Practicing…

Learning to play guitar takes a great deal of practice, so how do you get the most out of a practice session?

Perhaps the first point to make is about how often and for how long. It goes without saying that the longer you spend practicing something the better you will become at it, but many of us have other things we have to fit in to our day, and so it can be challenging to give the time we want to. Consequently many of us may find that we set aside an hour on one day a week to practice. This is a start, but you will get nowhere fast like this. In order to become proficient at guitar, everyday practice is essential. Obviously there are days you will not be able to, but when it’s a case of I could practice guitar or I could… (insert other activity you think you might do here), practice should win hands down.

Duration of practice sessions should be as long as you can. 10 minutes a day is a great start and for many people is not difficult to find somewhere during the day. If you can do longer than 10 minutes that it is even better. If you’re doing several hours a day then you will progress very quickly indeed, but remember to have a break every once in a while. Although you might not think of playing guitar in the same way as you would sport, in both you would use certain muscles which tire and will ultimately lead to injury if not rested.

I’d suggest coming up with a bit of a routine so that you know you are covering everything you need to, giving adequate time to every part of your guitar playing. One thing i’ve always found to be correct is if you can do the basics well, the rest will follow. I know we all think of our favourite guitarists and the most technically challenging things they managed to do, but they all learned to do the basics well first.

A practice routine might include some of the following ideas:

• Loosen up – this is a good idea to do at any point you feel yourself getting frustrated with the guitar and certainly before you start. The problem is that tension is your worst enemy when trying to pull off that sweet solo as your control is affected so you try too hard. Just stop, close your eyes, think light. Breathe slowly in and out. Relax every muscle in your arms and shoulders. When you feel more relaxed, have another go. You’ll probably surprise yourself at how much better you seem to have become just by releasing the tension.
• Warm-up first – I’ve heard people say comments along the lines of “I play through the fire and the flames by dragonforce to warm up”. These people are either stupid or liars, or both. Playing a difficult song to warm up is not clever as you start trying to play quickly, stretching muscles that are not ready for it and chances are you’ll do yourself an injury. Injuries obviously lead to slower progress – let’s avoid them! So how should you warm up? Well a simple 1-2-3-4 exercise is a great starting point (using one finger per fret and alternate picking, pick 1-2-3-4 on each string). Other great warm up exercises exist that focus on control, picking, accuracy and stamina. I will be sure to share some on here. The difficulty of the exercises you are playing should start reasonably easy for you, so starting with a simple warm up is a good idea, but not one that you can do with your hands tied behind your back!
• Scales – ok scales are boring, fact! The problem is that music is based on them and we have to learn them. The minor pentatonic is a great starting point. Learn all the shapes using the CAGED system and how to link them up. You can easily overload yourself with information so one shape at a time is a good method. Ensure to learn where the root notes are, and if possible the intervals.
• Technique – I like to focus on particular techniques. This could be from hammer-ons to tapping to hybrid picking. The focus here is to get the technique right. Slow it right down if you have to. It is a good idea to record yourself and play it back if you can so you can listen to what other people are hearing.
• Play songs, riffs, solos – Probably the longest part of your time in practicing will be looking at other people’s music and trying to emulate it. Pick your favourite bands songs and see if you can play them. If a song is simply too difficult defer it until you have mastered some easier songs.
• Improvise – Remember those scales? Now it’s time to let the juices flow from your creativity. It’s best to do this over other music in an appropriate key… so get your band or musicians you know to jam, or play over backing tracks or worse case scenario, your favourite songs.
• Theory – this is perhaps the hardest thing to sit down and do. It’s more a case of coming to terms with a lot of terminology than anything else. The best way to learn is to look up the bits you don’t understand until you get them.
• Ear training – some people are pitch perfect and can identify exact notes by hearing them. Unfortunately most of us are not. Therefore we need to train our ear to tell the difference between intervals. A good starting point is to learn to tune a guitar by ear, but if this is too much/already achieved there are plenty of flash games with the task of identifying intervals.

The ideas above I use in my practice routine. The term routine may be a bad one really, since your ‘routine’ will not be the same after a few months or possibly even weeks as the actual exercises you are doing are swapped with more challenging pieces. You must keep your routine progressive if it is to be effective.

Other things to consider when practicing include:

• Combine your practice with other things you do. If you’re sat in front of the TV, pick up your guitar. Even if all you do is finger a scale, that is a little progress made.
• Play to a metronome. This will help you to ensure your timing is accurate. With every piece, start slowly and build up to a level where you can no longer play the piece accurately. You should find over time that you become faster.
• Record what you practice. Playing it back will show how accurate you really were not just what you thought, surprising how they don’t always coincide.
• Record new ideas. Half the point of playing guitar is to experiment and you never know when a great riff might happen.

Happy practicing.

The Riffster