How much practice time do you spend?

Rick Garrett · From: Tyler, Texas

I practice as much as my schedule will allow. Seems to me that I do better when there's nobody home but me and at times like that I'll usually spend a couple of hours on my axe. Still somedays are diamonds and somedays it just don't pay to pick up the bar. On average, how many hours a day do you guys spend working on getting better?

Rick

Pat Kelly · From: Wentworthville, New South Wales, Australia

This question reminds of a dear ( and now sadly departed) friend. When the doctor asked him how much he drank, he cheerfully replied - "AS much as I can!"

Larry Lorows · From: Zephyrhills,Florida, USA

I try to practice a half hour a day at least. Sometimes, I'll just put a cd on and play along with it. My steel is always set up, so if I have ten minutes before work, I may sit down at it. I'm lucky, my wife wants me to play more. We both like western swing and I work the 6th tunig a lot. Larry

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U12 Williams keyless 400
Evans SE 150, Nashville 112, Line 6 pod xt

Klaus Caprani · From: Copenhagen, Denmark

I try to get at least 1 hour a day, though it often ends up with just 1/2 or even nothing. I wish somebody would pay me to practice this thing

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Klaus Caprani

MCI RangeXpander S-10 3x4
www.klauscaprani.com

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

I think it matters to get in at least 30 or 45 minutes every day - any less feels like I'm not even breaking even to get up to the speed and accuracy I had the day before. I also have a strong interest in standard six-string, so that's at least an hour and a half total. If I miss a few days my brain gets retarded and my picking hand gets crippled.

I recall reading an interview with Santana where he talks about having to play at least two hours to get loose, and an interview with John McLaughlin where he says he's having a bad day if he can't play at least five or six hours. Of course, those guys are dedicated to playing well, whereas I spend my time reading interviews and dicking around on the internet....

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

excellent topic..

of course I will ramble as well..it's one of my strong points in life...

I generally practice 30 to 60 minutes every early am..the same stuff everyday until I am comfortable with the results. I am still playing basically the same material from around November, just with multiple variations. Working to break out of the box.

BUT..it's not the amount of time thats important, it's what you actually practice..

EX: if you practice the same scales 5 minutes/day in 2 or 3 positions and thats all you do, at then end of 30 days that 5 min/day will yield incredible results.

If you practice without a routine 60 minutes/day, and change the routine everyday, at the end of the 30 days you probably will not be much further ahead than day 1.

Time and routine go hand and hand. Routine + discipline is a requirement.

but what do I know, I'm sittin here LOOKING at the Steel and sitting at the PC !

t

Bob Carlucci · From: Candor, New York, USA

I turn on the radio, everthing from country to reggae,classic rock ,soul,jazz,,, whatever, and start playing along... probably an hour a day... bob

Larry Bell · From: Englewood, Florida

almost NEVER
(and it probably shows)

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Larry Bell - email: larry@larrybell.org - gigs - Home Page
2003 Fessenden S/D-12 8x8, 1969 Emmons S-12 6x6, 1971 Dobro, Standel and Peavey Amps

Fred Justice · From: Mesa, Arizona

I try to get in at least two hours a day but its not always at one setting.Most of the time i'll play say 15 minute or 10 minute settings and come back later and play some more,seems to work well that way for me.

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Fred Justice

Bill Hatcher · From: Atlanta Ga. USA

I work on music and practicing a lot, BUT I have to be inventive as to getting the time to do it. If I have a show to play, I leave in time to be set up at least an hour before the show starts and I will sit and practice either what I have to play in the show or work on something else. If I have a recording session or a one nighter, I will do the same. I have found that getting to the job early and doing some playing acclimates me to the room/sound etc. and makes me ready to play when the job starts. I can work out bugs and relax a bit. Nothing worse for me than racing to the gig, setting up in a hurry and trying to play.

Kiyoshi Osawa · From: Mexico City, Mexico

I usually practice about an hour or an hour and a half. I try to break it down in to areas, Like:

1. Non-musical warm up. using a metronome, I play combinations of pedals and levers without picking, it helps to avoid cramps! Then it's right hand picking combined with pedals and volume. Up and down chromatic. That's about 30 mins.

2. Musical warm up. I go through major, minor and dominant scales through the cycle of fifths. Speeding up the metronome slowly. thats about 30 to 45 mins.

3. Then it's chord work. With metronome, another 30 mins, through all major, minor, dominant, diminished, augmented, 7ths, etc... thats another 30 mins.

4. If I still have time, I'll try to practice the songs we are playing with my band, or improvise over backing tracks from BIAB or the Aebersold courses.

That's it! In a couple of decades, I MIGHT be as good as I want to be!

As my muscle memory develops, I'll probably be able to practice in a different way, and enfasize other aspects of playing.

Anyone else practice like this?

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Kiyoshi
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Tom Stolaski · From: Huntsville, AL, USA

The little time that I do practice is spent on learning new stuff. For some reason it takes a long time to get the new stuff on stage. I end up playing the old stuff when taking a solo. Anybody else have the same problem?

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

That idea of Kiyoshi's to practice scales through the cycle of fifths sounds really good to me - I tend to get stuck in one key (and it's relative majors and minors) a lot, sometimes for the whole day. I'm sure that helps me with my eight-notes-on-one-string kind of stuff, but oh, woe if I had to change keys....

Jim Cohen · From: Philadelphia, PA

By the way, you don't spend time practicing; you invest it!

J Hill · From: Colorado, USA

Fred...from what I saw and heard you do at the Dallas show, you don't NEED to practice. I know, you'll say even good players can do better but as a beginner I say, yea, right. I can't even imagine better where you're concerned.

Practice time...short period like 10 minutes several times a day. I get highly motivated by having a song to learn that I really like. I'm trying to learn "Am I that Easy to Forget" and its really pretty. Anyhow, that's what motivates me. And 10 minutes 4 or 5 or 6 times a day works. I'm learning.

Now doing scales is something entirely different. If somebody could come up with any motivation for practicing that kind of thing, I'd appreciate it. It's more like work, and we're supposed to be 'playing' the guitar, right?

Kiyoshi Osawa · From: Mexico City, Mexico

I don't really see practicing scales as boring. Lot's of people do though. In fact, most teaching materials assume people HATE scales. So they call them licks, or phrases or whatever.

IMHO, that attitude makes learning how to make music very difficult for some people. It makes improvising and comping "misterious" and "magical".

Some Pro's seem to know all the theory there is to know. Others play by ear. But I'm willing to bet anything you want, that the pro's that play by ear have some sort of system that works like music theory for them: ie. they can recognize different types of intervals, scales and chords, etc.

I don't have a very developed ear, so learning how it works in theory helps me know if I'm in the ball park for getting the type of sound I want.

anyway, that's just my opinion.

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Kiyoshi
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Todd Pertll · From: Chicago, Illinois, USA

I would suggest substituting Band in a Box for a metronome whenever possible. That way you are working on your time and intonation at the same time.When I used to practice with just a metronome the bar would float as mush as a half step up or down.

I have several tracks saved that are the circle of fifths in verying styles. maybe 2-4 measures of each chord.

Todd

Niclas Nilsson · From: Sweden

Most days, I'll just put on a Buddy Emmons record, and play along.

Yeah right...

J Hill · From: Colorado, USA

Kiyoshi,

Actually I agree. Scales are necessary and helpful for those arpeggios we hear. Its just that 'practicing scales' just isn't as much fun as listening to a song actually materialize when we practice it.

A 'way' of making scales more palatable might be to play those scales within a song, as in the form of an arpeggio. I'm not anywhere near trying that yet (still learning grips) but I know somewhere in the process of learning it'll show up, and I'm hoping that'll be in a song.

Kiyoshi Osawa · From: Mexico City, Mexico

Todd,

I practiced that way for a few months. But what ended up happening was that when practicing scales over BIAB tracks, any excuse was good enough for starting to improvise. So I would never get through the whole track with out letting loose!

That's obviously a good thing, but what I want is to get the scales under my fingers to a point where I don't have to think about it. So now, I practice the scales with a metronome, and then only after I've executed them correctly, I do a session of improvising over chords.

leila,

Playing songs is allways the ultimate goal. Except I'm the obsessive type

. (I mean I'm the type of guy who coun'ts all the tyles in my bathroom, what could you expect!)

BTW, Re: grips. I found an old post where Joe Wright talked about practicing grips. There's only a limited amount of different grip combinations you can do. So What I do is practice all of them with a metronome. I also use this excersice to practice vibrato.

If you picture grips in terms of how many strings you skip, its:

000 (that is, don't skip any strings)
001 (that is, skip 1 string at the top) etc...
100
010
101
011
110
111

You can add alternating pedal and lever changes to the alternating grips for the ultimate nonsensical and boring (

) warm up!

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Kiyoshi
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Farris Currie · From: Ona, Florida, USA, R.I.P.

RICK,i got rid of my sho-bud pro3,so now i'm on single 10s,i;m having a ball learning C6th sounds on E9th.its there just got to learn whole new teck.I want to learn more on extra knees to give C6th.I've seen some stuff posted on forum before,but need more inform.now. i had a guy came by here awhile back,Don,anyway he had 9knees on his single emmons,played both tunings on a 10string. thats to much for me,he couldn't even use a volume pedal. i am learning lower the Es, drop down 2 frets,some nice stuff. keep up the practice guys, just make it count when you do it.

i was working on WALTZ across TEXAS in A today,with C6th sounds. farris

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

I like to break scales up into fragments to keep it interesting. 123 234 345, 135 246 357 etc. You can run patterns of threes and fours up and down through the scales and come across a whole lot of stuff that sounds just like music!

Units of threes, fours and even eights sound best to me, though it's a good (and hard) technical exercise to play units of fives, sevens, tens and such as triplets and quarter notes. If you think a little you can make it as complicated and/or interesting as you can possibly stand - rising fragments that go down the scale, falling fragments that go up, backwards, inside out, upside down. It was good enough for Bach & Beethoven, maybe it's worth a shot.

Dave Mudgett · From: Central Pennsylvania and Gallatin, Tennessee

Generally, not enough to satiate me, but enough so that I'm progressing, I think. Actually, I sprained my left ankle (horrors for a pedal steel player!) Tuesday loading into the gig, so I'm giving it a rest for a week or so. I'll play guitar and (shudder) banjo at rehearsal this weekend. Strangely (or maybe not), I occasionally need a break from playing/practicing anyway. Watch a few instructional videos, listen to some music, let the mind, and the ankle tendons, stretch out.

Wayne Franco · From: silverdale, WA. USA

My best practice time seems to be early morning. Nothing to bother me usually and my brain seems to work better then. Lately I've been working on standards and playing an appropriate scales over the chord changes. Seems like there is a lesson in every standard. Stella is still kicking my butt on the ad lib part but getting easier after a couple of months. I always play a regular gig once a week mostly by myself, lately with a guitar player so I'm getting to work on back up more. My ultimate goal is a worked out head, worked out first ad lib then just try and create something on the spot before the last go around to keep it fresh. On some of the blues type tunes I enjoy limiting myself to a certain number of notes, say the 1-5 tones then go from 5 to 9 for a while and see if I can say anything. I also like to throw in the bebop note, oh heck, I'm having fun with everything I'm learning. Truthfully I've never had this much fun playing. Those scales get easier and you can start to see where they merge together a little at a time so it is easier to get in position for the next change. I could go on for half an hour, but I'll stop now.

[This message was edited by W Franco on 15 April 2005 at 07:34 PM.]

Farris Currie · From: Ona, Florida, USA, R.I.P.

any one do banjo rolls?i'm pretty slow picker,what are some good practice rolls?
farris

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