What do YOU call practice?

Hmmm... I revamp my own practice routine on a pretty regular basis. I think a lot of guitarists do that, so they can either keep forward motion or not lose chops they've developed - while not doing the same thing over and over. Looking at my log, I changed just a couple weeks ago on July 25 - the last time I changed things around before that was Dec. 26.

Currently:

Warm-up - scales, mostly, although I also do some arpeggios, chord inversions, and finger drills. I do one key a day, and work through the circle of fifths - today I was in D. I name the notes while I do 'em... for chords, I'm naming the top voice.

The rest of it varies from day to day, but I hit all these areas daily:

- improvisation, usually a couple of blues-based pieces and at least one that's built on a jazz progression that modulates
- technical drills. I don't do speed drills very often, but this week I have been. I'm more often focused on stretching and strength stuff; I figure it's the guitar equivalent of sit-ups. At any rate, this week I'm working at 184-200 bpm. I do speed drills ONLY on acoustic - if you're doing more than about 6-8 notes per second on an electric, it's hard to spot your flaws. I figure if I can do it acoustic, it's always there when I want it on electric.
- sight reading. I do this for single notes, chords, and counterpoint (on my classical). Single line stuff I'm doing at tempos up to about 120-168 bpm, and counterpoint at around 84-126. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's not... you need to keep playing new music to keep your reading chops up.
- more technique stuff. Whatever I feel fuzzy at, I drill. Today it was cross-picking.
- a couple of classical solo pieces. Right now I'm working on two by Sor.

Other stuff I do right now, but not daily:

-chord forms, extensions, variations, alterations
-fingerpicking (I do classical everyday, but fingerpicking 'patterns' maybe twice a week)
-applied theory
-songs. I don't actually call this part practice time - I don't log it - I consider it rehearsal. The classical pieces I log, because that's more technical development - I'm not a brilliant classical player (yet!); tunes I'll perform with various people I'm usually not struggling with, so it's more 'brush-up' work.
-a quick review of material I'm presenting to students that week. I don't log that either, although it really is a sort of practice/review.

As far as what you should be working on, look to the music you play... and the music you WANT to play, but don't yet. See if you can figure out the techniques you'll need. Then develop a game plan to get them.

At that point, talk to some better guitarists, and ask if there's something you need to learn to prepare yourself. Certain stuff works better in order - bends before finger vibrato, for example, or major scales before bebop.

Somedays I have about 4 songs I can play all the way through and will practice them along with the mp3s of the songs. I'm always trying to add to that list. Usually on a song night I will do the 4 songs about 4 times through each.

2 or 3 nights I will practice on what ever I learned from my teacher the week before. Which includes the blues scale, soloing over backing tracks using the scale (helps me to remember it), or occasionally its a song he taught me.

Some days I just sit in front of the tv and play. Usually it doesnt sound all that great but some days I suprise myself. Sometimes I will turn on CMT and try to follow along a little.

My routine isnt probably the most technically great, but it keeps me interested and keeps my fingers moving. I'll never be Eddie Van Halen, Keith Urban, Joe Satriani, or Brad Paisley but then again, They'll never be me either.

Geoo

Whatever you play, remember the comforting old saying "Practice should always sound bad!"

The message there is that if it all sounds good then you're just treading water and not moving forward into new areas.

I seem to remember seeing someone recommend something like one third known exercises, scales, etc plus one third working on new abilities and then the last third was (I think) around playing songs. Maybe polishing them up, or whatever.

Proably read it here somewhere. :D

Whatever you play, remember the comforting old saying "Practice should always sound bad!":D

That's too funny Chris but so true. If we sound good practicing, we are not practicing the things we need work on. I will remember this next time I am happy with how good my practice sounds! :)

i used to spend ages on practice schedules, logging everything i played and so on...but i found it very difficult to make a schedule i could stick to for any period of time
now i just dont bother, i let guitar techniques magazine tell me what im going to play every month :)
3 full transcriptions every month and columns on blues/jazz/classical/songwriting/ear training etc (varies from month to month a little)

this month im learning
scarified - racer x
unmilitary two step - rory gallagher
songbird - eva cassidy
and dominic milners version of Air on a G String (with video :D )

i also try to learn a few simple strum-a-long songs every month
makes practice time very simple as the magazine also points out the areas that each song or column will improve

Being an engineer, I do write logs and schedules. I do find if I map out my pratice I tend to stick to that basic schedule. But I do get up 1 hr early to pratice my basic foundations work and then in the evening I work on cords, scales, classical and my songs. This is what works for me.

Whatever you play, remember the comforting old saying "Practice should always sound bad!"

I completely disagree with that one... practice shouldn't always sound right, but it should sound good!

The say practice makes perfect, but that isn't true. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect.

If you rush through practice sounding bad, you're practicing mistakes - you need to slow it down until you can do it right. After that, the speed will come.

Slow practice 'feels' like it doesn't do as much as ripping through stuff loaded with errors, but it's actually far more efficient for progress.

Slow practice 'feels' like it doesn't do as much as ripping through stuff loaded with errors, but it's actually far more efficient for progress.

I need to remember this when I practice my good ol A chord. When I first started playing I guess I was looking at it wrong. So now I am having a heck of a time getting it right.

Geoo

Habits are really hard to change. When I started playing, I taught myself, and didn't get a teacher until I'd played for a couple of years... and developed some odd approaches that needed fixing.

I still sometimes find myself drawn to fingerings I'd started with, even though I 'fixed' the problems nearly 30 years ago!

Today I was playing a Bach piece that uses a very strange fingering (two bass voices are being held, and the index finger walks up a treble line, ending up in the same fret - you end up in 23xx1x, all on the third fret. Stuff like that is a piece of cake for me, because I never learned it wrong. Stuff I learned wrong should be much simpler to play - but I still have to mentally pause and make sure I'll do it right.

Habits are really hard to change.

Glad to see even some real experienced players have these kinds of problems,it makes me feel better about mine :-)

I never learned alternate picking when I first learned guitar 20+ years ago, and now when I started again, I am finding it quite hard to learn alternate picking .. but I'm working on it!

Yes those mistakes seem so easily repeated in the same places at the same times. Definitely something to bring up once in a while so we can catch ourselves.

Thank you all. Some very good input here. 8)

What I do

-Scales and/or modes and/or appregios
-Old Piece(s)
-New Piece(s)
-Sight reading.
-Technique excercises. (finger walking, hammer on/off's, various barre practices, pull of excercises, etc.)

Each one is divided into 1/5th of my total practice time based on how long I practice (example, 50 minutes of practice means 10 minutes each) I go slow...and as much as I don't really use a metronome...you should. Luckily I have a pretty good sense of timing but nevertheless I should use a metronome :o

I really should write things down. My practice is not always the same...Jason your list just reminded me I forgot a couple of things in practice today. Sometimes I just go off on a tangent.

Whatever you play, remember the comforting old saying "Practice should always sound bad!"

I completely disagree with that one... practice shouldn't always sound right, but it should sound good!

SNIP

If you rush through practice sounding bad, you're practicing mistakes - you need to slow it down until you can do it right. After that, the speed will come.

Point taken. :D

I don't think whoever coined that saying about practice should alway sound bad was really advocating sloppy or rushed practice though. I think they were just trying to relax students and reassure them that it was perfectly normal not to get everything right first time.

I try to do as you say, and practice everything as slowly and accurately as I can, but it still often sounds bad. For me, "bad" can be anything from a misplaced finger to a weak projection, poor intonation, or whatever. It doesn't necessarily mean complete disasters (although I can do them too :shock: ).

Relaxing when I play is a big deal for me - particularly when I'm practising and concentrating that much harder than when I'm just casually playing. I need the reassurance that it really isn't that big a deal if it's not as good as I want. :)