Alright, it's time for Ryan (that's me) to get serious about guitar again.
I've realized that my downfall the last time I tried to do this was not realizing that there's a difference between practicing and playing my guitar.
I PLAY my guitar quite a bit, but I didn't PRACTICE my guitar enough. Hence, progress was hardly visible when it came down to learning scales, theory, and new techniques.
This means I need to sit down and plan out a practice schedule before I sit down to actually practice. This includes learning scales, and practicing techniques. Then I can waste as much time as I want playing my guitar.
My question to all of you is how do you achieve this?
What does your practice plan look like for every day and how do you record your progress?
I was thinking about making an Excel spreadsheet and recording at the start of each week the speed, or whatever unit of measurement you're going to use, and trying to improve it every week.
I know that most of my favourite guitarists (the biggest being Petrucci) have a very in-depth theory understanding so I think I'm going to start by learning the notes of the fretboard and learning scales.
I'm also going to start playing scales up and down while trying to match the pitch, then trying to do it without playing and just singing it to improve my ear.
I require structure because I don't have enough discipline and I need your help!