Secret of Successful Guitar Practice

What is the number one secret to continuous progress on the guitar? What does a beginner have to do to be better tomorrow than they are today? We all know the answer: Practice.

How do you get to Carnegie Hall?

It’s not a joke. Every musician knows that to get better on the instrument they must practice. The two most important aspects of that practice are consistency and targeted material. Consistency of guitar practice, daily guitar practice, is the foundation of advancing in musicianship. Selecting the right material, while highly important, rests entirely upon sitting down and actually practicing it. Unfortunately, the order of these two is often reversed.

The Practice routine

Knowing that practice is what leads the beginner to master level guitar skills that every guitarist desires, the student creates a intricate plan, a map that will lead to the lofty goal of their hearts desire.

Depending on style of play and musical preference, the material to be studied is laid out in a regimented campaign. Scale work, fretboard layout, ear training, new material, and old material are each listed in turn. This is a good and necessary step for every musician. To know where you are going and how you are going to get there can avoid many pitfalls on the road to mastery. Then a time is set to spend on each facet of the plan, and suddenly the great map becomes a tyrant.

Now the plan has a block of time associated with it, if that time is unavailable, then the whole session gets scrapped with an exasperated, “I just don’t have time to practice today.” Then tomorrow, then the next day, and so forth until the realization strikes that no progress is being made. Here the guitarist will generally berate themselves over their lake of commitment and through the guilt trip laid out matters are made worse. But there is a better, simpler solution.

Plan B

Instead of the negative self-talk, prepare a second study plan; call it plan B, which will be ready for those days when the grand scheme is just not possible.
Simply put, be prepared to grab the guitar and do something constructive when you may only have ten minutes to play.
One approach to the “short session” is to just play a piece from your old material. Often this approach will be the best. It is enjoyable, gets the physical exercise of playing, and keeps your chops up for your repertoire. After all, learning guitar is all about playing music.
But, all that hard work you put into the grand scheme does not have to be completely abandoned. If time does not permit working through the whole list of target material, then pick just one, say scales or chord progressions, and work through those for the time available. These quick sessions can be made easier by having the material in a notebook for convenience instead of leafing through six or seven books.
An important way to make these short sessions more convenient is to have a guitar always at hand. If your main guitar is too valuable to leave out buy an old pawnshop “beater”. Leave this guitar out in places where you might grab it while waiting for the coffee to brew or a program to load.

It could never be understated how important consistent practice is to advancing at guitar. To have a well thought out plan and to pursue that plan everyday will, step-by-step, turn your dreams into guitar reality, but do yourself a favor and have a backup plan.

Guitar at Hand

It’s morning and I must confess that grabbing my guitar for a few minutes practice was not the first thing I did. In fact, the first thing I did was to put on coffee water, and then I picked up the guitar for a few minutes practice.
I always have a guitar at hand. This was not always so. For years I thought my guitars were too valuable to be left out and they were locked away for safekeeping. Unfortunately, out of sight often means out of mind. My enjoyment (not to mention my progress) with the instrument suffered. Now, my favorite (also my most expensive) instrument is always sitting out waiting for me to grab it up and have a tune. If you want to improve, to increase your playing time, I suggest you do the same. Keep a guitar always at hand.