How’s your practice diet?
Do you have a wide variety of things that you practice. Or do you like to binge? (You know…the type of player who practices sweep picking for a kazillion hours a day but only know three chords)!
Having a balanced practice routine is essential if you want to become a versatile guitarist. If you just practice one or two things, sure you’ll get great at those things…but you’ll be weak in other key areas.
In this lesson you’ll learn how to create a practice routine that is well-balanced and will help you work towards your ultimate vision of how you would like to play.
I generally categorise what I practice into one of seven areas:
1. Technique.
2. Repertoire (Covers).
3. Composition.
4. Improvisation.
5. Ear Training.
6. Theory.
7. Music Reading.
Everything that you practice will fit into one or more of the above areas. For example,if you are learning a very challenging cover tune by transcribing it off the CD you are essentially working on your technique, repertoire and ear training at the same time. If you also write down the song in standard notation, you will also be developing your
music reading skills.
Now do you have to practice things in all seven areas? I believe that you don’t have
to if your vision doesn’t require it. For example, if someone wants to become an
awesome classical guitarist and has no desire to improvise, then I believe that they don’t need to practice things relating to improvisation. We all have limited time available for practice, so it’s a waste of time working on things that don’t specifically help you reach your goals.
Let’s go through a few exercises
Exercise One:
Think about the vision that you have for your playing for a few minutes.How would you like to play in ten years time. Make it exact!
Once you’ve done that, brainstorm as many things that you need to practice in order to play like your vision. What specific things do you need to learn, develop and practice? Write them down now.
Exercise Two:
Next to each of the things written down for Exercise One, write down a category next to it. For
example, if you wrote “I need to be able to play faster” then write technique next to it. If you feel that something you wrote belongs to more than one category, then write down all the categories it could belong to.
Exercise Three:
Look at your answers for the previous two exercises. Once you’ve done that prioritise
the categories shown below. For example, if you feel that technique is the most
important thing you need to work on to reach your vision then put a 1 next to it.
**Practice Area Priority Level (1-7)** [Note: 1 is the highest priority].
Technique
Repertoire (covers)
Composition
Improvisation
Ear Training
Theory
Music Reading
Now here’s the important point. You should spend the most time practising your number one priority. I know it’s pretty obvious, but you’d be amazed at how many people don’t do this! I know a few guitar players who would like to be able to play incredibly fast, yet they don’t do a lot of technical practice. Talk about setting yourself up to fail!
Exercise Four:
Decide how much time every day you will spend on each category. Write it down below.
**Practice Area Time Invested Daily**
Technique
Repertoire (covers)
Composition
Improvisation
Ear Training
Theory
Music Reading
All done? Great!
So whats the next step?
The next step is to decide on a specific activity for each practice area.Make sure to write them down.
Here are a couple of examples of what someone might put down…
Technique: I will invest 10 minutes a day on alternate picking exercise one. I will
start with the metronome at 80 beats per minute (bpm) and increase it by 4 bpm daily
(as long as I can play it perfectly).
Ear Training: I will invest 10 minutes daily a day on A minor pentatonic ear training exercise one.
Got the idea? You would have one specific activity for every practice area. If you
have a lot of time to practice you could set more than one activity per practice area.
Give this method a try. I’ll think you’ll be more than happy with the results!
John Pawlett
http://www.articlesbase.com/music-articles/get-a-balanced-guitar-practice-90972.html
{ 4 comments… read them below or add one }
does practicing guitar is a left or right brain-activity ?!?
i read that practicing guitar improve memory , verbal and logical thinking, means it works on the left side on the brain …..
I’m a strong right-brained person …and i decided to practice guitar to improve my left-brain so i can do balance in my brain ,and improve my notes in school, …EINSTEIN was a strong right-brained person like me we can see that when he was in his school , he wasn’t good in math in his class nor the first so we see that he had a weak left brain ….i think he use his powerful-right brain to become genuis because he knew how to developed his left brained (he knew that days smth no body else knew ) so he start to play instruments like violent and guitar …(btw his zodiac sign was Pisces (water sign ),if u read astrology ,u’ll find that water sign have a right-brain dominance )
what do u think abut what i just said ,,& what are the benefits of guitar or music in general on the brain ?!
Guitar is great for the left brain like you said – works on memory and coordination. But once you get a little better at it and you can hear that you are making music, the artist part kicks in and it’s great. It’s a kinda marriage of the two and each person develops in different ways. Either way, practicing and learning is definitely a left brain activity.
Hope my opinion helps some.
References :
Left brained guitar player. Some ppl just say "nerd".
asdfsadf
References :
Yes! Einstein knew he is a strong right brained person, he also knew that he is Pisces (water sign). So based on this scientific evidence he has realized he is a genius and in order to be able to shine he had to be able to do a decent cover of Stairway to Heaven (or at least a little No. 16 in G major).
Basically if you do everything just the way Einstein did, you shall see the glory you deserve, genius!
References :