How often do *you* need to practice?

[AwakenTheSkies]

I work 8 hours a day now. I do streching, warm ups and then excercises. I do the exercises in sets of 4. Each exercise is 5-7 minutes. The exercises are organized in categories alt pick, legato, sweep picking and arpeggio. Some of them include tapping, string skipping, etc. Ideally I could do 2 sets of those, so 40 mins of exercises in theory. But in reality it takes a lot longer, so I do like 1 set or 1,5 sets. Takes like 1 hour together with the warmups. I have several routines prepared beforehand, otherwise it's like going to the gym without having any routine prepared. It's stressful and time consuming to pick the exercises in the moment. On my days off I watch instructionals and prepare new routines for the work days or learn new things, and practice for longer. But this routine doesn't leave room for mixing & recording. I could practice a lot longer but I don't want a super packed stressful schedule that will burn me out. I could also stop lifting weights in favor of the the guitar but I don't know...

 

[p0ke]

I don't practice at all these days. I play to come up with new stuff, and even those sessions are few and far between these days. And the funny thing is I don't feel like my abilities are degrading in any noticeable way. Some stuff isn't in my muscle memory the way it used to, but that's about it.

 

[Amer Alameddine]

If I take two days off from playing, I definitely start to feel a bit of a struggle with playing fast rhythms and down-picked riffs. It's ok though, sometimes work can be quite demanding, and motivation to play goes down, but when it comes back, it's the best.

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

I don't really practice. I play when I'm writing stuff. If it's difficult to play what's in my head then I work on it until I can but that's about it, honestly. Sometimes I'll noodle around just because I enjoy playing but it lasts for a few minutes here and there. Funny thing is my playing is better now than it has been.

Before I stopped playing guitar for a while I had a tighter, more intense picking hand but that came from playing super chuggy metal. These days I don't have that kind of tightness anymore but I don't need it so I don't bother trying to get it back. I don't miss it.

 

[BenjaminW]

I enjoy playing and noodling around more than I do sitting down in front of boatloads of sheet music or tabs, and using that as my practice routine.

 

[michael_bolton]

well there's need- vs want - vs being able to and then there's noodling vs concentrated practice.

for me personally I "want" to be able to dedicate 60-90 min daily to playing with ideally 45 min or so spent on actual "practice" and the rest - noodling around.

as far as what I'm able to do with time and other constraints - I prolly average around 4-5 hrs of playing time per week with most of it being actual "practice" as in - here's a run I want to be able to play it clean and up to speed type deal.

 

[Dushan S]

So over the last year or so I've been really working on my picking speed and stamina. I'd formed some bad habits so I completely changed the way I hold the pick along with my picking motion, and started trying to play in the most efficient way possible with the aim of getting faster. Because of the pandemic I was working at home and had way more time to practice which helped, and then a few months ago I lost my job so was basically playing every day which was awesome and I made loads of progress.

Anyway this week I started a new job and have been back in the office. Combine the fairly long hours with commuting and I didn't manage to pick up my guitar for three days. When I eventually found some time to play I was amazed at how much I seemed to have regressed. No matter how much I warmed up there were some songs that were just too fast and my technique felt super messy. Not gonna lie it's pretty frustrating that it seems like my playing is going backwards. Weirdly I'd been finding recently that a day's break could actually help, but it seems that three days is too much.

So here's the question: how long can you go without playing before you notice an impact? And has anyone found any ways of dealing with it?

How long have you played the guitar? I am asking because I have noticed (and it's also my own experience) that people who are still learning technique stuff tend to regress faster. When I was working on my picking a lot, pausing for a week would be a LOT for some reason, but in the recent years, it feels most of the stuff has sunk in and I need just a week of practice to get up to speed after months of playing casually, just recording etc. So I guess it has something to do with muscle memory, way the brain works etc. In some way all of it is still "new knowledge" for you. In time pausing won't hurt your playing that much.

When it comes to avoiding regressing, make sure that you play at least half an hour a day in a focused way, and only stuff that really counts. Make a split so it is something like Monday - alternate picking exercises, Tuesday - legato, Wednesday - playing songs that have some rhythm guitars that are hard to play, Thursday - Sweeping etc etc. Treat it as if it was workout in a gym and make the most out of the short time you have with the guitar. Do not just noodle on the guitar.

 

[John]

Making time is important, of course. That being said, I also find more importance in making efficient use of that time.
On several occasions, I've had more productive moments that stuck around for the long run thanks to some shorter blocks of time laid out, compared to other lengthier stretches of time with a guitar or bass in hand that weren't quite as focused.

 

[Winspear]

More than I think I can, so I don't practice at all. Gotta love brains

 

[DeathbyDesign]

Def more than I currently do which is a couple times a week for not long enough.

 

[beerandbeards]

We talkin’ about practice?!

 

[DrakkarTyrannis]

We talkin’ about practice?!

I WAS JUST THINKING ABOUT THIS lol. I'm so glad someone else thought of it to

 

[JSanta]

I take weekly lessons with my favorite guitarist/musician, so at least an hour a day of dedicated practice of the material. I'll get up at 5 and practice for an hour before getting ready for work, or on days I have to be early to work, get that hour in after the work day.

Every session starts the same way. Run through the Segovia scales with a target on an area I'm struggling with. This week I'm using the scales along with a metronome to practice quarter, eighth, triplet, and sixteenth notes. Some weeks it's more focused on the scales as tone or technique. Then it's on to any other theory or harmony work and then tune practice, which is really more focused on a problem area of a tune or cranking the metronome up.

I spent my whole time playing guitar up until a year or so ago just messing around. I was a pantomime at best. And there's nothing wrong with that, or just being able to hammer out a few favorite songs without understanding or caring about the how or why. Having a great teacher has been humbling, and I am making progress. Maybe in a couple of years I'll be ready to start gigging with jazz and manouche musicians.

 

[BigViolin]

Sadly, most days I'd rather listen to Iverson talk shit.

 

[sleewell]

i probably practice 4-5 times per week and we have band practice one night per week. i should be a lot better haha. last night i was super tired so i took like a 2 hour nap when the kids went to bed and then played guitar till about 12:30.

 

[JDinSC]

If I don't learn tunes/practice for at least an hour or two a day, I plateau real hard. Never really loose anything, I just don't advance and I get real pissy about feeling stale.

 

[pahulkster]

Almost never. I have been playing a long time and am more than comfortable where I'm at.