Home › Forums › Beginner Guitar Discussions › 30 Minute Practice
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January 11, 2022 at 5:29 pm #292266
Let’s pretend that I have 30 minutes a day to practice. (I am currently working through the Blues lead course) what should that practice look like?
I have never really had a routine really, and just tend to sit down and practice a few licks for a few minutes at a time. I want my practice to be a little more effective and try to get better all around.
Thanks for any advice.
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January 11, 2022 at 7:35 pm #292275Anonymous
Oh man Ryan. You are looking for advice that will be different with everyone you talk to. Kinda gotta find your own. This might sound boring, but I always, and I mean always, start warming up with scales. I Start out with any major scale and play the 5 shapes up and down the fretboard. I always call out the note number of the scale, as in 1,2,3 etc. I don’t worry a lot about the note names as that seems to just be coming along by itself. Then I leave out the 4th and 7th and play up and down in pentatonic. Depending on my motivation (which sucks) I might look at the circle of fifths and find the relative minor and play that. Of course it’s the same notes so the same 5 forms just in a different order. I look for the triads in each scale shape, like in the key of A, I try to find the one three five of the A and see if I can learn to visualize them in different areas on the fretboard. Sometimes that’s all I do. Other times I run through some things I’m trying to learn. Since learning is work and I feel like I’ve worked enough in life, I don’t work on that part enough, but I do enough where people who don’t play think I really know what I’m doing. But that’s just my way. There are a couple things I don’t like to go through a day without playing at least once. Some I’ve learned from Brian and some from who knows where. For example there is a Stevie Ray Vaughn turn around that I just love to play. It’s short, fast, and covers a lot of the fretboard. I try work that into some things I learn from Brian, like the latest lesson EP447. That’s a perfect piece to insert the Stevie Ray turn around into. So I guess I have to learn EP447 now. God I hate work. I’m way too old for work. I just want to sit on a beach and look at bikini babes like the old perv that I am. Wouldn’t hurt to have a good cold drink in my hands either.
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January 11, 2022 at 10:23 pm #292279
Ryan K
I can give you some great ideas that you’re going to forget so I’m going encourage to to chose a lesson you enjoy and focus on learning it from beginning to the end.
Spend 10 min. Focused on Listing to the song training your ear
Spend 10 mins Focused on listening to Brian “lay the guitar down and focus on what Brian’s saying.” training your ear,.pick the guitar up the last 10 mins spent Focused on Practicing the lesson from the begin to the end with Brian. Training your memory
Practice this as routine 30 mins a day for 5 days.day 6 go back to the lesson using the backing track only play and enjoy what you’ve learned.
You’re going to amazed at how much you’ve accomplished at a little over 2 hrs.then trying to spend 30 mins getting frustrated because you can’t remember what I or someone else told you what to do which is bad advice.
You don’t have practice this way but it’s very important that you listen to train your ear to store in your memory what Brian’s saying the notes that you hear the timing you hear etc.
I saw a video of BB King discussing how he practices he said he didn’t practice his songs or his style or licks he had a routine to focus on listing to what others where playing and when felt comfortable with what he was hearing he would focus on playing what he had heard.
Very good advice from the King of the Blues that you’ve got to train your ear.Whatever method you try don’t get overwhelmed and frustrated set your sight to focus on what you’re hearing and you’ll accomplish all your goals.
Keep on picking.
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January 11, 2022 at 10:29 pm #292281
Fun stuff, course, fun stuff, sing a sing, more fun stuff.
Don’t regiment your practise cos you will soon tire of that, do fun stuff cos if your having fun then you are learning....Billy..
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January 12, 2022 at 3:29 pm #292347
Buy a book called “The Practice of Practice”. Every guitar student should own it. It will explain everything you want to know about different styles of practice, and it works for any musical instrument. Different methods work better for different people, so you have to experiment. Here are a couple of takeaways I got:
1) Memory retention: If you sit down to learn a lesson, after about 15 minutes you are no longer retaining what you are trying to learn. So I only “practice” a lesson for about 15 minutes, then I just play stuff for fun. Maybe put on some different jamtracks and noodle around. Maybe try to compose something (a work in progress). Maybe play with my looper or a different guitar. Maybe try out some different rhythm patterns, or tone settings, or effects. I may play for one hour, or even up to 4 hours. I do this almost every day.
2) Use micro-sessions: For me, if I practice for six 5-minute sessions or three 10-minute sessions spread randomly through the day, I will learn much faster than if I sit down for one 30-minute session. To do this, I keep a guitar in most rooms of my house, and when I walk past one, I grab it and sit down and play for a few minutes.Sunjamr Steve
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January 12, 2022 at 9:23 pm #292361Anonymous
You know another thing is your end goal. If you want to play lead or rhythm or both it will change your practice sessions. My brother like to write and sing slow sad ballads. All he needed were the open chords to go with what he was doing vocally. I like to learn the fretboard. If I can’t do anything else I want to know where I’m at in any normal key anywhere on the fretboard, even if I suck. So my practice involves just that. But Steve’s advice about shorter practice more often is very good. And what Billy said, that’s really everything. Have fun. If it’s not you’ll likely quit. I know I’ve been there.
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January 13, 2022 at 4:54 am #292383
Hi Ryan. I’ve created a little jam-track routine from Brian’s lessons that I use as a regular warm-up/practice. It uses tracks from the following lessons that you may find useful:
EP436 – Pentatonic Scales
EP270 – Classic Blues Intros
EP420 – Blues PhrasingI’m adding to the end of these, lessons I have recorded but have since forgotten how to play – so many! 😂
Hope this helps 😎
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January 13, 2022 at 3:06 pm #292416
This doesn’t answer your question re a 30 minute set period because my brain and schedule doesn’t really work that way. For example if I’m physically or mentally tired forcing myself to play seldom yields any progress. But, for what it’s worth, here are a couple of ideas I use as a foundation.
1. Don’t beat yourself up trying to nail something challenging in one go. Work on it for a while, put the guitar down, take a break. Go back to it later, or after a night’s sleep. The key point here is our brains are still working on it when we’re not consciously thinking about it, establishing a new neural network from what we’ve just learned. You may find you can play it almost without thinking about it the next day; and that is the ultimate magic of practicing anything, not just playing an instrument.
2. Get into a positive feedback loop. The idea behind this is that when we like the sound of what we’re producing we will naturally play better still. This is the so-called ‘psycho acoustics’ phenomenon, where the brain secretes dopamine (or something, I’m no neurologist). If you love the sound of your guitar(s), all is good. If not, fix it and/or get another one. You may find that you go up several notches just by enjoying your own sound more.
Anyway, you asked a good question. Hope this helps.
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January 14, 2022 at 7:28 am #292465
MarkH your comments are excellent. So many awesome players here helping and encouraging each other. I would only add that I pick up a guitar every time I have even a minute or two and so maybe that 30-minute block of time for me plays out over the course of the entire day. It ends up being hours of practice overall, slowly working through a lick or a chord voicing, and then when I get to actually lose track of time it’s just a bonus. Now, the part where you suggested “If you love the sound of your guitar(s), all is good. If not, fix it and/or get another one.”, well, that ‘get another one’ just seems like an endless quest thus far but its good to know my disorder is accepted here 🙂
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January 13, 2022 at 3:17 pm #292417
Thank you all so much. All of it has been a help. I have a lot to learn. I have been fiddling with the guitar for years. I knew three chords and it made me happy. Then I wanted to try to play some lead and it never clicked. Wish I knew what it was that made it click, but about a year ago it kind of just did. Then I have been happy playing my 5 licks in A on position 1 and 2. And now after starting the blues lead course there are 5 of them! I have never actually learned a song, but have always been musical enough to do my own thing.
I will continue to use the advice you gave here and try to spread my wings a bit.
Thanks again.
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January 13, 2022 at 5:04 pm #292426
Here’s the gist of a quote from a guitar workshop. Speaker is John Jorgenson (Hellecasters, Elton John, JJ Quintet, etc etc):
Start practicing difficult things slowly at first and pick up speed. I mean, if you can’t play it slow, how are you ever going to play it fast?
I try to remember that. I recommend going to guitar workshops if you can, you learn a lot about the craft.
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January 14, 2022 at 12:51 pm #292479
MarkH your comments are excellent.
Floating Dad, thank you for your kind vote of confidence.
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April 24, 2022 at 7:35 am #305376
Hi Ryan,
I am new to the forum so sorry for the late reply. I thought I would throw in my 2 cents for what it is worth. In my opinion this is a very important question (especially if you have only 30 minutes). Practice information used to be hard to come by online. It is getting better though. I know opinions vary wildly on this subject because everyone is different. Some people like routines and schedules. Others don’t. I am a routine guy so I will discuss that approach.First, consider setting goals. There is no sense practicing something you are not intending to use (i.e. sweep picking or finger picking). Two goals I had to move from beginner to intermediate playing were the CAGED Chord system and using pentatonic scales over a jam track to improvise soloing.
Second, I echo the importance of short but often. In other words practice to achieve the goals everyday. With only 30 minutes your goals should be 3 maximum (that would be 10 minutes a day each). The key is long-term. You will be amazed at how much better you get at something over the course of 2-3 months after practicing something every day for 10 minutes.
Here is a practice approach using the example goals above. Practice playing the C chord in each of the 5 CAGED shapes up and down the neck (15 minutes). Practice the 5 pentatonic shapes using alternate picking, preferably over a one chord jam track or metronome (15 minutes). Use a scale sequence too, like ‘playing in 3rds’
The following day, do the same thing but change the chord in the CAGED practice to D, the next day, E etc until you get back to C in a week or so. Change the pentatonic practice to Bm the following and keep moving up until you are back to Am.
I would feel ready to upgrade my goals once I can play the 1,4,5 chord progressions using each of the CAGED shapes as the 1 chord. For example, play 1,4,5 in the key of C but in all 5 positions. And when I could play all of the pentatonic shapes without referring to charts.
I do the fun part of guitar at the end of my session. That’s different for everyone – mine is improvising over jam tracks. Essentially, I am putting what I am learning in practice into real life scenarios. Lastly, try to always be learning something new or taking on new information. I wasted a lot of time as a guitar player just playing what I knew and what I was good at. I didn’t advance very much during those years. Hope this helps.
Let us know when you find what is working for you!
Patrick
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