyperbole in there for sure.

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#100

yeah i remember when i first actually heard the early Scorpions stuff. i was like “wtf?”…all those fast clean scales back when people were considering Clapton to be a god lol

Well Uli was way ahead of his time for sure. Its odd how many people say Yngwie ripped off Ritchie lol. Uli was so far ahead of Ritchie its not even funny.

I have seen Ritchies comments on Yngwie, it would be interesting to see what Uli has had to say about Yngwie

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#101

Absolutely! And now that we’re having this discussion, I’m listening to the first Alcatrazz album. That is hands-down some of my favorite playing from him. So fast, clean, incredible tone, incredible vibrato, just ridiculous! That live video from Japan in 84? I wore out my old VHS tape on that one. What an utterly outstanding performance from him. Despite whatever influences he had, a true innovator and groundbreaker.

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#102

I think stuff said here can be directly applied to music. Check it out.

#103

If I had ONE piece of advice for beginners it would be “learn SOMETHING.” Dont just endlessly noodle and half ass play stuff. Take one good solid lick and just mega super OVERlearn it to where you have it 100% mastered.

At that point you have a solid base to build from and you can expand from there. Success leads to more success.

Endlessly noodling and halfway playing stuff leads to more halfway playing stuff. I should know.

There are these endless debates about “should I work out the lick slowly or just go for it really fast?” Ill simply say I WISH I had worked out way more licks slowly to at least get them under my fingers

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#104

I assure everyone, it’s less time than it took me to read this entire thread.

Jeez.

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#105

Here’s a fun opinion I encountered today that’s relevant to this thread. It was posted by drummer Tommy Igoe, but I’m not sure if he’s quoting somebody else or not:

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxi5_SFARgo/

From image in the post:
“If you need to practice 14 hours a day, you are terrible at practicing. You’re wasting time, lacking focus, working in circles and almost assuredly reinforcing the bad habits you think you’re defeating.”

And from one of his replies to a comment on the post: “And also, if you’re uncomfortable with 14 just substitute anything over 6. Same thing.”

Rick Beato interviews Eric Johnson
#106

6 hours is still a huge amount lol. I would think the avg range people could argue about would be something like the difference between 1hr per day vs 3ish hrs per day

I agree though with what he says. FOCUS is huge because it is so easy to work in circles and reinforce bad habits

I go back to my comment from Dec '18. Learn SOMETHING. In other words u should be trying to make true progress that can be measured or felt and heard etc.

Self awareness is huge. I tend to end up not working on a specific thing but just basically “trying to play fast” and its really easy to just lapse into a lot of sloppy playing where u hit about half of what u try etc. Maybe SOME of that is ok as far as just generally getting faster but if u do it everyday u just get to be a sloppy player period

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#107

An ancillary point: I’ve found that my picking technique “invisibly” improves as I do things like learn standards from leadsheets, etc., which are way lower-intensity (something like Autumn Leaves is like an average of two notes per measure, ha). Not sure why or how, but it’s a very noticeable effect.

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#108

well especially if u are one to really practice intensely at times…at any point when u finally do back off you allow the brain and nervous system to “catch up” and actually process some of that work.

#109

Pretty solid advice here. Lining up with Claus Levin. Focus on something and learn it etc

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#110

I feel you on this stuff, and it’s one reason why I sometimes feel like working on my weaknesses is only worth it to get things to some decently passable stage that I can use when I write solos for my band.
My right hand was always my weakest link (maybe being left handed playing standard had something to do with it struggling to find a natural approach). So I spent much of my youth focusing on tapping licks and these days, if I’m regularly keeping in shape I can hang with any Greg Howe or Michael romeo style lick you can throw at me, but just never got my alternate picking to that high level of proficiency.

CTC, particularly the volcano seminar was a game changer and finally I figured out a system for my right hand that works and I made a lot of strides, but I wonder sometimes if investing a ton of time into that stuff is even worthwhile, because it’s never going to be one of my strengths. I feel at the point I’m at maybe it’s better to take Steve Vai’s advice to “ignore your weaknesses and cultivate your strengths.”

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