How long can you get away with not playing at all and still retaining your chops?

[808-ologist]

My guitar teacher told me this story that was very inspirational when I went to LA to see Opeth recently (without my guitar for 6-7days)
I dont know the names and its accuracy will be off par, but the message is still there

An great Chinese pianist was arrested for 20 years (I dont recall the reason), and after getting out of jail, was still able to make masterpieces and play like he didnt skiip a beat. A king or some higher authority who put him into jail found out about this and asked him how he could play so well without touching his instrument for so long. His response? "I practiced every day, in my head"

I spent time on my trip, even without a guitar, just listening to some things i wrote and put on my ipod and mentally playing for at least an hour, and reading those Steve Vai Little Black Dots articles, to prepare myself mentally. And when i came back, i definitely noticed i didnt feel so weird like other times i dont play for a few days. Mental preparation is just as important, it seems, as the physical practice

totally agree with you on this one! i'll be sitting at work just humming riffs through my head all day. on the way home i may jam to some music, or whatever, and by the time i pick up my guitar, riffs will literally just pour out of my fingers! i think it's just at mental as it is physical!

 

[AliceAxe]

Ive been trying 'visualisation', reading sheet music and riffs on want to learn and visualising how and where I would play them on the guitar neck before I actualy try to play it, and it seems to be helping my congnative skills and I get less frustrated when trying to learn something. sort of like a mental trial run.

Don't some atheletes do somthing like this? Like goint through a senario in their mind of picturing themselves winning before they compete?

Ah, I just found this interesting article:

5 weeks to developing the magic of visualisation | Personal Development - UrbanMonk.Net

 

[sevenstringgod]

I stopped playing like for 2 years, and a year ago I got back at it again and I'm better than ever. But I usually practice like for 5 hours straight, I leave the office and I play until I go to bed. If I don't play like for a day, which rarely happens, I don't see any change at all.

 

[AustinW90]

40 minutes would be fine for me to maintain my chops. I already don't really practice ever. I just write, rehearse what I wrote, then record - and that seems to keep me in shape alright.

When I was 18 I dropped guitar for about a year. When I came back to it I was really surprised that my chops hadn't deteriorated as much as I expected, they were still pretty rusty though.

 

[Leviathus]

i wouldn't even worry about anything man, i broke my only guitar a few months ago (maybe february) and just got a JEFF LOOMIS C7 FR a few days ago, i'm pretty much where i left off in terms of chops.

 

[Customisbetter]

I've noticed the less i play, the less bad habits i retain.

 

[Leviathus]

I've noticed the less i play, the less bad habits i retain.

hahaha, i feel ya man

 

[Nonservium]

I took a 3 year break and even with being back to playing daily for over a year, I'm still not even close. :-(

 

[Charles]

I'm getting kind of fearful because I'm in the exam week process. One a day, five days.

As you can imagine, lots of studying, little guitar playing. I'll pick her up and noodle for maybe five or ten minutes but my calluses are getting soft and I'm getting nervous...

 

[chucknorrishred]

yea it sucks when we need to put our babies away for an extended period. my 6 had no case so the rust the floyd build up was nasty,

 

[MJS]

I don't even need to take a break... I can hear myself get worse as I play.

I've stopped for years and the biggest downside I noticed is simply not learning new stuff or expanding on what you do know.

I didn't seem to lose any strength or muscle memory. I did lose speed, but it seemed that within a few months, it was faster than before I stopped.

Bad habits were mentioned... I think picking up the guitar after a long break is a good time to analyze your playing and trying to break any bad habits, or clean up any slop since you were kinda forced to slow down anyway.

I think it's also a good time to learn something new that fights against what you already do. For me, that's when I decided to give alternate picking a shot--and within a fairly short time, it seemed easier & faster for me, despite years of economy picking.

As far as short breaks go, I don't really see a difference unless I just learned something hard for me to play right before stopping. If I take something I can't play and slowly build it up to where it should be, then put down the guitar for a week... I will probably have to start that one over. Everything else should be fine, though.

 

[Charles]

Since I don't have much time these days I seem to be focusing on some real "gut buster" stuff (I.E: Just raising hell with a metronome for a short period of time to keep my hands in shape). I've been trying some stretch legato Holdsworth style stuff on the bass strings, which is really...really bad, considering I'm on an acoustic with 12s...

Edit: It's kind of funny because you have all these audible notes til I get to the pinkie and then it's...basically silence, hah.