Throughout my guitar playing my practicing schedules were rather chaotic and I never had enough discipline to create some kind of a methodical practice routine untill recently. After spending some time doing it I spotted much better progress so here I am with my practice schedule and some tips that I found useful to make the most out of your practicing. If u always were lazy like me here is a complete practice routine for you to cover all of the basic building blocks of your picking technique (Sweeping and crosspicking are not included)
Here are some things you have to bear in mind before you start doing anything inmho.
- Distractions are your worst enemy in all scenarios. If u want to practice focus on it and do not waste your attention on your cell phone/TV/etc.
- Mark your results, ideally create some kind of a practice diary where you will measure your progress with each excercise/piece that you’re working on during your practice sessions. For example:
Day X
4nps pentatonic 160 bpm 16th
6nps scale 120 bpm sixtuplets
Day X+1
4nps pentatonic 170 bpm 16th
6nps scale 130 bpm sixtuplets. - What you practice you become better at and what you don’t you keep sucking at. I saw a lot of players including myself avoiding licks that are hard to pull off. You should be doing the things that your are terrible at along with stuff you can already do in order to improve. You can play one way pickslanting phrases at blazing speeds but if you’ve never touched any 3nps scales you’re not going to become better at those without practicing them.
So here’s a way I approach practicing.
Start slow - around 60 bpm and start playing the lick. After playing at that speed for 2-3 minutes bump it up (5-10) bpm (if you make mistakes work at that speed untill you get it) repeat the process untill you feel like you can’t go any further. This is going to take a while but now you’ve reached your max speed at the moment. Play at it for some time and see if you can go any further. If you do practice that and try to go even beyond that. If you don’t bump the bpm up 10 beats or so and try to play it as clean as you can. Don’t worry that much about making mistakes. After doing that increase the speed even more and try to play it again. After some time you comeback to the max speed you’ve reached before and suddenly if feels a lot easier. See if u can get any faster, and play it super clean. Then you can go to the different excercise and repeat the process. I found this way of practicing working the best for me and hope it is going to be the same for you. Also here are some excercises that I use in cause you’re not sure what u want to practice.
- Basic chromatic excercise is really nice to start with because it’s really nice for warming up
- Just pentatonic scale in 1st pos going up and down ( You also should use other boxes)
E|–8--5--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
B|--------8–5--8–5--------------------------------------------------------------------
G|--------------------7–5--7–5--------------------------------------------------------
D|--------------------------------7–5--7–5--------------------------------------5–7-- and so on
A|--------------------------------------------7–5--7–5--------------5–7--5–7-------
E|--------------------------------------------------------8–5--5–8-------------------- - A Simple 6nps run containing different combinations of fingers
E|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------7–9--10–
B|-----------------------------------------------------------------7–9--10–7--9–10----------
G|-----------------------------------------------6–7--9–6--7–9-------------------------------- After finishing that play the
D|-----------------------------6–7--9–6--7–9-------------------------------------------------- highest note again and go
A|-----------5–7--9–5--7–9-------------------------------------------------------------------- in other direction
E|–5--7–9-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- - The same idea as previous just 3nps also practice it up and down but I recomend spliting it into 2
exercises
E|------------------------------------------------7–9--10–
B|--------------------------------------7–9--10------------
G|-----------------------------6–7--9----------------------
D|--------------------6–7--9-------------------------------
A|-----------5–7--9----------------------------------------
E|–5--7–9------------------------------------------------- - Octave position shifting excercise
E|------------------------------------10–14–14–10------------------------------------
B|----------------------------10–14------------------14–10----------------------------
G|---------------------7–11----------------------------------11–7---------------------
D|--------------7–11------------------------------------------------11–7--------------
A|--------5–9--------------------------------------------------------------9–5--------
E|–5--9--------------------------------------------------------------------------9–5--
Feel free to share your tips on practicing and some useful excercises