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I thought I would post a thread on practice to see how you all approach it. I feel at times that I should be more structured in how I practice. I tend to spend a lot of time just sort of banging around (playing barre chords..trying to jump all over the fret board etc..). Then I'll play a song or two and then I'll bang around more. Lately, in the "banging around" process, I've been doing that part to my metronome. But sometimes I feel that being so loose isn't helping me to improve much. So I'm interested in how other folks on the forum approach practice.

I don't!

I was "jamming" with some folks Saturday night, and discovered that I like playing with other people much more than playing with myself! LOL I get bored easily when I'm practicing alone, but when I'm trying to keep up with other people, it's a whole different thing. So, I'm going to engage in jamming at least once a week to become better at guitar.

I hear you Polly - I don't have anyone to play with here, so I HAVE to play with myself.
As far as practicing guitar, I'll run through some left hand finger exercises, practice some picking patterns, and play sloppily thru some songs until I can get the weird chord/finger stretch/inversions right.

I'm with you on that!

My practice usually consists of creating new riffs, learning new songs, writing new songs on guitar, or playing at jams, etc. I rarely sit down and just practice something, although I did buy a book on country picking which I have been going through. I do have a couple of CDs of backing tracks which are good to play along with. Kinda like guitar karaoke.

If you are still at the early stages of playing the guitar, I would recommend constantly learning the chords to different songs (download charts from the web) with chords and parts you do not already know. Hopefully each song you learn will force you to learn a new chord or two to add to your repertoire. That way you keep on growing your knowledge without too much drudgery.

another thing that's helped was getting the Fender G-DEC amp. It has assorted backup rhythms that function like a metronome, and gives you a "feel" like you're playing with someone. Even if that someone is a wanky-toned mechanical robot, but steady tempo

I don't practice either, in the sense of doing drills and such. Perhaps I should...

If I find a new picking pattern somewhere or a new chord, I just find a song that they work in and play that.

I'm afraid I get bored easily - I've found that I can only "practice" by playing songs....

Scott

Well I suppose I do all of the above, except play with other people. Seems like most of it doesn't really help though. I feel like I never make much headway.

I also don't get many opportunities to play with other people and I'm sure that would also help.

Thanks for your comments on this thread.

My practices are fairly structured I suppose. Every once in while when tired of the routine I just "noodle", and normally some song ideas come from those freeform sessions. But the point is that unless I'd done the boring practices a number of occasions previously, the freeform version probably would not have any value. As for the more routine stuff, I probably do half scales and left-hand, and then half application-specific. Stg like that.

Paul Ryan
www.ryantunes.com

I hope yall are writing down what you play or practise. To know where you are going, you have to know where ya been. I try to work through my song list for practise. Its large now, so it takes several practices to get through it. I do my "noodling" before, to warm up, and after to stretch out.

You should do a little warm up at the beginning of practice. Play scales in several keys and play them smoothly and then pick up the pace. After warming up with the scales, practicing the bar chords is very good to strengthen the hand even more. When you practice the bar chords, make sure every string can be cleanly heard. You can practice changes and you can also practice playing patterns with your other hand while you are holding down the chords.

If you can already play your chords cleanly, then you should try different chord progressions. After you have warmed up with those things, choose a song that you don't already play well and work on that until you can play smoothly and cleanly. As you play, note the trouble areas. Practice the trouble areas by themselves and then go back to playing the song completely. When you have achieved competency in the chosen song, choose another one that has been giving you trouble.

Practice not looking at your hands when you play.

You can add memorization to the practicing by taking the songs you have been practicing. It sounds like you have been doing some of the things that you should, (like practicing barre cords and using the metronome,) but now it's time to work mastery into the picture.

For fun, you can play along with recordings. You just have to know the progression and the key the recordings are in. You could also record yourself and play along with yourself as well.

I like Rick's idea of keeping track of what you are practicing.

I recommend that you choose a song that's BIGGER than you could possibly play NOW...make a terrible effort at it, even maybe if you can only play a part of it...then listen to it more, while looking at the chords and thinking about the rhythm...once a week, or whatever you have time for, come back to it and keep trying...it could even take YEARS ! ! but when you finally get it, you'll feel so good, you won't believe...I am just getting my arms around "Young at Heart" a song I thought I'd NEVER be able to pull off .... well now, I'm going to perform it soon !

Like Bob, I don't. I just play....mostly my own stuff, sometimes something catches my ear and I try to learn it, sometimes I hear my daughter play something on Piano and try for accompaniement...

Bottom line, just play.

I often practice something I want done excactly as I hear it. I often use a day or two, especailly on new instruments or an instrument Im a bit rusty on.

Key is to know how it should sound, and then practice it in small chuncks untill you'll get some success.

Break everything down in small parts, and move on once you've gotten those right.

Just spend 15-30min at a time, just so you get from impossible to hard, but do it several times a day or week.

Stop once you got it (and you WILL!), reward yourself with a musical treat (listen to your favourite song, or even better .. play it) and move on to the next thing.

I practice very goal oriented for my demos, and move on once I got the part recorded.

What I do is take a riff or whatever strikes me at the moment, sometimes a unique strumming pattern that has an interesting rhythm and from the starting chord I go through what I call chord transformations. That is, I start on one chord and then by manipulating the initial shape, I alter it to go either to another chord or stay on the same chord but alter the combination of some of the strings to produce a different voicing of that chord. The more I transition part of the chord shape the more it opens up the neck to invention and I sometimes surprise myself with new shapes that I hadn't explored before. In truth, I seldom see new shapes anymore, because I have done this for so many years that I have to do a pretty big stretch, or go for some odd voicings to find something I didn't already discover. I basically have no problems playing in any key, and as long as the song is not full of a preponderance of complex jazz chords I don't have to think too much to find the chords anywhere on the neck. With complex chords I have to think a little more about them, but I can usually follow them even if I don't get the complete voicing by finding a couple of the notes of the chord using my techniques. I can do that partially from having explored the neck using the chord transformation techniques I have learned, and of course using my ear to recognize the interval changes.

The only way to develop the ear for recognizing interval changes that I have found, is to practice doing just that. Take a piece that has a change, say going from a root note to a II chord, and listen to it over and over again, then seek out other songs that use the same interval change and literally train your ear to recognize it. The more you consciously think about it and listen for it the faster the changes will come, until you recognize them automatically. Do this enough and standard chord structures begin to be obvious to you as soon as you hear them, even if you never heard a particular song before. The ability to quickly recognize patterns is an important skill that all good improvisationists have developed.

When I was in music school they actually drilled us using nursery rhymes or well known pop tunes and we would listen to the first two to four notes of those very familiar songs and associate the first change of the song to its specific interval change, then whenever we heard a change in another song we could automatically relate to the nursery rhyme that had the same interval change. By focusing on a specific change the mind builds a connection that can be recalled later and eventually become an automatic response.

Another thing I do is, when using the above techniques, I add a melody to the chording by trying to use the free fingers, and what is already fretted to produce the melody over the chords.

The last thing I do is straight lead parts, either melody or arpeggios and focus on smooth technique, while trying to speed up gradually to increase my speed. Speed is the one thing that practice affects most. If you don't practice frequently your speed and smoothness with speed suffers quickly. The rest of the practice techniques are things that help to give you the vocabulary to use speed, but the only thing that gives you speed, besides a natural gift that makes it seem easier for some folks, is practice, practice, practice. If I play every day, even just 20 minutes a day, I am WAY faster on a gig at the end of two weeks, than if I spent only two days before it practicing two hours each day before the show. The daily repetitive practice is essential to develop speed and smooth technique.

Sadly, I am not as good at making myself practice as I was when I was younger, and could not be in the same room with a guitar without picking it up. Now, I practice more sporadically.

I once thought to learn classical guitar so my teacher had me doing finger exercises starteing whith low open E and play single frets with all four fingers one at a time through all six strings and then back down again I think he may have been a Nazi.
I taught myself how to read tablature and copied lead solos from music books. Back in the day we all loved Chuck Berry and would try to copy his licks people sometimes called rock-n-roll noises.
Chuck Berry would do his famous chicken walk while making his ax sound like a chicken clucking. I've never seen anybody that could do that but him.

I have heard this quote attributed to Willie Nelson, as told by Wynton Marsalis: "If you can play, then what the $@#% do you want to rehearse for? Just play."

I guess that's what I do.

But when I first started, I simply kept trying to play songs that were a little too hard to play. After awhile, those songs weren't hard anymore, and and I would go after different ones.

I've never been interested in playing boring runs over and over again...so I became a rhythm guitarist.

But if you want to become technically brilliant, then you ought to practice runs like that, all the time.

One thing I've noticed...the people who get really good are the ones who are drawn to their instrument, who feel compelled to go to it constantly and daily, just to make sounds come out of it. But the people who have to remind themselves to play, who really want to become great, and yet have to force themselves to play on their instrument...they rarely get very good at it. For the people who were meant to be musicians, it's like a magnet. They don't have to be reminded to play...if anything, they have to be reminded to stop.

Thanks everyone. Good feedback and points to consider. Guess I'll just keep plugging away at it. Mark - I hear you about playing and being drawn to the instrument. It seems to be a hand habit for me. If I'm not doing something with the girls, at work, or sleeping, it's in my hand and I'm thumping around on it. I probably won't ever be good, but I keep trying anyway. Sometimes I can get it to make some cool sounds..other times I'm searching for it again. I guess that's what makes it fun and a bit maddening at the same time.

For me, I put myself in situations where people will "jam" with me. If you know other guitar players, invite them over to your house one night a week (provide beer) and just JAM! It will give you a good work out on your guitar and it will be fun! I go to a couple of friends' houses to do this, and I keep up just watching what they do. Sometimes, we just turn on the radio and jam to what's on there.

I hear what God...I mean, Mark, is saying, that you should feel compelled to be with your instrument, but for some of us, especially busy moms, this isn't possible. It has to take a back seat to other things in life. So, gather your guitar playing friends together, find out what they like to drink (they won't turn down jam night if they're liquored up) and have a list of songs you'd like to jam on.

i get inspired by a feel music gives off...then i jump in and try to figure out how they're making that sound that motivated me as a listener to go pick up my guitar and find out how they did it...Most recently it happened on Sting's "Driven to Tears"...I copped like three or four licks and a great bass line from that tune that is now part of my reperotoire to use anywhere it fits...I am not one of those cats who thinks I know it all, although I have been playing for a LOOOOONG TIME...I have known guys in their 70's still taking lessons from cats who they consider to have better chops than them...that's the love of the feeling it gives you to play something well that you didn't know how to do before you dug in and learned it...now if I could just remember some of what I've forgotten

My practice is working on different chord arrangements with different strum patterns on both the 6 and 12 stringers, making sure to record what I am doing and go back and listen to make notation of what chord patterns were used, the key, etc. Flatpicking the 12-string gives a whole different interest to the chords and seems to breath new life into even the most common progression. I use a capo occasionally, but not a metronome.

i play the electric guitar and would really like be great at it. i try to dedicate 3-4 hours of practice a day but i'm not quite sure on what to... really good at guitar..............

Hey, I'm bumping this up coz I have a similar issue. Not just how you practice generally, but the best way to learn a difficult part. These days I am challenging myself by learning a tough little step jump, and I am doing it the way I have always done it - thru sheer repetition and drill. But I notice that as my wrist gets tired, the jump often gets worse, not better. Should I stop sooner? Do something else? And it is mental too - sometimes I do it best when not thinking, and then when I watch myself play it I "fudge" it up!

Sorry - double post!

I thought I would revive this to add an update. There might not be much of an update, but here goes. First, I decided to set a goal. That was simple and clean. What I mean is no frills. Playing cleanly and in time (whether just playing and singing over chords or singing over basic fingerpicking patterns). I believe I've finally achieved that for the most part. I also have mastered the Bm and F bar chord shapes. Now, I'm looking to add basic melody playing somehow. I would like to do this fingerstyle and have been practicing a fingerstyle version of Freight Train forever that incorporates the melody. But when I'm working on my own stuff, I get lazy about finding the melody notes, etc. I want to eventually play a style similar to Caroline Herring's (video). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=--RMxPB7h-w

I have been playing/singing in church now for over a year. I've learned to change-up strumming patterns, add little rests and breaks and modulate the volume of my strumming/picking to make the songs a little more interesting. I haven't really had many opportunites to play with other people but I am involved in a songwriting group and a couple of the ladies and I plan on doing open mics together this summer, so hopefully that will involve playing with others.

As far as practice goes, it's still a nightly crap shoot. Here's a synopsis of what it's like. I play a few scales and somebody needs a glass of milk. I get the milk and start a song. The phone rings. I take the call. Then kids have homework. I try to practice during homework, but kids have questions, won't do their problems, argue, etc. practice is constantly interrupted. I give-up on practice during homework process. The younger kid gets in the bath and I sit on the bathroom floor and sing/play while she is in the tub. I put the guitar down to get them in bed. I pick it back-up at 10:30 - 11:00 p.m. and noodle around for a while. Some nights, I don't pick it back-up. On the weekends, it's basically the same schedule but I do get a bit more time to actually play through an entire set of songs. Somehow after playing for five years, I'm finally playing like most people would at one year. It's a slow process.

Wendy I just read through this post and thought and add a few thoughts on the matter.

Firstly everyone practices, even the ones that say they don't, if you get what I mean. To say that you don't practice and don't strive to get better is the wrong attitude to take. These are players that are just happy to stay in there comfort zones and not try to improve there playing. Anyway rant over on with the practice.

I would forget about scales for while and really focus on chords. You need to learn the CAGED system. Get that under your belt and you will not only have a great tool to help with your writing but also a great warm up/practice workout. Here's a link that will explain it loads better than I could.

http://www.guitar-music-theory.com/caged-chords/

It might look a bit mad at the start but it's well worth it. I practice it every day and it really helps me with improvising solos and writing songs.

You're right about it being a slow process but that half the fun.

If you're learning a new song and you make a mistake don't carry on playing the song. Just stop take a deep breath and start again. Sometimes if you don't stop you end up learning bad habits that will be very hard to get rid off in the future. Remember you're aiming to be able to play as clean as you can with no dead notes and zero mistakes.
Playing with a metronome is dull but it just has to be done sometimes.

Anyway hope this little note helps. I practice a lot

Andy

Wendy,

Interesting update......

Note that Andy Kemp is a very good player so listen to what he says!

You might see if your library has a book called Zen Guitar by Sudo - it's about the philosophy of playing and practicing, not about how to play.

The style that Caroline Herring is playing is mostly about the picking hand and the fingerpicking patterns. Most people, including me, worry mostly about the fretting hand and neglect the picking hand. You can learn a handful of picking patterns and practice them until they become completely automatic and then apply them to almost any chord progression, throw in a few fill notes, and you will sound like her. So get that picking hand in automatic by repetition. Also, decide if you are going to pick with your fingers, with fingerpicks, or with fingernails, and stick with one method.

I am teaching a 12 year old girl guitar at the moment and I find that she loves to practice songs she likes but does not practice scales, songs from the lesson book or music theory stuff. So I now teach her what she wants to know and let the other stuff seep in from playing rather than from tedious practice. So I guess with limited time like you have, I would recommend going right to the songs you want to play and getting them down well, and then adding another and another. Don't spend too much time on scales. Now you can play bar chords, the CAGED method will let you play any chord anywhere on the neck.......but that is not what Caroline Herring is doing - she is mostly using 1st position chords, a capo and some transitional notes to color the sound a bit.

You probably know that there are lessons on YouTube for all well known songs. Just search for the song title and "lesson" and someone will be there to teach you how to play it. That is a far cry from learning the guitar back in the day!

Have fun with it!

I'm going to add just a couple of things that may help, although I think there are some excellent thoughts on here already -

-- If you're looking to add color then you can do that by learning the sus4 and sus2 of each chord. If you switch those in every now and again then you can add a lot of color without too much effort. They're very closely related to the regular chord shapes, particularly the D and A shapes. That is part of what Caroline Herring is doing in the video.

-- You can play any of the common chords using the E and A shaped barres (the two you've already learned) so work on getting those nice and tight and you can add extras later.

-- Don't always worry about barring. Experiment with moving chords shapes around the neck without barring and you'll find some great color chords to make your songs more interesting.

FWIW I practice everyday unless I'm out of town, even if only for a few minutes. I warm up with scales or exercises and then focus the rest of the practice towards whatever I'm working on, whether thats performance, writing, memorizing, whatever.

As always, feel free to ignore, but I hope it helps!

Jc

Thanks Colin, Andy and John,

Andy - I looked at that link for CAGED. I took guitar lessons initally when I got my guitar and my teacher tried to teach me this. It made my head hurt. Back then, I couldn't wrap my brain around the concept of chords/notes on the fret board. Lately, I've been going back to some of that stuff. I will study this because I'm certain it can help. I understand a bit about finding notes and the concept of moveable chords now, but not nearly as well as I should.

Colin & John - I like Caroline's style because it is simple and seems achievable for me. I also like it because she can "color" the picking patterns enough to make the songs sound like they are more than they are. Guess I'm getting to it at the pace I can achieve.

Thanks for the encouragement and wisdom.

a guy showed me a finger work out exercise way back in the 70's that is helpful for toughening the tips of your fingrs and strengthening your hand and generally just helping to bond with the neck. you start at the first fret/6th string and play four frets up the neck using all four fingers starting with the index finger.play each note up four frets and then go to the 5th string and follow that pattern across to the 1st string then play it backwards then move up one fret and do the same thing all the way up the neck as far as you can play. the focus is not speed but dexterity/accuracy and sounding each note clearly. this isn't a scale but just something to stretch/strengthen your hand and as said, toughen the finger tips. if you disipline yourself to this once a day(takes about 5 or 10 minutes)you will begin to play with more speed and dexterity. i hope my description is clear enough to get you on track with this. this is about the only kind of structured practice i was ever disiplined enough to do, like you i always tended to just bang on my guitar till something sounded like something.hope you find this helpful.

dmk

I practice several hours a day, usually at least 4-5 if not more. I don't look at it as "work" though because I love playing the guitar. What I do in a given day really depends on what else I have going on, whether I have a gig coming up or a studio session or whatnot. Also I usually have a guitar in hand when songwriting.

Lately I've been spending time learning solos by some of the greats such as Brent Mason, Vince Gill, & Roy Nichols. And also learning or re-learning or remembering songs by Waylon Jennings & Merle Haggard for a band that I'll begin playing with in a few weeks

I play fingerstyle guitar and there are some usefull things to practice, such as: 24 Segovia scales ( 2 and 3 octave major and minor scales utilizing the rest stroke ), there are also several right hand studies, such as: Studio in A Major by Tarrega, Villos Lobos Study in E Minor and countless others.

I guess it depends on the style you play. If you like fingerstyle, I would suggest working hard on developing your right hand, or left hand if you are left handed.

I am also speaking mainly from the point of view if you are playing on a nylon string guitar. Then, nails become part of the discussion. So much to talk about! Keep on playing:)

I once met Steve Morse at a NAMM show... just walking around the floor. Super incredibly nice guy. And he gave me some advice about practicing:

"The most-important advice that I can give you is ALWAYS PRACTICE WITH A METRONOME."

Coming from that guy, I would take it as gospel.

I practice 1.5 hours in the morning (before work)and about 1.0 hours after. I'm learning using Hal Leonard's Guitar Method. I also may fiddle around on youtube or hooktheory!!!!!!

.... hmmmm hooktheory .... pretty cool

thanks groove

Hey, Todd, I didn't know there were any metronomes, the only ones I have seen were found in the suburbs.