How to Practice

It is important to manage your time when practicing the guitar. Although players like Steve Vai recommend a 12-15 hour a day practice schedule: (http://www.picksnlicks.com/Guitar%20Lessons/Exercises/30_hr_workout/30_hr_workout_1.html). Most of us frankly don’t have that amount of time to dedicate to playing (at least not in any given week). In order to maximise the benefit for each practice session I recommend targeting the below four aspects of guitar. I’m going to use the example of an hour long practice session and highlight the type of practice you should be doing throughout.

1. Technique 15 mins – Your technique might well be the most boring thing to work on when practicing guitar but sadly it is essential. This is the time to run fingering exercises, various picking techniques and repeating licks. I teach many different exercises but I won’t go through them now. At some point I will upload a video showing a few; however, I’m sure any intermediate player will know more than a few and this is the time to run them.
2. Scales and Chord Vocabulary 20 mins – Another boring one, but something that is necessary to rehearse and practice regularly. The way I like to practice this element is to take any guitar key and first find every chord in that key (this will also force you to use scales). Once you have found every chord try and substitute each chord for another voicing, so that you have at least two ways to play every chord. Then try and find an extension for each of those chords (7th, 9th, 13th etc). Finally bridge each chord with a picked lead line from either the parent scale of the chord, the root scale of the key in which you are playing or by using arpeggios.
3. Rhythm and Strumming 15mins – This section should be a little more fun than the last. To practice rhythm I would recommend taking licks, riffs and songs that you can play well and sticking on a metronome. Playing along with a metronome will increase your natural sense of rhythm and if you’re having trouble getting your playing up to speed it is a great tool. With regards to strumming try exercises where you break down and dissect strumming patterns. Have a go at highlighting different beats while playing sixteenth note rhythms etc. I will upload a video in due course to explain this kind of practice.
4. Be creative and learn new tunes! 10 mins + - Congratulations, if you have followed the above advice you have succeeded in completing a worthwhile practice session. Now it’s time to use all your skills to have fun on the guitar. Create your own music, solo over backing tracks and learn your favourite songs. I have only left ten minutes for this section but you will probably find yourself playing for a lot longer, which is great because you have already dedicated enough time to the boring stuff!