The Differences Between A Practice Routine And A Practice Schedule, And How To Generate Success

Any guitar instructor that you may come across and begin taking lessons with will tell you generally the same things. They will tell you that the majority of your progress in mastering guitar takes place at home outside of your weekly scheduled lesson. The problem with most instructors, both rookie and experienced, is that usually the conversation around practicing ends after that one statement.

In reality, the real key to success with guitar goes well beyond being handed a few sheets of information and being told to go home and hammer away at it. Success lies not just with how many scales and chords you can memorize, or how many mindless, expressionless scale sequences you can play. While I do agree that expanding your memory bank to make room for this information is important, the real success lies in how efficiently and effective you practice this material and understanding how relevant it may or may not be to your short-term and long-term goals.

Practice "routines" versus a practice schedule. Whenever I hear the word "routine" being applied to something I`m truly passionate about, you will usually see my upper lip curl inwards in discontent. A routine describes an action or series of actions that are performed in a systematic way. If we apply this concept to guitar, this usually means practicing the same things over and over again, most times without any clear sense of direction for the same amount of time each and every day. It`s obvious to assume that this method of practice gets incredibly boring in a very short amount of time. You are a human being, not a machine built to perform a set number of tasks the same way every day.

If we make the shift away from a routine to a schedule, you will understand that you don`t have to practice the same things in the same order every single day. Just having the guitar in your hands and playing anything (while still contributing to your goals) is making progress! You want to mix up your practice material each day while still leaving time left over for improvisation, song writing, and playing whatever else it may be you feel like playing that day. For example, lets say that you spend about 90 minutes per day practicing guitar. Ideally you should spend 45 to 60 minutes of that time working on your planned material and use the remainder of your time to spend just playing guitar and having fun. This can be improvising solos over backing tracks in different keys, (Youtube is a great resource for free backing tracks) or learning a song by your favorite artist using guitar tablature or training your ear to pick out parts piece by piece. Making time for fun will greatly increase your focus and keep you on the right path to success!

Here are some tips from my own personal experience that I believe will help you develop a fun and interesting practice schedule that will keep you motivated and greatly increase your progress in mastering guitar:

Get serious about your short-term and long-term goals. Your short-term goals should be related to one specific area at a time. When you receive new information to practice, whether it is related to ear training, technique development, music theory or otherwise, you should always ask yourself: "How will this information contribute to my overall goals?" For example, it does not make sense to learn classical style finger picking exercises if your overall goal is to become a progressive metal guitar player. Your practice schedule should ONLY focus on material that will make the most impact on your goals! Your long-term goals should be related to your overall desired outcome of learning guitar. You should be asking yourself: "Do I want to learn guitar as a hobby? Do I want to make playing guitar a career? Do I eventually want to start or join a band or do I want to be an independent song writer?" The long term goals that you set are going to automatically reorganize the world around you to make that goal a reality and put you on the right path to success. I delve into this topic in greater detail in another article, but you need to know why you are playing guitar in order to get the most out of it!

Get organized! In order to get the most out of each practice session, you will want to make sure your practice space and your material (sheet music, books, recordings, etc) is well organized and easy to find. This will help you stay focused on the task at hand. I recommend getting a 2 or 3 inch ring binder, dividers, and 8 ½" x 11" clear plastic sheet protectors. Divide your practice material into these sections (you can add more sections if you wish.):

Scales Chords Arpeggios Ear Training Music Theory Improvisation Tapping (if it fits your style) Songs (transcri ptions from classical and popular songs)

Minimize or eliminate distractions. Common distractions you should avoid include things like practicing in front of the television, Facebook (sometimes a challenge even for me), answering phone calls and texts (sometimes this can`t be avoided), practicing under stress and anxiety, and practicing in an area where there is foot traffic and people walking in and out and causing interruptions. Also, be sure not to daydream! This is probably the most common problem people have and you may need to remind yourself to stay focused.

Develop a system to measure your progress. At the very least, you should print out a calendar sheet and log your total practice time each day and add up the total hours at the end of the week. This adds a huge motivational factor when you are able to reflect on the previous weeks and see how far you`ve come! It can also give you that needed kick in the pants if you haven`t put in your desired number of hours for a particular week.

Another more detailed method of tracking progress is using a metronome and logging your bpm (beats per minute) on a scale sequences, arpeggios, licks, and other concepts. You will want to first determine your MAXIMUM tempo first. This will be the point where what you play begins to fall apart. Next, you will want to back off on the tempo between 20 and 50 percent and then gradually increase your speed by 3-5 bpm. Be sure to mark these incremental increases in tempo in your log book. Before you know it, you`ll be reaching and exceeding your current speed goals with less effort and you`ll have visual proof of your accomplishments!

You will never know where you`re going unless you know where you came from!

Understand the difference between practicing and playing your guitar. The time that you have available to practice new material should be focused solely on those areas of your practice schedule. Some exceptions to this rule would be if during your practice time you have a sudden burst of inspiration that takes you in the direction of composing an original piece of work. When you have these breakthrough moments, and I assure you, you will have many, put all of your energy into getting those ideas out of your head and into the guitar. If needed, be sure to transcribe your songs or ideas onto paper or make an audio recording so you won`t forget it! With all that said, I do believe that "playing" guitar has its place and purpose in your practice schedule and you should most definitely make time to have fun and improvise, learn a new song, or compose original work. Take time to implement these strategies and develop your own practice schedule and I am confident that you will make more significant progress in a much shorter amount of time. This will help you consistently see guitar as a source of inspiration, fun, and personal fulfillment rather than a tedious chore.