The Steel Guitar Forum

A.J. 15 min,, is good ,, But Remember have FUN at it !!!!!! Ron

Smiley, Ive got some cold long necks, this morning, while practicing, only I cant figure out why Im missing strings ! Ha Ha Ron

Not Enough!!!!!!
I used to thought I was great!! and slowed down.Now I knows that I ain't...and should be going more....BUT.....Sometimes I'm Lazy...and some times..I just don't care.
I have a "Honey Do List" a mile long...and a 9 year old daughter and 3 year old grandaughter..and a Wife that need my time for this,that,and everything....and I'm addicted to this 'Puter.....sooooooooooo!!!!!Grouchy

Elizabeth I come home and get rested and go back out to work, so when I am home I practice, I actually have a stressfull job, so when I'm home my wife thinks I spend to much time on the thing, sort of like a playstation! I love her ! So I got to way things out and have fun to!

I played 6 - 10 hours a day all through high school, but I unfortunately got hoodwinked into the whole job/marriage/house/achievement nonsense and wasted a few decades of my life on that. Now I have finally figured out how to work at home so I can find 5 to 6 hours a day for working on music skills. But, I take my six-string electric playing deadly serious too and at times that takes over almost completely for a while. I'm also working on reading, transcribing and theory skills, and some aspects of that require a desk rather than an instrument. Two things that help keep me "parallel" are working on the same piece of music on both instruments for a while, and I have started playing standard guitar with thumb-and-finger picks.

i can relate to the "mental practice" touted by Curly Chalker - that's how I usually practiced on guitar; in the car, driving 3+ hours a day. If I listened to the same thing enough times I could usually play it later within minutes.

With steel, it's a new instrument to me and that just doesn't work as well - although it still helps a ton. So I put in at least 30 minutes a night at the steel, plus a lot of "listening practice" when I'm driving.

If not for "Mental" practice I wouldn't have got much at all a few yrs. back the way I was working didn't leave much time for practice.

Leann Rimes came out with "These Arms of Mine" about that time and my wife really wanted to do the song, and I didn't have time to learn it or practice it. I ran it off on 4 cassett tapes and gave one each to every one and told em to learn it. Ran it back to back on mine about 6 times. I had a 4 hr. drive to the job, and a couple of hrs. at night in the motel [no steel with me] I had that song mentally running through my mind for 5 days. Got home Friday evening set up in the club, played the song like we'd rehearsed it for two weeks!!

I love it when a plan comes together!! LOL..
Hannible Hays--A Team!

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<font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Larry Strawn on 01 April 2006 at 08:52 AM.]</p></FONT>

I practice in my head all day. I can't read music and never want to learn how. It has it's advantages. I'm 48 years young and haven't practiced in 20 years. When we play a new song it seems to be easy to play for me since I have the steel parts down in my head. The whole band is like that. We never practice. Since I quit drinking a 6 pack or 2 or 3 at the show, it's alot easier now.

I really can't remember the last time very well! It's been several weeks, contrary to my New Year's Resolution!

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“Big John”
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at least 4 hours a day. i get a lot of ideas from visualization of the fretboard and "hearing the lick" even though i am not sitting at the steel. i'm finding that a really good teacher can sit down with you and watch what you are doing and if they know what you are going for, can point out exercises that teach you how to get there by having you do things that stimulate your mind into thinking in a way that it currently is missing. it is like looking inside a room that is now open where before it was closed because the mind was not seeing the door.

Practically never, unless it's to learn a new song with specific steel licks.
Hey, I'm not proud of it, but it's the truth.
I meed the energy of other musicians to get inspired.

I just enjoy fooling around with music instruments and rarely miss a day. It may be for only afew minutes or for several hours. I stop when I'm tired. Sometimes I have something special in mind sometimes I don't.Practice is a pleasure to me and when it ceases to be I stop.

I don't know if any of you ever saw the "Music Man" Braodway play, but the gist of it was a music 'professor' that convinced the students that were without instruments that if they just 'thought' the song, they could play it.

If I'm working on a song, I can be thinking of it almost any time of the day, no matter what it is that I am doing, and when I sit down with whatever instrument, I find that yes, the 'thinking' part works.

I've seen several comments above that seem to verify the "Professor Harold Hill Theory of Music".

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Dekley S-10, tangled fingers and feet

Daily practice is preferable according to some experts in learning theory. But how you practice ia clearly important. I have taken to starting with 10-20 min of Joe Wright's technical bundle stuff; but I understand that Jeff Newman published a similar manual. Only after warming up and gaining strength, do I move on to playing and having fun. If I warm up well I can ripp, if I don't I play slop.

MOST of the time, I try to practice SOMETHING every day. The last few weeks however I have really been a slacker. I just acquired an Ibanez classical-electric, and there is really nothing like your fingers on a fretboard, to remind you what you are missing sitting at the steel. But other than that, when I am INTO working out at the steel (which actually is most of the time) I tend to spend anywhere from 30 minutes to two and a half hours a day.
But like I said- a new nylon string guitar in my house, and it's enchanted me as much as the steel...
When I was very young I would tend to practice (6 string) anywhere from two to four hours a day (from the time I got home to when my Dad would scream "turn that off & come down & eat!")- I think without THAT kind of practice I wouldn't have quite the dexterity I have now.

I've only been playing marimba for 6 months, so I practice marimba every day for at least an hour.

I practice steel about once a week, mostly with Joe Wright's Technique Bundle. It keeps my fingers nimble.

When I was a steel guitar beginner I was not employed. I practiced about 4 hours a day for the first few years.

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<font size="1"><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b2005.gif" width="78 height="78">Bobby Lee (a.k.a. b0b) - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs, Open Hearts
Williams D-12 E9, C6add9, Sierra Olympic S-12 (F Diatonic)
Sierra Laptop S-8 (E6add9), Fender Stringmaster D-8 (E13, C6 or A6) My Blog </font><font size="1" color="#8e236b"><p align="center">[This message was edited by Bobby Lee on 05 April 2006 at 12:16 PM.]</p></FONT>

I get up ever day at 4:30 am, make coffee and practice with my headphone amp until the sun comes up and then I go to do my boxing road work training that tasks about an hour and a half (running 5 miles and 30 minutes of rope jumping)

M.

"How often do you really practice?"

Ugh. Not nearly as much as I should. I haven't for at least a week. I still have to tune the thing again.

I just saw Buddy Cage with the New NRPS last night and I so therefore suppose I'll be back at the Monster tonight... best to strike while the inspirations are hot!
I was newly unemployed when I took it up too bOb- I spent my severance check on the steel, actually! I figured one day, hopefully, the investment might be well worth it. And the three to four hours a day came pretty naturally to me, too!
(no they didn't lay me off me cuz I was a steeler- though in a way it felt like it!)

I wonder if in todays world there just are not more distractins that keep one from playin. The internet, cable tv, computer games, ebay, cell phones, blah blah blah....when i was a kid a summer lasted forever and there was endless time and almost nothing to do. I spent entire months with my guitar doing very little else all day long. I recall waking up with that thing in my arms more than once (6 string shoulder hanger not a PSG obviously). Nowadays just seems like you really have to concentrate on shutting out the distractions as well as your instrument. Crazy world. I'd love to just have nothign to do but play guitar.
*stupid job!

Hey, if I practiced steeling 5-6 hours a day my wife would kill me, and probably would if I practiced 15 minutes a day.

Smiley, you need to slow down on the suds! They'll be callin' you a lush. Try Diet Cokes they stimulate the creative nerve endings! Of course, I've been told they have for-mal-die-hide in them critters!

Seriously, I used to practice about 5-6 hours a day but that was before I knew better, and there were no video instruction tapes or dvds. It was listen to the old scatchy L.P.s by guys like Jerry Byrd, Speedy West, Lloyd Green, Jimmy Day, Buddy Emmons, Curly Chalker, Julian THarpe, or any other of the GREATS! Anything they recorded or played on. There was no other way for me to learn steel and it worked for me!

GOD bless!

Terry Wood