You’re probably very busy.
A long day at school or work and so little time to practice. You’ve read about professionals practicing 8 hours a day and that it takes 10,000 hours of deliberate practice (about 10 years) to become world class. But, you don’t have that much time. You’re lucky if you get 30-minutes once a week or a few hours during the weekends.
Now, can you still improve your guitar playing skills? The answer is yes. But, what I ask is that you practice 10 minutes everyday. Not once in awhile, but every single day. This is if you want to improve, if you’re happy with your current skills then don’t practice.
So, what can you achieve in 10-minutes?
A lot, over time. But, you need a plan.
Let me help you. Here are action steps you can take:
[ACTION STEPS]
1. Decide on your long term goal
What do you wanna be?
Do you want to shred as fast as Yngwie Malmsteen?
Do you want to play jazz guitar solos like Joe Pass?
Do you want to play and sing like Ed Sheeran?
Do you wanna solo on electric guitar like John Mayer?
Decide on ONE GOAL. After all, we are talking about 10-minutes a day here. So we need only one goal for now. If you can’t choose then pick one for now.
2. Figure out what you need to learn to become that
This is the part where you start outlining what you actually will practice. Let’s say you want to solo on electric guitar like John Mayer. Then, you will need to:
a) learn your major pentatonic scales in all positions
b) learn your major blues scales in all positions
c) learn John Mayer blues phrases
d) listen and study John Mayer solos
e) transcribe solos by John Mayer
f) practice fingerstyle technique for electric guitar
g) practice bending technique and vibrato on electric guitar
h) Listen to his musical influences (B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix etc.)
This is a short list. There’s more of course but you can start with this.
3. Pick one thing to practice
Pick one thing that you can practice for now. Ignore everything else.
This is a sample 10-minute practice plan:
DAY ONE:
1-minute: Warm-up. Play slowly, don’t show off. This is to warm-up so you don’t hurt yourself.
2-minutes: Listen to some John Mayer
5-minutes: Learn one John Mayer blues phrase that you like and play it again and again until it becomes better
2-minutes: Jam over a backing track and try to solo & use the new phrase you just learned. Record this solo for your records.
DAY TWO:
1-minute: Warm-up. Play slowly, don’t show off. This is to warm-up so you don’t hurt yourself.
2-minutes: Listen to your recording from yesterday. Figure out 2 things that was cool about it & 1 thing you’d like to improve on. Make it VERY SPECIFIC. Let’s say your bends were out of tune, then work on ONLY THAT.
5-minutes: Practice bending technique with focus on intonation.
2-minutes: Jam over a backing track and try to solo & use the bends you just learned. Record this solo for your records.
By this point, for day three and beyond, you can create variations of this sample practice routine. When you’ve gotten good at one phrase, work on the next. This is how you learn entire solos, even if you’re so busy.
Why does this work? It’s because you’re focusing on one thing – your long term goal and letting that determine what you practice. Without a long-term goal, your practice sessions become random and your results are random. You can get lucky and improve still but it won’t be as quick as this. This is what some of my favourite guitar teachers and professionals do. If you want pro results, try pro methods. If you can’t find 10-minutes a day to do something this, I can’t help you.
However, if you can, you’ll be more awesome. =)
Now, if you have more than 10-minutes a day… well, that’s another post for another day. =)
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Hope you found this blog post helpful. Please share this post if you think others might enjoy it!
Now, I’d love to hear from you.
Do you struggle to find time to practice guitar?
What’s your guitar dreams?
What would you like to sound like 10 years from now?
What’s stopping you?
Leave your answer in the comments below! Remember to share as much detail as possible so that we can all learn from one another. Your insight may help another guitarist from across the world.
Thank you for reading and for hanging out here! If you’d like to improve your guitar playing and get more lessons like this, subscribe now via the box on the right side of this page.
Can’t wait to learn more?
Get a lesson pack to level up your skills today here:
http://www.azsamad.com/lessonpacks
Best wishes,
Az
Thanks Az for pointing out these steps. I’m a self-taught guitarist for 10 years and I’ve always been wanting to be able to play fingerstyle and make my own fingerstyle arrangements. It’s really hard though because when I first started learning guitar, my parents weren’t really supportive about it. I’ve always been wanting to take proper lessons because learning from free internet resources can get really confusing. It’s also hard to fully focus on learning what I want to learn because of studies and other life responsibilities. I learnt an arrangement by Sungha Jung and it took me about 3 months to master. Your posts just gave me a new insight that it’s ok to learn things slowly. Hope to learn from you one day.
Hi Joey, thanks for checking out the posts and glad you got a new insight from it. Yes, it’s ok to learn things slowly. Most of the time we all tend to expect improvements to happen faster than they can.
I know what you mean about free internet resources being confusing. Part of taking lessons with a teacher is getting their guidance and wisdom to get what you NEED rather than what you THINK you need. That’s why I still take guitar lessons and attend workshops. There’s so much to learn! I take the opportunity to learn from more experienced players and teachers whenever possible.
Sungha Jung arrangements are actually difficult so 3 months is a reasonable amount of time. Keep playing and practicing. Yes, do get in touch with me when you’d like to take lessons one day. =)
Thanks again for your comment. All the best!
Best wishes,
Az