How to Get the Most Out of Your Guitar Practice Routine

I remember a friend of mine asking me years ago: “How long does it take to learn guitar?” I tried for two weeks and gave up.” I found it funny then and I still find it funny, because at the time that he asked me I had been playing guitar for over a decade, had had dozens of teachers, private lessons and had studied it for three years in college.

I didn’t know how to answer.

Now, after years of teaching guitar, I can say that the time it takes depends on the student. It also depends on how inspiring and knowledgeable your teacher is, but mainly it depends on you. Some students have a drive to learn, an insatiable curiosity and others aren’t too motivated. It doesn’t matter how long you have been playing, because I have students that have been playing for one year that are better than musicians that have been playing for a decade. What matters is how often you practice and how you practice.

There are so many resources available nowadays to learn music. The internet is swamped with information, videos, tutorials, song covers, you can also find books, apps, teachers, other musicians, etc. We have access to more resources than ever, but there are less musicians per capita than ever before. One of the main reasons is that it is really hard to learn music. When we start learning an instrument, it feels like we’ll never get better. The funny thing though, and I see it a lot with my students, is that if you persevere through the first few months, it becomes more and more fun. Even though we have lots of resources available to us, what matters is the effort we put into learning. If you never play, you will learn very slowly. If you practice often you will get better.

Practice Often, But Not Too Long

When it comes to practicing, there are a lot of different opinions. When I was in college, several of my friends would tell me that I needed to practice two hours a day every day to get good. If that sounds scary to you, it sounded scary to me as well. I did try to do that, but being the rebel that I am, I quickly stopped because I was losing my interest and love for music. I realized that my love for playing was more important than the opinions of other people. If I enjoy what I do, I do it more often. What a funny concept isn’t it?

Why should I torture myself playing longer than I can endure just to be able to brag that I practice two hours a day? I find that it is much more efficient and productive to practice often, but not too long. After about half an hour of doing the same thing, my brain becomes mush and I can’t retain any information. It is better to play fifteen minute increments four times a day than to do two hours in a row. I learned this concept the hard way.

During my last semester in college studying music, I was getting tired of the program and was yearning to be done my studies, so I procrastinated until the last two weeks to learn four really hard songs. What did I do? I practiced like a maniac during those two weeks. I learned very quickly that I couldn’t cram music, I needed to rest in between learning hard parts, because at one point I wasn’t retaining anything anymore. So, I created a regimen of half an hour of practice followed by a break and did that several times a day every day. It worked wonderfully.

Since then, I have used this technique to learn new instruments and new styles. I practice, take a break, practice, take a break. Nowadays I even go further and play my instruments in between doing tasks. For example, when I boil water (I have a crappy stove, it takes 5-10 minutes to get to a boil) I pick up an instrument and play it. I often play maybe 5 minutes of an instrument, then set it down and do something else. In a day, I might play guitar, bass, ukulele, drums and sing, but only 5-15 minutes each instrument. It works great. It helps me enjoy those instruments, therefore I play them more often, so I get better faster. It becomes a daily practice. I even started using this technique to learn other things like languages, sports or cooking, etc. It feels sometimes like if a doctor saw that, he would probably say that I have an attention deficit disorder, but it’s not it; it is simply a great way to learn. I do play my instruments for hours sometimes. There are things that you can’t practice with short intervals, especially endurance, because there is no way to learn that other than to play for long periods of time. In general, I practice for short periods of time. If I need a longer session, I will break it down into different things to work on and not tackle the same thing over and over. I don’t like to be bored, just like anybody else.

My Method of Practice

When it comes to my actual routine, there is a method to my madness. I usually start with something easy and fun to play. I want to get hooked into playing. Once I have warmed up, I will try something that is challenging to me. A challenge to me is something that is realistic to my level. It is good to have big goals, but it is not worth it to do something that will discourage me and make me want to stop, because I feel like I will never get there. I love the saying “a journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step”. It is totally true. I never thought when I started playing that I would become as good as I am today. I didn’t even know I could do some of the things I do now. I got there by putting one foot in front of the other and by continually challenging myself. Once I have worked on something challenging, I will try to incorporate it into something that I often do. I want to integrate this hard technique into my playing, so it becomes part of my usual vocabulary. I use that same concept when I do long practices, I try to keep it fresh, keep my brain guessing where I am going, so that I stay in the moment.

Curiosity is the Key to Improvement

One of the main reasons why I am the player that I am today is because I am an extremely curious person. I challenge myself constantly. When I was studying music in college, most of my friends didn’t like theory, but I loved it. I would go to the library and borrow books on theory, rhythm, different genres and study them for fun. The difference between my friends and I is that I used the theory I learned into my playing. It made me understand the theory concepts much better, but it also made me understand my instrument better.

Remember that music came first, theory second. Musicians were playing and thought that it sounded good, so someone decided to understand why it sounded good and what the concepts were behind the notes played. So, with that in mind, I try to remember that theory is not just some concept that comes from nowhere, it is there to help me figure out what works well together. It is just a tool, not a torture device.

A good example of my learning technique is how to practice scales. Most people think that scales are boring and they don’t even know their uses. Scales are a tool just like theory, they are notes that sound good together. So, why do most people, including me when I was younger, play scales up and down the same way every time like zombies? I didn’t like it then and I don’t like to do it now. So, I try to be creative. If all the notes of a scale sound good together, then I can fool around with those notes and see what I like. I can improvise, create and play around with those notes. Maybe I’ll end up creating a beautiful melody that I will use in a song. Practice those scales with rhythm, work only on sections at a time, try playing with a backing track and fool around with those notes, create a solo, start from the middle or the end of the scale, go backwards, etc. Be creative!

How to Practice a Song Thoroughly

If I am trying to learn a particular song, I will tackle it several different ways. I will learn the chords first and try to understand the key signature of the song, the time signature, the overall form of the song (chorus, verse, or AABA, etc.) . Then, I will tackle the melody of the song, try to play it by itself and with the music. If I have a hard time with learning the melody or chords, I might use some visualization techniques to help me learn them. If I can’t play the song at full speed, I will practice it slower until I can get to speed.
I don’t want to prioritize speed over quality of the playing. It’s happened to me that I build the speed of a solo I was working on over fifteen weeks. I want to make sure that even when I play the solo at full speed, it still sounds as good as when I play it at a slow speed. If I am struggling with remembering the notes that I need to play, I can play the same notes, but create something different with them. This way, I keep practicing the techniques that I am working on for the song that I want to learn, while keeping my practice fresh, so I don’t get bored of practicing this song. I might take some of the riffs I learn and play them in a different context.

The same thing applies with solo licks and phrases. If it takes me weeks to perfect a song I am working on, then I have to be creative in the way I practice the song, so that I don’t get tired of playing it. It’s very hard to keep my interest on something when I repeat it the same way over and over. So I change things up, I am creative in the way I approach learning. I play music like a child plays with anything he finds. I make up my own rules and see if I enjoy the game, if I don’t enjoy it, then I change it to make it more interesting. Maybe it sounds strange, but it really works for me. I don’t kid myself in thinking that a song is going to be easy to learn because I do that, but it will make the process a hell of a lot more fun, therefore I won’t get bored of the song as quickly. The results are amazing.

Teach Yourself

Be kind with yourself when learning. When I practice something and I just don’t get it or can’t play it, I try to be a teacher to myself and break things down into achievable goals to get me to where I want to go. I might have to break it down to the actual movement that I am trying to do. If I am working on a piece on the piano where I play completely different things with both hands, I will start by playing the rhythm for each hand separately on my leg or a table. I don’t want to do it on the piano yet, as I want to keep my focus on basic things. Once I can do the rhythm with each hand separately, I will try it with both hands. It’s like playing drums with my fingers. Next, I will play one hand at a time on the piano, then both hands together at slow speed. I’m describing it as quick process, but sometimes I will have to work the rhythm with my hands before I tackle individual fingers; I might have to play around with each part and work one measure at a time. Once I have started working the piece on the piano, I can always go back to tapping the rhythm, I can also try to practice the fingering of a phrase with a different rhythm, etc. I don’t do this for hours at a time. I practice short periods of time like mentioned earlier. You can do the hand and finger rhythm practices anywhere, like on public transit, or at work or at school when you are really bored; just make sure that you are not too loud (it can be quite annoying for people around).

To wrap it up, I’d say, if you are practicing and you don’t even know what your fingers are doing, because you are on another planet in your head, maybe it is time to take a break or change the way you practice. To me playing music is like meditating, I try to be so into it by enjoying what I am doing that I don’t have time to think about anything else. This way, time flies by, because I am having fun and at the same time that I am learning and getting better. It’s a win-win situation.

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Patrice Savoie

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