Practicing Help =] Options

[Amitai Kedmi]

I've been playing for a few months now (arround 10, or even a year), and I feel I am not getting better as fast as I could.

I don't have an arranged practicing routine, and I have plenty of time to practice every day (well, almost everyday).

So I will be more than happy if someone can dedicate a few minutes and help me a little bit with building myself practicing routine.

I just think I can get more of myself.

So anyone that wants to help a beginner guitarist at need, or anyone that just wants to talk,

you can contact me at my MSN - Amitaik at gmail dot com

Thanks in advance!!

[Pi38]

I would help, but I'm a beginner too. I'd probably just end up giving you bad advice.

[Amitai Kedmi]

I would help, but I'm a beginner too. I'd probably just end up giving you bad advice.

So add my anyways, we'll just talk :]


cmon guys

[Jose Mena]

When I was starting out, I didn't follow routines either, for me routines are boring, however I did play guitar for 8 hours straight. Remember playing and learning is about having fun too. Try to figure out what your weaknesses are, like if you are learning lead and you find your vibrato is not what it should be, or your picking technique, then find a song that has those things and learn it, better yet find a lesson at GMC that has something about that topic, there are plenty that are not only good for practicing, but very interesting musically and fun to learn and play, and practice practice practice. That's all there is to it, any accomplished guitar player will tell you that they practiced 5,6,7 hours a day that is how they get to be so good.

Hope it helps

[Ian Bushell]

Hay man,
There's lots of ways to practice i suppose.
First is to make sure you use your time effectively, have a look at how many hours a day you have to practice.
From there what kind of techniques would you like to play and styles you'd like to cover:
Lets say sweep picking, legato and a bullet song for example and you have two hours to practice.
You can break it down into 3 sections of 35 minutes with a 5 minute break after each session.
This is just an example there are many possibilities. As long as you practice reguarly and practice the things that interest you the most, effectively in the time you have everyday. Practice to get it right not to get it done;)

[Vinod Saranga]

I totaly agree with Jose
and remember that it's not how much hours you practise a day makes you good but how much
Concentrated Practising hours you spend a day.
And practise with a regular manner.Our brain and body like rythems & specially it's helpful
for developing a new skill.

This post has been edited by Vinod Saranga: Aug 22 2008, 04:15 PM

[Amitai Kedmi]

When I was starting out, I didn't follow routines either, for me routines are boring, however I did play guitar for 8 hours straight. Remember playing and learning is about having fun too. Try to figure out what your weaknesses are, like if you are learning lead and you find your vibrato is not what it should be, or your picking technique, then find a song that has those things and learn it, better yet find a lesson at GMC that has something about that topic, there are plenty that are not only good for practicing, but very interesting musically and fun to learn and play, and practice practice practice. That's all there is to it, any accomplished guitar player will tell you that they practiced 5,6,7 hours a day that is how they get to be so good.

Hope it helps

Thank you very much!~

But still, I can alot, but I dont know what to play.
And I rather like do alternate picking, so starting at 60BPM and going up to 150BPM, but I don't know how much effective
it will be. So I need someone experienced so he can give me some advices. I learn something per day or per 2 days,
and it takes me 1-2 hours to learn it completley and do it half clean (depends on how much difficult it is), so I learn it and
practice it some, but it gets boring, and most of the lessons here in GMC are too hard for me

So thank you very much for your advice, but I still think I could use someone that'll help me with bulding a routine.

[Ian Bushell]

What techniques and songs interest you?
How long can you practice everyday?

[Amitai Kedmi]

What techniques and songs interest you?
How long can you practice everyday?

I can probably do 1.5-2 hours per day, because school starts soon, and got homework and tests to get ready to

and Im actually into everything; Metal, Rock, Blues, Jazz, etc..

And I think I should improve my picking, fingering, but picking espcially.
Picking its like 1st thing I should do. Also some sweaping, tapping..



This post has been edited by Destrucion: Aug 22 2008, 04:42 PM

[Ian Bushell]

I can probably do 1.5-2 hours per day, because school starts soon, and got homework and tests to get ready to

and Im actually into everything; Metal, Rock, Blues, Jazz, etc..

Cool ok..
I don't follow a set routine i try keep it fresh and only move on when i have something down.
If an exercise is taking to long i'll focus on that heavily and practice it harder to get past the exercise quicker.
It's totally up to you how you divide your time up everyday.
As long as you use the time effectively you should progress.
You'll find with some exercises it takes longer and some exercises you'll get quickly.
Progress is not an overnight thing you'll have to keep practicing reguarly to see progress.
Play what you're practicing till it's clean otherwise you're missing the point but at the same time, like Jose said don't forget to have fun;)

This will sound stupid but see your practice routine like dinner!
Meat, potatatoes, vegetables etc. are the things you need. (scales, arpeggios, chords etc.)
Dessert is great but if you have dessert all the time you're not getting the things you need. (Jamming, oodling around etc.)

Structure your routine in a way that you're focusing on problem areas of your playing, techniques you want to learn and styles of
music you want to cover. Don't try cram to much into the time you have everyday otherwise you won't be focusing on an exercise enough
to get them right and move on.

Here's another example of a routine:

20 minutes alternate picking
20 minutes legato/tapping
20 minutes sweep picking
20 minutes chords/rhythm - change style every day or couple of days
20 minutes writing/jamming/improvising- change style every day or couple of days

Does that help you?

[Eat-Sleep-andJam]

Hi There,

Everyone has given you great advice and you should def. remember all of there helpful points (Practice , Practice, Practice)
No one has really given you what you want, a routine. So I'll make you one.


You said you will have 1.5-2.0 hours of practice time, so I will make it for 2.0 hours.


Sweeping: ( 30 minutes)

I dont know how good you are at any of these techniques so just bare with me.
Sweeping Basics -Should help for your basic sweep picking technique.

Sweep Picking Lesson- This has some pretty basic sweeping shapes. Should be helpful.

So what you can do ( depending how good you are at sweeping), is practice these two lessons for about 30 minutes. If your bad at the sweep picking motion( scratching across the strings) , then practice the Basic Sweep Picking Lesson, if you get better at that, then try out some of the Basic Shapes in Muris's Lesson.


Alternate Picking 45minutes

Alternate Picking Lesson This should be fine for your alternate picking lesson. 45 minutes for this one.


Tapping 30mintues

Pentatonic Tapping- Joes lesson should help improve your knowledge of Pentatonics and Tapping. 30 minutes for this one.


So I believe were at about 1 hour and 45 minutes.


The last 15 minutes you can improvise, fool around, read some theory, or practice another technique or one we already covered a little more.

That should help, Good Luck and Get Practicing !

This post has been edited by Eat-Sleep-andJam: Aug 22 2008, 05:13 PM

[Amitai Kedmi]

Cool ok..
I don't follow a set routine i try keep it fresh and only move on when i have something down.
If an exercise is taking to long i'll focus on that heavily and practice it harder to get past the exercise quicker.
It's totally up to you how you divide your time up everyday.
As long as you use the time effectively you should progress.
You'll find with some exercises it takes longer and some exercises you'll get quickly.
Progress is not an overnight thing you'll have to keep practicing reguarly to see progress.
Play what you're practicing till it's clean otherwise you're missing the point but at the same time, like Jose said don't forget to have fun;)

This will sound stupid but see your practice routine like dinner!
Meat, potatatoes, vegetables etc. are the things you need. (scales, arpeggios, chords etc.)
Dessert is great but if you have dessert all the time you're not getting the things you need. (Jamming, oodling around etc.)

Structure your routine in a way that you're focusing on problem areas of your playing, techniques you want to learn and styles of
music you want to cover. Don't try cram to much into the time you have everyday otherwise you won't be focusing on an exercise enough
to get them right and move on.

Here's another example of a routine:

20 minutes alternate picking
20 minutes legato/tapping
20 minutes sweep picking
20 minutes chords/rhythm - change style every day or couple of days
20 minutes writing/jamming/improvising- change style every day or couple of days

Does that help you?

Yes it does, very much. Thanks you sooo muchh Ian, for helping me :]
If it'll work out well, I'll let you know you did a right thing XP

Thanks again

Hi There,

Everyone has given you great advice and you should def. remember all of there helpful points (Practice , Practice, Practice)
No one has really given you what you want, a routine. So I'll make you one.


You said you will have 1.5-2.0 hours of practice time, so I will make it for 2.0 hours.


Sweeping: ( 30 minutes)

I dont know how good you are at any of these techniques so just bare with me.
Sweeping Basics -Should help for your basic sweep picking technique.

Sweep Picking Lesson- This has some pretty basic sweeping shapes. Should be helpful.

So what you can do ( depending how good you are at sweeping), is practice these two lessons for about 30 minutes. If your bad at the sweep picking motion( scratching across the strings) , then practice the Basic Sweep Picking Lesson, if you get better at that, then try out some of the Basic Shapes in Muris's Lesson.


Alternate Picking 45minutes

Alternate Picking Lesson This should be fine for your alternate picking lesson. 45 minutes for this one.


Tapping 30mintues

Pentatonic Tapping- Joes lesson should help improve your knowledge of Pentatonics and Tapping. 30 minutes for this one.


So I believe were at about 1 hour and 45 minutes.


The last 15 minutes you can improvise, fool around, read some theory, or practice another technique or one we already covered a little more.

That should help, Good Luck and Get Practicing !

Amaagad! XP

Thank you so much! Its really helpful, and I'll try that.
Thanks for taking of your time to help me


And thank you all guys who commented and helped me!! =]]

[Ian Bushell]

No problem:) Have fun practicing!

[Eat-Sleep-andJam]

No problem, now get practicing !

[Guitar1969]

Thank you very much!~

But still, I can alot, but I dont know what to play.
And I rather like do alternate picking, so starting at 60BPM and going up to 150BPM, but I don't know how much effective
it will be. So I need someone experienced so he can give me some advices. I learn something per day or per 2 days,
and it takes me 1-2 hours to learn it completley and do it half clean (depends on how much difficult it is), so I learn it and
practice it some, but it gets boring, and most of the lessons here in GMC are too hard for me

So thank you very much for your advice, but I still think I could use someone that'll help me with bulding a routine.

I've been playing longer than you but I still experience the same problems - Not knowing what to practice. Can't tell you what exactly works(I am still trying to figure it out too), but I did a search of all lessons of difficulty 1-3, which would be more beginner oriented, and did some cutting and pasting to make a list in Word. I am then going through the list and focusing on lessons of interest(there are many that I am not interested in at this point) - And I focus on no more than 2 techniques(Lessons at one time) and one lesson that teaches a Solo of some sort.

I have found if you spend all your time on just one technique - I lose interest and end up wasting my practice. For example, Alternate picking is important but I don't think it should be learned exclusively - I need to be able to apply it to something or I end up losing interest in it.

For example, I am working on Kris' Alternate Picking lesson(Which you can do for a long time as you increase speed), and also Petantonic Lesson 3 - I then am working on one of the shorter solo lessons to apply the techniques but make it fun.
This is my latest idea - Not sure if its effective. But the problem you are experiencing is a common one and is one of the down sides to Internet based Guitar instruction - No one monitoring your progress and guiding you. But hopefully this will be improved upon with the GMC Mentoring program that they are testing.

[kjutte]

On the contrary, I disagree with the guys here.

20 mins of that and that will bore the **** out of you.
Learn to jam, build technique from there, and at the same time work up ear, timing and phrasing.

How to jam:
Download backingtracks
Know what key it's in (example E nat. minor)
Play the Em scale.

[Juan M. Valero]

First of all the most important is to have fun with your guitar. Try to learn the songs that you like, find your motivation and follow it. Try to get a band, it will be very motivating, and you will learn lot of things, good and bad BTW... anyway you can take profit from all experiences.

Another thing, try to record yourself, I think it's very important and read a lot on forums (GMC forum is really good ).

The first of all should be to follow an easy routine, just play guitar for 2 hours every day, or maybe from monday to Friday... then try to introduce some warm-ups (10-15 minutes) and study theory. And at the end you will be able to work on a hard routine and feel happy every time you do a hard work