How much do you guys legit practice?

How much do you guys practice?

  • Total voters
    37
I stopped having a rigorous practice routine about 15 years ago and I really miss it. I got back into it a bit when I started gigging in NYC but that has since stopped (because of having kids, way before the pandemic). I really really miss the daily practice.
I recently started recording short improvised pieces of music (ideally daily, more likely every other day) and listening to them at the end of the week to figure out what to improve. It’s been a HUMBLING experience: I officially suck! My tempo and accuracy are all over the place now, which makes me sad. I also signed up for Troy Grady’s picking course which has greatly improved my speed (even without practicing enough!).
At this point I really could use the discipline but with two kids and a full time job it’s hard to not watch tv in the evening.
I second the recommendation to have a teacher, it’s motivating and a great thing to have a sounding board.
 
Robert said:
I'll tell you how often I actually play ....

Every now and then I read posts here and for a split second my mind thinks "Oh wow, these folks play guitar too? What are the chances that we're all pedal builders and we play guitar? ... oh, wait." 🤦‍♂️
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There's going to be zero judgements on that from us. The less time your have a guitar in your hands, the more time you'll have for pcb crafting. May your axe gather many cobwebs.
 
You all have inspired me: I spent my daughter's nap today getting my "studio" set up again. It'd been in pieces here and there for a while now and the table I was set up on in the living room had become a catch-all for all of our junk since my surgery. I was able to plug my new guitar in to my mixer for the first time (as opposed to my little 10'' bass practice amp) and actually hear how it really sounds, which was nice, and also got to mix and match some pedals, something I hadn't done on guitar till now (by the way: the Aion Meridian plays very nicely with germanium fuzz).

Thanks for the push, folks.
 
I don't gig and in the past I really only had a few shows a year where I really had to get my playing ship shape.

Now I play infrequently but am always game to get together with some friends and play. I usually find some inspiration on youtube and give it a go to learn a new tune, which often leads to developing a new skill.

If I went back in time, I'd definitely learn theory and memorize the fretboard to a greater degree.
 
I try to play and practice everyday for at least 1-3 hours. I'm practicing all sorts of stuff like the major modes, pentatonic impro in every key, jazz comping and soloing with arpeggios, pink floyd stuff and some classical guitar stuff. I have only played about a year and a half, but stuff like scale shapes, alternate picking, and jazz chords are almost natural. I have practiced 100s of hours on them. One of my first 10 songs was the bassline to hysteria by muse. Thats some tricky stuff. It took months for me to get close. Also, having a great teacher is what helped me. I managed to find a Guitarist who graduated from Berklee school of music. He is a monster player but most of all is a great teacher. I was playing the shire theme with no harmony like crap when I first started and I have only been taking lessons for 7 months now. Right now I am having a hard time getting better at string bending and improvising, but that stuff comes with time like all guitar related skills. Sorry for my whole life story. Jeez that's a lot of words.
 
Username123 said:
I try to play and practice everyday for at least 1-3 hours. I'm practicing all sorts of stuff like the major modes, pentatonic impro in every key, jazz comping and soloing with arpeggios, pink floyd stuff and some classical guitar stuff. I have only played about a year and a half, but stuff like scale shapes, alternate picking, and jazz chords are almost natural. I have practiced 100s of hours on them. One of my first 10 songs was the bassline to hysteria by muse. Thats some tricky stuff. It took months for me to get close. Also, having a great teacher is what helped me. I managed to find a Guitarist who graduated from Berklee school of music. He is a monster player but most of all is a great teacher. I was playing the shire theme with no harmony like crap when I first started and I have only been taking lessons for 7 months now. Right now I am having a hard time getting better at string bending and improvising, but that stuff comes with time like all guitar related skills. Sorry for my whole life story. Jeez that's a lot of words.
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Yeah been there done that, I spend most of my time lately on trying to find different approaches, if I'm at a jam and somebody's playing cowboy chords, I want to be playing other voicing's up the neck, maybe arpeggiating those chords or doing some stabs, staying out of the way but adding a little sumpin' sumpin'

EDIT: It's really amazing what you can add with just one well placed note here and there
 
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My practice usually consists of fretboard walking 2 or 3 different chords each day using various genre/time sigs as time permits. I've been wanting to try the spider-walk as Alex mentioned, and the Trio Jamie 🥰 sent to me provides some backing, which really makes it more enjoyable.
 
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finebyfine said:
@BuddytheReow hahaha are you me?? I bought a Katana Mark II specifically so I wouldn't need pedals right before I got into building an absurd amount of pedals. I've been playing guitar since I was 12, and I'm 28 now - but didn't play much when I was at college and never really have gotten back to the skill level I was at when I was 18 playing for multiple hours every day. I took lessons from when I was 12-16. I'm having more fun now though, but I've definitely started to get back into the rhythm of practicing more.

I play at least an hour most days and on the weekends play as much as 3. I try to practice for at least 10-15 minutes to warm up. I usually find that near that 10 minute mark I'll just naturally run a scale or exercise that will just kind of lead me into riffing.

One exercise that has paid insane dividends for my fretting hand dexterity is the spider walk and I really cannot recommend it enough. It's just playing 5-6-7-8 on each string while making sure to only move the finger that is fretting the note you are playing. That link is a really good overview.

Semi-related to the spider walk is that I practice scales while keeping my index finger clamped down to the fret board, imagining that it's basically a capo. I can't remember where I saw this as a practice exercise but I remember it being from a jazz guitarist. Between this and the spider walk I have noticed a huge improvement in the accuracy and ease of fretting, with my hands taking much longer to get tired.

I've been trying to find exercises specifically for picking as my right hand gets tired faster than it used to. If anyone has any good recommendations I'd love to check some out.
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Spider walk is great, I also like to play scales in thirds and other intervals
 
Lately I have been practicing and playing on my organ. I have been able to figure out melodies by ear, and playing it for 30 minutes every day really improves my ear. It's nice to have everything laid out in front you, especially when it comes to coming up with chord progressions and melodies. I have also started doing interval ear training. I associate intervals with pieces of music or chords and that helps a lot. For example a major third always sounds like the second note in a major chord. A perfect fifth always reminds me of mandolin tuning. A major 9th reminds me of the intro to Yesterday by The Beatles.
 
I used the beginning of a song to memorize intervals, for example the first two notes of Summertime by Gershwin spell out a descending major 3rd, or Manha do Carnaval by Louis Bonfa spells out an ascending minor 6th, the theme from Star Wars has a prominent perfect 5th ascending and so on.
 
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