Practice Routine Advice

Playing Technique
#1

Hey all!

I’ve been experimenting with my practice routine for a couple of months now and I wanted to get folks’ advice and see what they recommend for next steps. While I do feel that the routine has been working for me, I constantly feel like there are things I can be optimizing.

I usually start with some rhythm warm-ups and some jazz practice to work on my music theory, then dive into a few technique exercises. This is the first 30 minutes. After that, I spend the bulk of my time on fragments of different songs that I love, usually focusing on a technique like cross picking, alternate picking, sweep picking, etc. Finally I close it out with some sight reading/improv and a few other things.

I like having a structured routine with logs. I’ve tried the “just play whatever when you can” (which I saw recommended on a few threads in the past about this topic) and it only took me so far. I’m a pretty obnoxiously organized person in other parts of my life, so no surprise that guitar practice happens to follow suit!

For the bulk of my practice (which is the song fragments), I usually “superset” the practice. So I’ll spend 4 minutes drilling an alternate picking run, then 4 minutes on some tapping sequence, then back to the alternate picking run, and so on. I’ll do 3 sets of each, so I’ll spend 12 minutes total on each lick. I remember reading somewhere that this type of context switching can be very helpful to the learning process.

What I’m wondering is, is 12 minutes too short to be working on something each day? Too much? I usually practice a variety of techniques every day. Is it better to maybe spend closer to 30 minutes on something, and potentially confine my routine to only a small subset of different techniques for a couple of weeks at a time? If so, when do I decide to move on?

Thanks for all your help!

#2

It all depends. You have the right approach. Studies have shown repeated studies/exercises done daily for short durations are better than one longer duration per week. To that end, you can’t really do much more detailed study, then you presently are, short of longer durations.

If you are trying to build a specific technique, you can expand that time. Ultimately, the best use of your time is playing with other people. Taking those techniques and putting them into a real world example will help you excel faster. I’m sure there are examples, but every guitar player that came out of nowhere with amazing skills, almost always has the same story. Started playing violin/mandolin/piano at a young age, moved to guitar 9-14 years of age and joined a band at 15-16 and started playing out two-four nights a week at 19 is Paul Gilbert.

I’ve read, if you want to get good at something musical, join a band that forces you to do that thing.

#3

Finally, the recipe!.. But a little more detail - what exactly is going on between 14 and 19 again?:wink:

@cflorez’s question is something I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about, too (and I’m also the super-organized type). I think what I hear you saying, @shredhead7, is that there needs to be more song “play-throughs” - i.e. more time just playing, even at the expense of focused technique work. Am I right?

If so, I’ve resisted the idea for a long time. But I’ve finally started to believe that, roughly speaking, if intermediate players must focus sharply on technique to become advanced, then beginners must gain a solid footing as intermediates by just racking up a lot of playing time. ‘Playing,’ again, meaning play-throughs and not nitty-gritty stuff.

Agree/disagree? (…and hope this is to your point, @cflorez)

#4

Thanks for the responses all!

I think there’s sometime more to it than simply playing through songs, although that is a big part of it. I have a background in classical piano (starting at age 9) and most of my skills came from just constantly working through sheet music of pieces I loved even if I really shouldn’t have been trying to playing them :grimacing:. While I think it helped a ton and I can play lots of more advanced pieces, I have a very sloppy raw technique on piano. It is what it is.

That being said, I found that being in a band forces you to get to a certain level because you’ve created a kind of outside pressure that you can’t avoid. You can lie to yourself about being able to play something. But try lying to your band mates, it won’t work as well!

But in between rehearsals, there’s definitely something critical about your approach to practice that can be the difference between struggling eternally or finally nailing a passage down. I think it comes down to several factors, such as how many clean repetitions you’re burning into your neural circuitry, and if you’re using the correct at-speed technique for the specific motion you’re working on, but also how you focus and divide your time as well as other factors. Maybe there’s no one magic size-fits-all, but I’m sure there are some recommended levels for how much time should be spent focusing on a technique each day, how many days in a row, etc., which is what I’m mainly trying to uncover here.

1 Like
#5

Right, me too. This is a big interest of mine, so I’m watching your thread carefully.

Btw, didn’t mean to make assumptions about your level or that of others, either.

I read a guy on another blog who was a pretty solid keyboardist, sounded like he’d been gigging for a while. He was getting into guitar, and he mentioned that on piano it was about 1 hr of Hanon/other technique, 1-2 hrs learning new songs and another 1-2 hrs noodling/having fun. That was really eye opening for me. A serious musician who was obviously accomplishing something, and technique could be as little as 20% of his time.

Is that true of you as well? (Cuz it seemed from the top post that you’re more technique-heavy.)

#6

No worries, you’re fine!

Growing up with the piano , pretty much 100% of my “practice” time was the following: Open up a sheet music book. Pick a piece I really like. Try to play it as best as I can even if it was way beyond my ability. Keep noodling until I got bored.

So, it’s a pretty weird recipe and I can’t really recommend it, but I never felt like I practiced and it seemed to give me enough technique to enjoy playing a wide variety of repertoire for myself. However, like I mentioned, I have super sloppy piano playing.

On guitar, I decided I want to learn it properly which is why I’m drilling the technique stuff so hard. I’m still very much learning and far from where I want to be at on guitar, but in just a few years I feel I’ve made a ton of progress thanks to this very intentional approach.

In any case, I think it would be helpful to examine the practice diaries/schedules of world class pianists/violinists/etc. and see how they approach the instrument. I think we as guitarists still have a lot to learn from the classical world!