In my 25 years of experience teaching the guitar to students of all levels and ages, the most important aspect of learning an instrument has always been how much do you practice? Not only how often do you practice, but also how do you spend your practice time? All practice sessions are not created equal! I'm going to lay out a few ideas about how to best spend your practice time to be more efficient in your work and to get closer to your goals faster!
1. It is the overwhelming consensus that regular practice sessions work better than sporadic practice. I have seen it with my own eyes! 15 to 30 minutes a day will always do you more good than a two hour session once a week. Your muscle memory will improve drastically with daily practice as apposed to a couple hours on the weekend. Also, just as important as your fingers on the instrument, is the time that your brain puts in. Daily practice will greatly improve your brains learning and memory of what you are working on. Of course not everyone has the time to practice every single day. That's okay! The point is consistency. You will see results very quickly!
2. Don't overdo it! When I started my guitar journey, I practiced at least a few hours a day! I was super in to learning my favorite songs and I had an endless drive to master even the hard stuff that was way out of my league. If your into that kind of time, great! But be sure to take some breaks every so often. Relax the fingers, take some breaths. Never play with pain! If you start to feel soreness or get a muscle cramp, stop playing! It is never good to play through pain.
3. Variety- Drilling the same song, riff, scale etc over and over again will always be a part of a musicians journey. And it's great and it works! However, back to the brain and fingers thing, take a break from the hard stuff and work on other things. Mix it up by working on strumming, work on some scales with a metronome, do some improvising etc. Remember to have fun and just jam out on some old favorites.
These are just a few ideas on how to make your practice routine most beneficial to you. In my next blog I will get into the finer details of what your sessions should entail. Play on!
