Do you have a wide variety of things that you practice. Or do you like to binge? (You know...the type of player who practices sweep picking for a kazillion hours a day but only know three chords)!Having a balanced practice routine is essential if you want to become a versatile guitarist. If you just practice one or two things, sure you'll get great at those things...but you'll be weak in other key areas.
In this lesson you'll learn how to create a practice routine that is well-balanced and will help you work towards your ultimate vision of how you would like to play.
I generally categorise what I practice into one of seven areas: 1. Technique. 2. Repertoire (Covers). 3. Composition. 4. Improvisation. 5. Ear Training. 6. Theory. 7. Music Reading.
Everything that you practice will fit into one or more of
above areas. For example,if you are learning a very challenging cover tune by transcribing it off
CD you are essentially working on your technique, repertoire and ear training at
same time. If you also write down
song in standard notation, you will also be developing your music reading skills.
Now…do you have to practice things in all seven areas? I believe that you don't have to if your vision doesn't require it. For example, if someone wants to become an awesome classical guitarist and has no desire to improvise, then I believe that they don't need to practice things relating to improvisation. We all have limited time available for practice, so it's a waste of time working on things that don't specifically help you reach your goals.
Let's go through a few exercises…
Exercise One:
Think about
vision that you have for your playing for a few minutes.How would you like to play in ten years time. Make it exact!
Once you've done that, brainstorm as many things that you need to practice in order to play like your vision. What specific things do you need to learn, develop and practice? Write them down now.
Exercise Two:
Next to each of
things written down for Exercise One, write down a category next to it. For example, if you wrote "I need to be able to play faster" then write technique next to it.If you feel that something you wrote belongs to more than one category, then write down all
categories it could belong to.