Looking for help to develop a practice routine

Playing Technique
#1

Hey guys,

First of all, if it’s not the place for that post, feel free to move it :slight_smile: .

Little bit of story about me. I’ve been playing guitare for quite some times (with up and down on motivation) and as I have always learn by myself, I have a lot of gaps to fill. I am currently reading a lot about theories on chords, scales etc but I have serious issues about having a motivating and consistent paractice routine.

I came accross some really intresting topics on CTC forum like Practice Routine Organization Poll or Practice routines and Practice routine and some advices and it made me think that I need a structured practice routine even though I can hardly spend more than an hour a day practicing (which I think is enough to achieve reasonable goals)

But as some of you mentioned it, a practice routine is very personnal and depends on the goals we want to achieve, and I am here in the hope that you can help me define that practice routine, or at least some strong guidelines.

  1. What playstyle do I want to have ?
    I am really into death melodic metal (bands like wintersun, children of bodom, amorphis, avatar, etc) so the playstyle is a bit technical with some speedy melody on single notes which means that I need strong picking mechanics (string hopping, fast picking etc) and a good left hand (dexterity and velocity)

  2. What are my weaknesses and what should I work on ?
    Here are the points that I have found :

  • my auricular tends to do the hit*er salute when the speed increase (sorry about that comparison)
  • I need to learn scales
  • sweep picking, I have the feel that my right hand is not that bad at sweep but left hand stops me from getting faster.
  • my neck knowledge is weak
  • I need to work on my hands synchronization
  • work on some picking technics (I try to work with the teemu package but even at slow tempo, I have the feel that something is wrong on my technics and that it wont wokr at higher speed)
  • Of course, keeping the fun :slight_smile:

If some of you could share some tips, some exercices or help me to establish a practice routine (or plan, like, first you need to learn “that” to start working on “this”), I would be very greatful !

Halver

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Practice Schedule
Daily Guitar routine
#2

Hey @halver, do you have a couple of “target” songs that you’d like to learn, and that contain the challenges you want to work on? I find it very useful to make exercises out of song parts that are difficut to play for me.

Also, you can use song passages to learn scales and arpeggios, by analysing what notes/patterns/scale shapes are being used.

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#3

Hey @tommo ,

Indeed, working technics through songs keeps the fun so it could be a good idea as long as it is as efficient as working on pure technic (or is it more efficient ?).

I have some songs in mind :

That kind of stuff :slight_smile:

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#4

I know it might not be possible. But the best practice routine is no routine. (Flashbacks to enter the dragon)
I have a guitar in arms reach, literally, every day. I pick it up randomly throughout the day, it’s become a part of my life.

I recommend looking into a travel guitar, or even one of those small practice guitars that are only a section of a fretboard.

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#5

I think it is more efficient, as it makes you practice things that you will actually play in “real life”!

More generally, it seems that efficient practice is obtained when you are in a “problem solving” mindset. Something like: “did the lick I just played sound/feel good? What were the problems with it? Can I fix them?”

As opposed to

“That sounded bad, I’m gonna repeat it 1000 times hoping that it will become good”.

I know because I was stuck in the second type of practice for years :sweat_smile: - and my technical advances never came from infinite repetition, they came from understanding stuff about my movements.

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#6

I think it depends how you are wired as an individual. I’ve never had a strict regimen, and the times I’ve tried to implement one it hasn’t stuck. I’ve made the most progress by picking a thing and sticking at that one thing until I’ve got bored.

eg. when I decided to focus on alternate picking I chose a set of exercises and worked on them until I felt I had figured out the alternate picking thing. Then I wanted to the learn the “under a glass moon” solo to test my chops, so I practiced that every night until it I was happy with it.

If you are the kind of person that does well with structure than you will really benefit from splitting that hour into four topics and working on each for 15 mins. If you are more like me, just pick a thing and work on it.

The most important thing in practice is for it to be regular, focused and un-distracted. So play every day, make sure all you do during your practice session is play guitar (no social media etc), and if technique is the area you are working on use strategic trial and error to improve. From my experience, and feedback from my private students, these three points seem to make the biggest impact on the rate of improvement. The structure of the practice session appears less important than the contents and the degree of discipline/focus that is applied.

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#7

eg. when I decided to focus on alternate picking I chose a set of exercises and worked on them until I felt I had figured out the alternate picking thing. Then I wanted to the learn the “under a glass moon” solo to test my chops, so I practiced that every night until it I was happy with it.

Where did you find those sets of exercices, I think that’s one of the thing that I lack of, good exercises.
Maybe I can do both, pure technic and having fun with part of songs, like working on a specific thing, let’s say for exemple scales, and then play the song that contains the technic i’m working on , for exemple the four seasons.

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#8

I think you just found the answer to your question about lacking good exercises. :slight_smile:

Scale practice is much more meaningful if one has an urgent need to assimilate the same.

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#9

I got them from CTC, if you want to know more about the method I used to learn alternate picking see this thread.

I tend to prefer using fragments of a song as exercises, for example if I was working on the four seasons I would find a phrase that I couldn’t play and treat that as an “exercise” until I got it. Reason being that I need to see how something is applied for me to enjoy working on it - exercises without application in the real world are pretty boring imo.

Although In the case of learning to alternate pick, I had been trying that method for years with no progress. So I hypothesised that removing variables until I got the basics was the most effective way to learn the feel of alternate picking, and then worked on simple exercises until I learned the technique, then I Immediately went to work applying it with my original method and this returned a good degree of success.

In the case of someone trying to work out what to practice, I ask them to think of a specific goal for their playing (in your case the four seasons?), I then ask them to think about what is preventing them achieving that goal; technique, theory knowledge, just need to sit and play it regularly? This informs what approach to take.

Sometimes someone will list lots of things they want to achieve (I was guilty of this), I say pick one or two and then move onto the next one once you’ve done the first. You can’t tackle everything at once, it’s just inefficient, and you have a lifetime to master the guitar so don’t worry about achieving everything at once. Pick a thing, make a plan, start working on it. If you don’t know how to work on it ask for advice on how to do so. If you use that approach improvement is inevitable.

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#10

I used the “no-routine” method to great success when I was a kid. That gradually turns into not playing much anymore. Then not playing in 10 years. Just keep this in mind. As you get older, you get more responsibilities. Now that I have a family, I am highly disciplined about playing. Heck, having a GF may be a challenge to the “No-routine” method. Play everyday for 15 minutes of focused practice, and everyday for 15 just to improvise. Skip noodling altogether, it causes a lazy mind. YMMV :wink: Cheers! -Cru

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#11

Everyone has different lives of course, and different priorities.
As far as I’m aware none of the virtuosos have a routine, it’s just always there in arms reach. Some exceptions I’m sure.
A routine really is highly susceptible to disruption from life. Where as if you have a random whenever you feel like it approach it’s far less susceptible to disruption. Though I’m aware many have put themselves in a position where that’s not possible. Comes down to priorities, and personality types.

At the end of the day, if you’re in anyway forcing it, it’s not going to last, just like the gym, no one keeps it up unless they enjoy it.
No Doubt a little every day works as you say, but that won’t get you to the higher levels.
But ultimately, the musicality factor is way more important, a guy that plays poorly but creates actual music is way ahead of a shredder, and you don’t need a guitar to improve that aspect. Just create mental exercises.

#12

Thanks for all those answers, I see your points. Juste pick up one thing you like, see the difficulties, work on it and move to the next one.

So what do you think about some methods like “john petrucci rock discipline”, you take one topic, work on it for a week until you are satisfy with the level you acquired and then move to the next ?

Another example, some people say that to master some technics, it takes months, years (I dont know, let’s say sweep picking, like a good sweep picking), you can’t juste do sweep picking for a month, you’ll go crazy, you have to work on it a little bit every day and work on other topics no ?

What I was meaning in the title of the topic, is that I need a little help to develop a practice routine for my needs at the current time for my specific needs. Of course practice routine must not be carved in stone, it should evolves with the needs of the player.

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#13

I personally have one song that I love, and play it whenever I don’t feel like thinking and a few exercises. The excersises change over time as I master them.

I original was playing the intro to 5150, great double stop and string tracking practice, now it’s spanish fly, though I’m almost don’t with that and moving onto an intro call gandhara by godiego, single flowing lines with big chords as the accents. Each of these I’ve played to the point it gets depressing, like, is this all I can do? But of course it’s not all as my technique has improved vastly with these simple songs and exercises. With my effort into music theory and technique I’m starting to pull away from my peers who seemed so much better than me before, they have better song catalogs and can just go out and perform with that, but that’s not hard to build up. I’ve essentially gone the hard unfulfilling route rather than the satisfying one of building a song catalog.

So you can go two ways, the dull but foundation building route where you’ll start slow for a few year but progress very fast as it all comes together.

Or work on memorising vast song lists. Gives you the ability to just go out there and perform basic songs, but will stay fairly steady in terms of progress.

I personally am happy I but in the effort to really work on technique and theory. And not just lists of songs. As it it’s built a solid foundation, but it takes a personality type to do that insane amount of work.

If you’ve little time you will get faaaaar more out of the guitar just focusing on songs.
Unless you want to go slightly crazy like me.

You got the time? Go the hard way. If not, I’d just focus on getting songs under you.

#14

There are so many lessons to tackle working on useable musical material. Whatever you come up with will hopefully support the same.

One might watch Petrucci’s video and have some awesome technique exercises and a warm-up routine to suit many different approaches, BUT, Petrucci spends a lot of time working on songs with his band that can’t be captured in instructional videos well.

Similar to the famous folk not being able to accurately explain their own playing, someone sharing an exercise may or may not fully grasp what’s actually working in their creative process.

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#15

“Where as if you have a random whenever you feel like it approach it’s far less susceptible to disruption.” -WhammyStarScream

By definition, you would never be interrupting anything.

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#16

Because you’d carry on again when you feel like it. Throughout the day randomly. Having a set time limits a lot of adaptation. I pick up and put down the guitar 10-15 times a day working on a mix of songs technique and theory.

Any life interruptions impact my playing very little due to it’s spread out nature. If you have one set time to work on a few specific things… you can go days not playing due to life.

This is the difference between making it a part of your life.
Or a chore.

All the things you want to improve on are going on in your mind throughout the day, all these neural connections are being repeatedly run through strengthened and expanded, all the muscles tendons ligaments joints are being subject to the forces necessary to play guitar throughout the day.
If you pick it up once you’re not doing anywhere near the workload.

There’s a concept in memorization called spaced repetition, each time you go back to a thought or skill all the connections get strengthened. If you have the ability take your guitar to work, put one next to your bed, wherever you spend most of your time put a guitar in arms reach.
Whatever you can do to lessen the chore aspect the better.

#17

Would you like some exercise tips for your bullet points in your initial post? A couple of those could do with being more specific, what scales do you know/would like to have in your vocabulary, what style of alternate picking are you looking to work on? What aspects of your neck knowledge are weak?

#18

This is worth thinking about, along with the related Leitner flashcard bucket system, etc., but there is a lot more to it, and it’s kind of the opposite of disorganized practice!

#19

Due to the disorganized times still happening on the same day it doesn’t matter.
Having a preset time to do something puts an essence of a job to it, makes it less likely you’ll do it if you fall behind the set time. I think it’s a terrible method if you intend to keep up an activity for life.

Fact is everyone has random bits of free time in the day, and if guitar is something you’re interested in you’ll just pick it up for fun.

You don’t need a routine, you need passion.
As said before if you’ve time doing serious work on the foundations is best, if not, run through some song, songs include everything you need.