Making the Most of Practice Time
Regular practice is essential on any instrument and it is always a good idea to structure your practice sessions to ensure you are making the most of the time available. This worksheet covers the basics of how you should structure your time. On the last page of this worksheet is a Practice Schedule sheet for you to photocopy or as a guide to producing your own. While such a sheet is not essential using this or a similar system will serve as a reminder to what you should try to cover each practice session.
To practice you will need somewhere comfortable, away from distractions. Let anyone
else in the house know you are practising and if possible see if they can stop you
from being disturbed. Make sure you have everything you need before you begin -
The amount of time you set aside for practice is up to you but remember a short practice session every day will benefit you more than a long session once a week. I have given the amount of time you should devote to each subject as a percentage rather than actual times. There is a certain amount of flexibility in these times but try to stick fairly close to them.
Warm Up -
At the start of the practice session it is important to warm up. There are two reasons for this, one being that it is important to warm your hands up gradually rather than trying anything too taxing straight away. The other reason is to help you concentrate on practising and getting your hands to work together. A warm up can be a few simple mechanical exercises, sometimes referred to as Calisthetics, or just strumming a number of simple chords.
Scales and Arpeggios -
While not the most exiting things to practice, scales and arpeggios are very useful for both familiarising yourself with common patterns on the fretboard and developing speed and accuracy. You can also practice the same scale in different areas of the neck to help you learn the notes on the fretboard. A metronome is a useful aid when practising scales. Set a metronome to a slow speed and try playing two notes per beat. Once you can play at one speed increase the speed very gradually and practice at that speed. You can keep a daily record of what speeds you have achieved and try to improve on them next time you practice.
Mechanical Exercises -
Mechanical exercises are those exercises used for developing technique. For example,
you may use an exercise to improve hammer-
Problem Areas -
From time to time you will come across a techniques that gives you problems. This may be something you have come across in a piece of music that you have got stuck on or something you feel is weak in your playing technique. Once you have mastered the basic technique you can then make it part of the mechanical exercises. If you notice any problem areas when practising make a note to work on them at your next practice session.
Improvisation -
Practising improvisation regularly is important since so much lead and rhythm guitar
playing relies on it. If you can, produce different backings to solo over. For example,
record a short repeated chordal backing onto a tape machine (about 2-
Music -
A large portion of your practice session can be used to work on any pieces you are learning. By leaving this until later in the practice session you should have worked on any problems you might encounter and also have got past some of the less interesting parts of practising. Music could be a whole piece of music or just a section such as a solo or an introduction. When practising any music try breaking it down into small sections rather than playing through the whole piece all the time. This way you can identify any problems and deal with them before moving on.
With solos it is best to work a phrase at a time or even, with longer phrases, to
break them down into smaller sections. By using a recording of the solo you can listen
to just a phrase, stop the recording and try and reproduce it straight away while
you can remember how it sounds. Once you have learnt all the sections of a solo this
way try to re-
Rotation Subject -
There will be some exercises that you feel you do not need to practice every session.
With these subjects you could set up a rotation so you do them every few days. Subjects
that are appropriate for this treatment include sight-
Review -
At the end of each practice session it is a good idea to review what you have achieved in this time and what you hope to achieve at the next. For example, if you found this sessions improvisation difficult you can make a note to try it again next time. Keeping notes will help you to gauge your progress and plan your future practice sessions.
Remember, this is only a guide to what you should try to practice -
© 2002, Graham Nunn Guitar Tuition