If you had been taking lessons from an instructor for a month and he hadn't mentioned a practice schedule is this a bad sign?
Depends, really. After 33 years of playing and working hard at it, I don't expect my teacher to raise the subject because we'll have spoken about it for some reason during lessons anyway. With students of mine, who have normally not been playing very long, I will raise the subject and get my student talking about how long and what they practice.
Do keep a practice diary setting out what you've worked on. There's no need to drill down to intense detail in it, but so long as you can look at it and see that you've actually done something in a structured way then it will bring benefits. My practice diary for last Sunday (the last time I picked up my guitar) reads "Grade 8 scales - first page, Capricho Arabe - first page, performance pieces Grades 1-7" It tells me I didn't do much work (there being four pages of scales to work and a Key Study to nail at Grade 8, and Capricho Arabe is another four pages on its own) but I did do a refresh on a number of older pieces in my repertoire from a very basic level up to where I am now. Use it to keep on track.
Best,
A :-)
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Kevin,
Maybe I have bad teachers but I've had a few because I've moved around a bit, but none have ever laid out or really even talked about a practice schedule.
I have brought it up to them and we discussed it but they never really did. They may have made some off hand references to practicing and how to go about certain aspects but none of them ever laid any kind of regimen for me.
If your interested in that maybe you should put something together or at least take notes on how you actually go about practicing and review it with your teacher.
When you were in school maybe you still are do your teachers tell you how to study each subject? The only thing my teachers ever said was you should study approximately x hours a night but never on how to study. Might be why I never amounted to anything. Ha.
Plus everyone's learns differently and it would be hard to know exactly what the best method is for a particular student in a month.
That's my opinion you'll have to see what some of the teachers say as they are actually doing it.
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
See, I have just recently moved and the instructor that I had in the city I use too live in was very structured. He laid out a 2 hour a day practice schedule broken up so that it would cover technique, theory and whatever song we happened to be working on. I had to get a new instructor when I moved and he hasn't mentioned any type of schedule. He seems as if all my time should be spent practicing rhythms for a song and just noodling which doesn't seem to fit into the structured schedule that I am use too.
If your used to the structured schedule then bring one to him as an example and talk about setting something similar up.
Can't you do this by just replacing what he's teaching you know and incorporating that into the outline of what you are used to?
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
good point
I tell my students how to practice, but they don't get "schedules" - there's too much individual variation. Some people will thrive on a regimented 10 minutes of this, 30 minutes of that.... but most people will end up watching the clock and just wiggling their fingers. That's not very effective practice.
People ask me all the time how long they should practice. I don't really answer the question. I tell them it's about how often they practice - 5 minutes 3 times a day is better than 30 minutes every other day - and how well they practice.
Guitar teacher offering lessons in Plainfield IL
My teacher gave me somewhat of a practice schedule in the beginning but I don't follow it too much anymore. I have things that I want to do that he doesn't teach me, so I just make my own. He will usually be teaching me a song or some technique and I'll be working on other songs by myself. I always try to finish the stuff he gives me in the beginning of practice though.
I've had three different guitar teachers in the past and none of them ever really talked much about practice schedule. I also thought that it'd be nice if my teacher laid out a structured practice schedule, but it seems like that's not what most guitar teachers do.
Guitar in general just seems like a very "free-spirited" instrument. There doesn't seem to be one right answer for anything... some people say to never hook the thumb over the neck, some say to hook it for bends and vibrato, and some people just always keep it hooked... some people anchor their picking hand and some don't... etc, etc. So in that respect, it doesn't really surprise me that teachers aren't very specific in their teachings.
Depends on what kind of schedule he's talking about.
IF he's sketching out how many minutes a day to spend on items a,b and c ... then I'd be worried.
If he's sketching out what items he'd like you to cover together, it might be a very good sign.
For example, I often like my students to practice their scales and playing triads together, because they re-inforce each other very nicely.
But, like Noteboat, I try to teach them how to practice. "How long" I leave to them.
"The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." -- HST
