Approaches for practice.

tekbow

How are people practicing structure wise?

My instructor gives me corrected guitar pro files to learn the actual pieces before we analyse them and go over techniques for sections where I'm having specific difficulty.

More importantly I'm breaking practice into 10 minute chunks, so I'll do 2 scale/speed building exercises and a number of different songs.

As opposed to working on one thing for hours on end, and it seems to be more effective in making progress as in I don't wear my hand out on one thing I maybe cant get right.

If there's something you're having difficulty with, seems like once you start making mistakes, you start to make more = frustration = tension in the muscles and tendons = more and more mistakes.

I'm feeling it's better for keeping my hands relaxed and moving fluidly.

Milk

My practice nowdays is figuring out songs or parts of songs that i enjoy and breaking them down and learning how and why it is played how it is played. if a part of a song uses a bit of a scale i figure out what scale and also whilst im in that mind frame i learn and figure out the other scales in different positions.

Time wise i like to play as much as i can but usually to 30-40 mins at a time and go for a coffee and a smoke break to clear my head.

I think practice structure is very individual to the player and what helps one person absorb stuff into there head is different for others.

Fuengi

Buy a pedal. Play with until you get bored. Sell it. Buy a pedal.... 

Eventually you'll improve. 

Lestratcaster

I think routine and structure are crucial.

As a tutor I'm forever learning new songs and training my ear to hear chords and rhythms every single week. I teach around 15 people per week in a variety of styles so plenty of interesting artists and songs to cover.

Also if its something I'm not very familiar with I will spend more time on it and research it up.

I tend not play in massive bursts either, little and often is my kinda regime, and switching it up.

If its something technical like scales or whatnot then make lists, e.g A minor pentatonic pos 1 x 4 and try to play it correctly 4 times in a row. Tick it off once you've done it.

soma1975

Fuengi said:

Buy a pedal. Play with until you get bored. Sell it. Buy a pedal.... 

Eventually you'll improve. 

This, plus...

Retube
New speaker
Wiring Harness
Play same 5 blues licks.

 

duotone

I’ve began practicing again properly now that I have much more free time.  I started off with a Monthly target, just a list of 5 bullet points of what I want to achieve in the next month.

In the past I used to sit for an hour, with unfocused practising that became just noodling. Decided to buy a Truefire theory course that I’ve had my eye on for a while, which should help keep my focus.

If I stick to it & next month I can tick off those 5 bullet points, then I’ll be very happy. 

Adi

When I started to play guitar just over 3 years ago I used sit and practice scales and chromatic spider exercises for hours with metronome,  in hindsight I don't think it was the most effective practice,  I surely got better with those exercises but that didn't get me anywhere my goals of playing the songs I liked . The real progress started happening when I ditched all of that and  started learning the actual songs and focusing on licks and phrases that were difficult to me , I don't know if that was/is the right approach but that's how I do it, it makes practice more fun and applicable to the real playing , something I was really looking to incorporate,  rather than mindlessly going through the pentatonic scale up and down. I remember my first guitar teacher recommended going through scales when you watch tv(not that I do any of that really) , to me it seems a bit stupid as I believe in conscious practice and actually thinking what and why you're doing what you're doing

tekbow

Just came across this. May ir may not be useful.

https://getpocket.com/explore/item/the-beginner-s-guide-to-deliberate-practice?utm_source=pocket-newtab

Lestratcaster

Adi said:

When I started to play guitar just over 3 years ago I used sit and practice scales and chromatic spider exercises for hours with metronome,  in hindsight I don't think it was the most effective practice,  I surely got better with those exercises but that didn't get me anywhere my goals of playing the songs I liked . The real progress started happening when I ditched all of that and  started learning the actual songs and focusing on licks and phrases that were difficult to me , I don't know if that was/is the right approach but that's how I do it, it makes practice more fun and applicable to the real playing , something I was really looking to incorporate,  rather than mindlessly going through the pentatonic scale up and down. I remember my first guitar teacher recommended going through scales when you watch tv(not that I do any of that really) , to me it seems a bit stupid as I believe in conscious practice and actually thinking what and why you're doing what you're doing

Playing songs is actually the best way to learn to play/practice at the beginning as it means you are applying concepts such as chords/rhythm/technique/training your ear all at once. If, like you say you're just going up and a scale a metronome, though it may be good for just technique it can get repetitive and boring.

Also as you're not able to hear the technique applied in context to some real music it can be difficult to understand then it'll affect your motivation.

andy5805

have a goal, a real something that this is all for, most of us work better when goals are set