Planning a practice routine is one of the most common guitar questions. Just like in the world of fitness, 💪🏻your workout schedule can make or break your progress in your sport or weight training.
This week Fender Guitar Coach Sydney Ellen walks you through how to build a practice routine and why you want to throw everything you knew about practicing out the window!
Most of us (myself included) come from the traditional music lesson structure of sitting down at the piano with a 30-minute timer going and we must practice for that duration. We also have predetermined numbers in our heads of how long we should practice for. And there's somehow a magic number in this guitar world that's going to give us perfect results.
This is an old-school way of thinking, and I'm at fault for following it too. What we should be asking ourselves is:
🎸What amount of time is good for me to practice?
This answer is different for all of us because we all have different work/school schedules, and we all wake up at different times of the day. The best answer is what amount of time to sit down and practice works for you? (Again, throw out all those other predetermined numbers away. Those don't matter).
Is the answer 5 minutes a day? Great! We'll practice 5 minutes⌚ a day, that's our number. Is the answer 20 minutes spaced out between Zoom calls? Perfect! Is the answer 1 hour of practice at 2:00 am because everyone else is sleeping and you won't be interrupted? Sweet!
The truth is the sitting down for a 30-minute practice routine just doesn't make any sense. We have to modify our practice schedules with our lifestyle. My number one goal as a coach is to make guitar and music a part of your life. It's not something that we play for 3 months and then never play again. If the guitar brings you joy, why not make it a part of your daily life?
🎸What are 3 things you want to focus on this year with guitar?
I don't know about you, but I have a huge list of techniques, songs, and solos that I want to learn this year. Honestly, it's overwhelming. And we'll definitely get to everything! But for now, let's pick 3 to focus on this year.
Maybe that's bends, your favorite Pink Floyd song, and working on building your rhythm. Write that down and those will be our focus. It's always great to choose a technique to focus on like Hammer ons and Pull offs, or soloing techniques, or chord transitions. Then it's also great to choose a song you love. That's why we all picked up guitar right? Because of the music!
And lastly, choose one more topic, maybe it's a solo, maybe it's improvisation, or scales. Now we'll break these topics into sections for your practice. Maybe it's 5-minute rhythm exercises, 5 minutes improvisation, and 10 minutes of the Pink Floyd song. That's your 20-minute practice routine! Exercises or Drills on Fender 1:1 powered by Blayze only take a few minutes so you can usually space out 5-10 minutes for those.
Songs or solos take a bit more focus 🧠time so those can end up being a bit longer if you'd like maybe 10-20 minutes depending on how much time you've chosen.
🎸The third and most important tool for building your practice routine is modification.
Going back to the world of fitness we might change up a workout routine every 4-8 weeks. Do the same with your practice! Set a reminder on your calendar or phone in 2-3 months to check up on your practice routine.
What's working? What's not working? Are you bored with a certain exercise? Did you master the song? Is the amount of time you chose working out for you or do you need to choose another time? Remember, it's not about the guitar being a habit (like brushing our teeth) it's about making the guitar a part of our lives because it brings us joy.
We free up 5 minutes to enjoy a cup of coffee☕ in the morning, we can absolutely free up 5 minutes for guitar in the morning. Or my favorite, guitar AND coffee in the morning. The perfect pairing :) Be okay with moving things around to fit your lifestyle. It took me a while to find the best time to practice but once you find a time that works it'll be sacred time in your schedule.
I'm super passionate about taking a modern approach to guitar and practice. I have so many more tips for practice when you're traveling or on vacation, when life gets busy, when you go through a big change or life event, or through a move. How do you create the most optimized practice space? What should you use for practice? How do we keep up that practice throughout all the events life throws at us?
I'm happy to chat more in our sessions together! Please reach out if you have questions!
Drill of the week: Hammer Ons Across the Neck
Play the 1st fret D string with the 1st finger. Hammer on to the 2nd fret D string with the 2nd finger. Move to fret 2 and continue up the fretboard.
