Practice session opinions....

[zbalz]

Now that I am doing a lot of different things in my practice routine. Do you guys think it would be better to do a tiny bit of everything each day or just break it down per day such as theory one day and finger exercises/application another. Do you guys follow a real practice routine or just do what you are in the mood to do that day.

thanks
-zbalz

[StoneDragon]

When I first started playing, I had absolutely no direction whatsoever other than I wanted to become a rock star. I spent all of my time on the guitar trying to learn songs off of records or just bashing away on the thing. I already had a sort-of band together, so the most important thing was to learn enough songs that we could get out and try to find some gigs.

Once I started trying to figure out how to play lead solos and realized that scales, theory and technique are important, I spent all of my time working on those aspects.

After a certain point, you realize that there is no new theory to learn, so you're left with polishing your technique/application and making music.

Today my practice/playing consists of running through certain warm-up drills to get my hands moving at peak operating efficiency, trying to improve my weak spots (mostly with the right hand) and composing.

Now, this approach, while good in some aspects, wasted a lot of time. If I would have started right off with some idea about how to organize my practice time, I would have gotten to the same point in my playing a lot sooner than I did.

As to your own practice routine, I think it really comes down to how much time you have each day to spend on the guitar.

When it comes to theory and its application, sometimes you have to take a little bite and let that mouthfull soak in and nourish you for a while. So you don't necessarily have to hit that every day. Technique is a different story. You have to keep those muscles in the game. If you lay off for even a short amount of time, you will start to lose your command of the instrument. So you need to hit those drills and exercises as often as possible (short of causing physical problems)... once a day at least.

I think it is also important to spend as much time as possible just playing and enjoying the experience. In order to do that, you have to have something to play. So maybe you need to spend time learning some of your favorite songs or making up your own riffs.... whatever.

If you add this all up and then figure out how much time you have each day to play the guitar, you should be able to figure out a nice balance that keeps you happy and maximizes improvement.