PRESENCE - Volume 81
Inspiration For Guitarists
What you don’t practice is as important as what you do practice
Let’s face it, we only have so much time. The 24 hours in each day only goes so far. Between work, sleep, family time, household chores, etc… our practice time is limited.
I have been a full time musician for over 30 years and I still struggle with managing my practice time. It’s a struggle I see for many players and I’m guessing that you share it too. It really boils down to two questions -
What do I practice?
How do I practice?
2 Mistakes I See All The Time
Mistake #1 - Practicing too many things at once and spreading yourself too thin. It is really hard to internalize 20 things you might be working on, but if you hit on 3-5 things for a few weeks, you’ll actually start to understand and internalize them.
Mistake #2 - Having no structure at all. Now I’m not saying that you have to have a super strict practice routine that you follow for your entire practice session. Practice should be fun, even though there might be parts of it that are hard.
The Hike
There is a hike near our house that we sometimes do. At the top of the mountain the view is incredible. After coming down the mountain, the hike definitely registers as fun. However hiking up the mountain feels pretty hard. This is how your practice should feel.
I like to start my practice with 15-30 minutes of structure. A small finite number of things that I keep repeating for weeks, months, or even years (One thing that has been part of my regular practice routine for 2 or 3 years now).
For most intermediate players the most important things to practice are-
The Pentatonic Scale
Learning your CAGED shapes
Getting the Number System down cold.
These are undoubtedly, the three skills that all of your favorite pros have spent most of their practice time on. Even pros that are super shredders or ones that play complex jazz had to spend a long time getting those three foundational skills nailed down before moving on.
There are a lot of guitarist out there who learn some flashy licks without learning the foundation underneath them. They might sound impressive playing alone in a music store, but drop them into a jam and they wouldn't know what to do.
Repetition And Novelty
We need to have both repetition and novelty in our practice routine. That's why I like to spend the first 15 to 30 minutes on just 1-5 things, repeated over a long stretch of time, and then have the rest of my practice routine free to do whatever I want: learning songs, chasing, cool licks, writing, or just exploring.
So when I say that what you don't practice matters as much as what you do, this is what I mean. Saying no to 15 things so that you can actually get good at 3 that matter. Choosing to focus instead of chasing shiny new licks, at least for the first 15 to 30 minutes.
This is really why I built my course the way that I did. The most important part of the course is not the teaching videos. It’s the Practice Studios where you keep working on those Three Essential Skills, laid out with backing tracks and diagrams so the repetition stays musical and fun instead of feeling like homework.
Keep practicing the fundamentals - it pays off.
Dustin
P.S. If you've been bouncing between 15 things and never feeling like you're getting anywhere - that's exactly the problem the Practice Studios inside the Essential Skills Course were built to fix. It’s worth a look!