How much do you practice?

[MANU]

Hallo!
How much do you practice?
I practice about 3-5 hours each day...Is this enough to become a professional?
I try to practice more, but it's just not possible; I don't have more time...

MANU

[Bongo Boy]

Here's an identical thread with a number of responses:

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/showthread.php?t=4081&highlight=practice+time

[GtrvVampyre]

Since this summer (no school) when im not

A. Helping on the farm (yes i live on a farm =P)
B. Mowing the grass.
c. Playing VIDEO GAMES!
D. Entertaining Girlfriend

Then i get up and play guitar about the whole day till 3:00 in the morning.
Lately iv been inspired because i got a program called Guitar Tracks and i'v been recording non stop =P, i love it ^.^. I feel bad cause lately i'v been making up excuses to get off the phone with my g/f sooner than usual to get back to my guitar. :o

[Unhorizon]

When I think of the word practicing I think of sitting in my room with a metronome. If that's the case, then I "practice" about 4 hours a day average. But I am on the guitar anywhere from 6-7 hours a day(jamming, writing, noodling, etc.). I think 3-5 hours is enough to get very good on the guitar. If you are already pretty decent in a few years with that practice schedule you should be really good. I don't think you will become a "virtuoso" because for that you really have to eat, sleep, and breathe guitar, which in my opinion isn't worth it. I just like to play and still have time to enjoy life as a kid.

[se_12121]

I'm gonna go totally against that view of urs. I think to be a virtuoso or great tech guitarist, u need to practise, 'Well' not necesarily long hours. Obviously u need to practise at least every day, but some play 3 hours a day 2.9 of which are spent playing songs, that strengthen fingers but dont make u much better for ,'Super Chops' or whatever. I have now finished school (Yay!) and im on a gap year to earn some money, which also gives me extra time to play guitar which is great. I play about 5 hours a day i'd guess, cause im on holiday, but i am lazy, and dont always, practise well. When i was in school, worked saturdays in a shop, had homework, and found plenty of pub time, i only managed bout 1 hour a day practise time, but i went through a phase of being well disciplined. E.g. breakup ur practise time into, 'Sean's 4 part workout' (this is cheesy and i have no chops, so ur welcome to stop reading here!); i believ there are maybe four main areas in technique, sweeping, picking, legato and tapping spend a 1/4 of time on each, practise chromatic scales, and stretching stuff for legato, solidly checking for any mistakes, then varying licks for alternate picking with a metronome practising different patterns (inside/outside picking, 3nps, 4nps), then sweeping practise some licks and same for tapping, just make sure u practise slow and stick with each lick to move it up, it made a huge difference for me. then in the odd 15 min's u have spare in the day play some impro and practise ur bends, harmonics vibrato and putting it all together. I think even with an hour a day after a year u would exceed most, who simply dont practise well enough. I only wish i could stick to this, 'rock' discipline! Hope that helps, sorry if im rambling on. Sean

[EricV]

It of course depends on the way you work ( the way you develop and learn ), and on what you want to achieve.
I always liked a combination of actually working on "mechanical exercises" ( chromatic ones, the "zigzag exercise" and stuff like the exercises in the Vai-workout ) and actual musical exercises... licks, solos, writing songs, transcribing, jamming.
Some people misunderstand the purpose of the exercises in "RockDiscipline" or my articles, those chromatic exercises. They go "Yuck, those don´tsound good in the context of a solo".
Well, quite a few players ( Morse, Petrucci, Buckethead... ) use chromatic licks, but in general, those chromatic exercises are supposed to help you build your chops. Even though you might never use them in your soloing, your music, they will help you to develop your chops. That´s the purpose.
So after sitting there for a while with your metronome, start using those newly aquired chops and play some music, that always was my strategy
Eric

[GtrvVampyre]

I actually dont use the first exercise. Dont know if this is a bad thing but the songs iv learned since i started playing seemed to build up my techniques and make me better. I'd take working on "arpeggios from hell" or "Trilogy Suite" anyday over some AP exercise x.x. I remember someone else a bit ago was talking about practicing differntly, like using songs to practice tech. instead of exercise, i guess thats what i'v kinda been doing.

[theguitarist]

Since this summer (no school) when im not

A. Helping on the farm (yes i live on a farm =P)



Life on a farm would be so cool dude.The free enviroment,the smell of fresh air every morning,the unending farms and etc etc.I would like to spent my oldies on a farm :p .

[Bongo Boy]

The free enviroment,the smell of fresh air every morning....hah! You've never been (i.e., worked) on a farm, right? :D

[GtrvVampyre]

Yeah it is pretty awesome, barely any neighboors and ALOT of woods. Just keeping the 10 acre yard mowed is hell -.-..... Plus i can pull my huge amp out onto the front porch and rock away and noone cares.

[GtrvVampyre]

sorry if im rambling on. Sean
/7 Ill keep, Rambling on! Sing my song! /7

Sorry everytime someone says that i think of Zeppelin :)

[oRg]

Depending on what my schedule is I practice on average about 6 hours a day. There have been times though when I actually cleared out an entire day to just sit and practice for anywhere from 8-14 hours a day. I do that about once or twice a month. I make sure though I take breaks to make sure I don't hurt myself. What I practice is pretty much the chromatic excersizes on Rock Discipline and a few up and down chromatic licks from Shawn Lanes Power Licks and then I jump into writing some songs and applying music theory to help create songs. I'm not too big of a fan for learning songs even though it helps playing. If there's a song that really catches my fancy then I'll learn it but underneath practicing chops writing songs has more priority than learning songs.

[fortymile]

i dont think you necessarily have to practice that much at all if you like sloppy grungy rock music. if i could just get my speed up i would be as good as i want to be. which is to say i could write passages that are a little more complicated than the ones i'm writing now. i wouldnt sound like a virtuoso but i'd sound musical.

[theguitarist]

...hah! You've never been (i.e., worked) on a farm, right? :D


Yup and lol did you meant to say the smell of fresh cow dung every morning :p

[GtrvVampyre]

Good thing we dont have any cows close by, they are all across the road at the Tobacco barns. =P

[Sean]

I think the question should not be 'how much do you practice?' but rather 'how well do you practice?'. I'm far more impressed and envious of someone who can learn a piece (and learn it well) with seeming little or no pratice time. Having looked at practicing from a thousand angles over the past 25 years, I've come to conclusion that a very (and I mean very) focused 10 minute session is far better than an error ladden 'rote' (muscle memory) 2-3 hour session. Even better, learn the peice or solo in your head first (i.e. visualize every note) before you even 'practice' it on the guitar and you'll cut you pratice time in half (at least).

Sean

[debaser]

I think the question should not be 'how much do you practice?' but rather 'how well do you practice?'. I'm far more impressed and envious of someone who can learn a piece (and learn it well) with seeming little or no pratice time. Having looked at practicing from a thousand angles over the past 25 years, I've come to conclusion that a very (and I mean very) focused 10 minute session is far better than an error ladden 'rote' (muscle memory) 2-3 hour session. Even better, learn the peice or solo in your head first (i.e. visualize every note) before you even 'practice' it on the guitar and you'll cut you pratice time in half (at least).

Sean

I totally agree with this. I probably only spend 1 hour a day playing alone, and that is mostly composed of warm-ups and picking exercises to make sure that everything is still doing what it should. But, I spend much more time listening to music and analyzing it/thinking about music in general/thinking about my own playing and what it's flaws are, not to mention playing with my band. I think that all of that improves me as much as sitting in one place with a metronome would. On the other hand, for the people who said they practice 5-7 hours a day, what is your "itinerary" for a practice session? I'm interested in knowing how much repetition you think is necessary.

[Unhorizon]

I practice at least 5 hours a day. In the morning I ear train and practice jazz (comping, learning heads,and improvising) which is usually an hour to hour and a half. Later I practice picking for 2-3 hours. Then legato for an hour. Then I work on music (Flight of the Bumblebee right now) and if it's not too late I'll just turn on the amp and try to make up cool melodies.

[Caffeinated Cat]

I try to get in 3 hours. An hour of working on some blues solos, then an hour of improvising over chord progressions, then an hour of rhythm practice. Though I'll quite often start out with an hour of Speed Mechanics, which usually results in one other item getting bumped from the schedule, unless I'm feeling really ambitious that dy.

[Axe-aholic]

I try to get in 4 hours right now. Previously I was doing six, but time has gotten a bit tighter for me now. I do one hour of technique for electric, one hour of improv, comping, theory etc, one hour of Classical technique and one hour of classical song learning.

Playng Classical has been quite an adjustment. It's practically an entirely different instrument

[theguitarist]

Well i practice about 2 hours a day.Thats all i can give to my playing a day,lots of other things come in the way.But i give 5 to 6 hours on saturdays.And i think thats enough for me for the time being.I too believe in making my practice time worth it.Not just for the sake of practicing.It's hard for me to practice without practice time mangement.That is knowing what to practice next.Because then you start playing with your guitar and not learning.Guitar is a thing with whom you can have fun,so it becomes difficult to practice if you are not serious.And on the other hand there are things like studies,while studing you cant have fun.So its easy to study more in less time.That's why you need to be serious in your practice.By this i dont mean dont have fun with your playing because then it will become boring but be concentrated.

Now again in the question about becoming proffesional by just "how much do i practice" there is the same answer that it doesnt depend on how much do you practice but how good you practice.But still becoming proffesional in the sence of vai and stuff,you need to dedicate your life with good,perfect and as long as you can hold practice.

[forgottenking2]

I practice about 2-10 hours a day (I hardly get to the extremes and almost always stay inbetween). Out of that time I hardly ever play more than 2 hours straight, I spend A LOT of time on ear training, or just sightreading (I'm trying sight singing now... it's tough), or thinking about why does such and such progression sounds so good... or what happens if I raise such and such scale degree and lower this other one... etc. Coming up with melodies in my head and what not... when I do have the guitar available, bring up little melodies from memory (original, doddles, themes from stuff like Mr. Pollo's theme) and try to play them in without mistakes even though I had never played those before... and then I spend a good hour on purely technical stuff, running scales through the circle of 4ths or 5ths in all positions (that right there is a good one, combines technique and it is somewhat musical). Etc.

So yeah, that's what I do. I used to dedicate a lot more time to "pure" technique but I find that to me is a lot easier to stay focused if I do something more musical. I also write etudes for absolutely everything, even if it's something straight forward without much melodic twist, I find it more entertaining than playing chromatic runs (even though I still do those specially to warm up... they are good).

Anyway... that's kind of an overview of what I do now. It's changed a lot since last year (my post about that is gotta be somewhere around there).

Once again, thank you guys to help me grow musically.

Regards,

[debaser]

Well, now i just feel lazy. I used to have a regimen that was much more like the ones described, but have recently(for the past 5 years?) felt that it was more important to work on composition, and simply maintain the level of playing I was at. Maybe I should re-think. It seems that the one key to useful practicing is continually re-evaluating your approach. At the same time, I really couldn't see spending an hour on legato. Unhorizon, when you do that section of your practicing, what is your approach? DO you do chromatics, scales, tapping, all of the above?

[Unhorizon]

I warm up with chromatics then practice all different picking permutations including string skipping and stuff like that. I don't run up and down scales but practice short patterns (PG lick, etc.) and Rock Discipline patterns as well as my own. After that I do legato and tapping. Then I try to put everything together over my own (crappy) backing tracks.

[oRg]

For the most part i practice licks and excersizes concentrating on complexity more than speed right now. As far as learning stuff goes i've already said I only learn songs that really catch my fancy, and right now it's Paganini's 1st Caprice. I found a score of it and I'm transcribing it over right now to tab and learning it piece by piece. I've had to arrange two separate guitar parts for it though becuz of the wide intervals that are extremely hard to play on guitar. Right now I plan on transcribing all 24 Caprices over to powertab right now and when I'm done I'll be glad to share and chances are there'll be some mistakes becuz I'm not the bast at reading standard notation but I'm sure there are a few here that'll proof-read it for me...:)

[outtathaway]

Hey!

I used to practise about an hour a day until last week, when I played almost non-stop for a whole day, and I havn't been able to put my guitar down since. In that one day, I learnt more than I had in months and I can at last shred fleuntly all the way up and down the fret board. That is good practise!

oRg.......you say you're tabbing the carprices........heres a little help.....about a page of No.7 in ptb and a complete tab (with notation) in word.

Cya,

Jack.

[BornToShred]

I practice technique for about an hour a day and study theory for another hour. Rest of the time i just noodle.

[Dommy]

Currently, I practice until I can't stand to practice much more, which is around 6 hours.

I spend my time working with Van Eps exercises which involve doing triads in different string sets all over the fretboard with different string sets, its pretty crazy stuff, doing chromatic warmups and chopsbuilders to get up to speed.

After this I work on playing chromatically with bebop scales, working on starting on all scale degrees landing on a chord tone all over the fretboard. It feels great being able to play a Dominant bebop scale over 3 octaves without stopping =). Working with Dominant, Major, Tonic Minor, Dominant(b13,b9) etc... A lot of the scale work I'm doing involves finding the most ergonomic and efficient fingerings going both up and down, because I have different ones that I came up with for going up and down. I have been using Jerry Bergonzi's books for much of the information regarding this sort of thing.

I have already ordered Volume 6 of Jerry Bergonzi's Inside Improvisation series, I hope it lives up to what I hope it to be.

I am continuing to work through Joe Pass's books, but it takes a lot of effort to get these forms into your playing and relate the note choices to the forms you already know... I've been analyzing each one of the chords by myself, notating what interval the bottom note is from the root and turning them into slash chords and analyzing the structure...very fun.

Yeah, and of course, the mandatory learning standards.

I also take 3 exercises from wherever I fancy and try to learn them to the best of my abilities.

Oh yeah, and I transcribe stuff also as part of my routine.

[street_lethal]

ive been playing for almost three years now..and i play about 8 hours a day with NO exceptions.

[AyKay]

on average 6-9 hours a day.

[oRg]

Thanx for the tab outtathaway. I have the sheet music for all the Caprices and right now I am trying to make it somewhat playable on guitar.

[debaser]

ive been playing for almost three years now..and i play about 8 hours a day with NO exceptions.


Well, I've been playing for a little more than 17 years. Not that I don't need to practice, but I think that 8 hours would be a little excessive for me right now. I also make a distinction between practice and playing.

[davidvanhalen]

hey, a little off-topic here but, have you noticed that in every carlos santana concerts there are always more girls than guys?, thats pretty amazing, and have you noticed that in concerts of guys like malmsteen and other shredders at least 90 per cent are guys?.
well, i think that girls that are into guitar players search for someone who plays with sensibility and sensuality like santana and jeff beck, and thats one of the reasons i think guitar players should concentrate on finding a way of expressing deep feelings in a way other than speed, i mean when i hear VICTORY IS WON from santana i FEEL SOMETHING, and when i hear WHERE WERE YOU from jeff beck the same thing happens, but then i hear yngwie's vengeance or some' like that and tough his playing and composition technique is great and i love it the experience is not the same, the song doesn't drive me off my path, and i used to think that i needed more speed in my playing and that i should practice 8 hours a day to be really fast, but now i have realized that i do have to practice, but not so much to get fast but to be able to express and create feelings, cause that's what music is really all about, a form of expression where you can use different tools like speed, melody, harmony, dynamics, but if you miss the point and just try to show off your technique or somthin' like that, you won't transmite anything to anyone, not even youself.

[RandyEllefson]

Hmm. Well, I never do technical drills more than 2 hours, except when doing classical guitar for my degree, and that got me tendonitis, so...:rolleyes:

[theox]

Right now, I'm practicing about 3 hours a day and playing another 3 or 4. I'm going to school to study jazz in two weeks so those numbers will probably double. Small village, 500 citizens, nothing else to do but play music... :rolleyes:

[axe_man_oli]

hey, a little off-topic here but, have you noticed that in every carlos santana concerts there are always more girls than guys?, thats pretty amazing, and have you noticed that in concerts of guys like malmsteen and other shredders at least 90 per cent are guys?.
well, i think that girls that are into guitar players search for someone who plays with sensibility and sensuality like santana and jeff beck, and thats one of the reasons i think guitar players should concentrate on finding a way of expressing deep feelings in a way other than speed, i mean when i hear VICTORY IS WON from santana i FEEL SOMETHING, and when i hear WHERE WERE YOU from jeff beck the same thing happens, but then i hear yngwie's vengeance or some' like that and tough his playing and composition technique is great and i love it the experience is not the same, the song doesn't drive me off my path, and i used to think that i needed more speed in my playing and that i should practice 8 hours a day to be really fast, but now i have realized that i do have to practice, but not so much to get fast but to be able to express and create feelings, cause that's what music is really all about, a form of expression where you can use different tools like speed, melody, harmony, dynamics, but if you miss the point and just try to show off your technique or somthin' like that, you won't transmite anything to anyone, not even youself.

Its all about the ladies..... :D

[theox]

Its all about the ladies..... :D
It's all about expression... communication...

[AyKay]

"Most people who say you don't need to be an amzing technical player are usually jealous, mediocre guitarists"

-al Dimeola

[axe_man_oli]

It's all about expression... communication...
oh oh..okay... and the ladies... :)

[theox]

oh oh..okay... and the ladies... :)
Okay, okay... and the ladies... :p

[debaser]

"Most people who say you don't need to be an amzing technical player are usually jealous, mediocre guitarists"

-al Dimeola


This is true to a point. I don't think you need to be as fast as Dimeola though - there is a spectrum. I'm sure that Metheny can't shred phrygian scales like Al does, but most people would I agree(I think) that he's more versatile as a player, and much less pattern-oriented. Of course, I don't in any way mean that Metheny doesn't practice a lot, because I'm sure he does. I bet he doesn't spend 3 hours a day on technical skills, though. However, there some guitarists who have great skill on the instrument who don't sound like they practice, technique, theory or ear training 8 hours a day - Brian May, EVH, Jeff Beck, etc.

[davidvanhalen]

"Most people who say you don't need to be an amzing technical player are usually jealous, mediocre guitarists"

-al Dimeola

well i don't think thats a rule or a fact, a i mean yeah there are a lot of players who say thatyou don't have to have great technique and they do it cause they suck, but i didn't meant that at all, if you pay a little attention what i meant was that you can't let speed or technique be the only thing you can rely on, i mean; imagine you got some sort of tendonitis, and you could still play but not fast, would you stop playing just because you can't play fast?, i personally wouldn't, i would feel bad for a while cause i really like the speed and level of technique i have achieved but i would still have other tools of expression. by the way, santana says all the time in interviews that he doesn't have the greatest chops, but that he knows how to express himself really well just with a few notes put in the right place. now, can you say that santana is a mediocre player or musician?

[moon shadow]

Davidvanhalen,
Carlos Santana once said that guitar players should learn how to play beautiful melodies, because if not, you'll only be admired by a bunch of guys and there won't be a woman in sight!

[Priest Becker]

I havent met one single player that ever said they wouldn't want the technical skill and speed. You don't have to go slow to show feeling. The way you guys are saying things your comparing apples to oranges. Sure thier both guitar players (fruit) but thier a tottaly different type. Each one is different and expresses in a different way. My personal preference is that people who go slower don't feel like putting in the time and work that shredders do (no offense) but instead take the time that they do put in and go straigt for conections between the scales and chords to get thier "feeling" down. Each style has it's own feeling neither one greater or smaller as a fact but as a listiner it's all in prespective. Thier are some musicians out thier that everyone knows puts forth nothing in it but to say just because someone puts speed into a song they have no feeling seems a little biest and a too much argued pointless conversation. Why can't we just drop conversations like this?

[Unhorizon]

I havent met one single player that ever said they wouldn't want the technical skill and speed. You don't have to go slow to show feeling. The way you guys are saying things your comparing apples to oranges. Sure thier both guitar players (fruit) but thier a tottaly different type. Each one is different and expresses in a different way. My personal preference is that people who go slower don't feel like putting in the time and work that shredders do (no offense) but instead take the time that they do put in and go straigt for conections between the scales and chords to get thier "feeling" down. Each style has it's own feeling neither one greater or smaller as a fact but as a listiner it's all in prespective. Thier are some musicians out thier that everyone knows puts forth nothing in it but to say just because someone puts speed into a song they have no feeling seems a little biest and a too much argued pointless conversation. Why can't we just drop conversations like this?

I urge you to take advantage of the "Preview Post" feature this forum offers, then enroll in a public school where you will learn various skills to aid you in life. One of those skills will enable you to spell words correctly, which is one I find I use often. Have a nice day.

[axe_man_oli]

Well, that was blunt... and totally unnecessary... He has a point...

Speed seems to completely cancel out all kinds of feeling for some of you guys.... I see players who say speed is a waste of time as bad players....because a good player will take the time to learn to play fast and will use it because speed can create some very diverse feelings in a song....

They shouldnt always play fast... but to not learn it because its not full of feeling is stupid and sorta lazy...

[Axe-aholic]

In any other style of music than rock/metal, this agrument would be pointless. Most people view the tempo and time value of the notes of the music as just that. In some situations it's appropriate to perform/write/improvise at a faster 'speed', other times it's not. It all depends on the player and the song. If you don't have the technique to play things at a moderate or fast tempo then you are limited. As musicians I think it should be a goal of ours to remove as many limits as possible.

[UltimaRage]

On average, it is about 2 hours a day for me, and I truly think it all depends on the person on how fast people progress. I'm just as good as these other kids who've been playing 5-6 years, who play the same kind of music, and I've only been playing for 3 years, seriously only for 1 and a half years. I can even execute clean 6 string sweep licks, but really slowly right now, haha.