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OT: What is your practice routine?


boytbpc

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I'm working on improving my playing, so I've put together a practice routine/training regiment that I've been following for a couple weeks now.

 

It includes daily practicing the Guitar Fretboard Workbook, daily chord excercises, a new song every week (practiced daily to master it), and a weekly TrueFire video.

 

I'm adding in excercises from the Guitar Compendium: Praxis series.

 

So far I like it.

 

What is your training regiment?

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as of right now i'm trying to branch out into other stringed instruments so i try to spend at least a half hour a day on banjo and a half hour on lap steel in C6 and i jam on guitar when i can. As far as guitar i play intervals and sing along trying to really hear how notes work with each other. i do some speed exercises from time to time (not near as much as when i was doing shreddy metal stuff) i learn old songs, jazz progressions, try to find cool substitution chords for standard progressions. i'm over trying to re-invent the wheel. good songs sound good for a reason and i'm trying to harness as many of those good reasons as i can.

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I usually practice different things depending on the day, and I make sure to step away from practicing every few days. your brain needs time to absorb what it's practiced on the minute level. There are things your fingers do you aren't consciously aware of that the brain picks up. That's why when you practice something intensely, stop for a few days and come back to it you can do it like it's nothing.

 

I do recommend if you like dvd's, Frank Gambale's Chop builder, Tomo Fujita's Accelerate & More Accelerate Your Playing. I like the first because it takes all that boring stuff, which builds stamina, accuracy, and in turn speed, and makes it musical. I enjoy the second two because it gives you foundations to be your own musician. All my routines are based around these dvds. I'm going to be looking at Paul Jackson Jr.'s Chord instructional because while I know my theory of chords, and how they work together I just want to delve deeper into it.

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Pick a bit fapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfapfap...

 

Then pick a bit more and repeat.

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i think i've practiced like twice. i tried learning sweeps properly, so i sweept some triads while watching a season of jerry seinfeld. by the end of the evening i could do it. when i woke up the next morning i could not.

 

the other time was when i tried to learn a D chord. i did.

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I'm not a touring or professional musician anymore, so I just play whatever is inspiring at any given moment. Recently I've been in a very creative phase for writing new songs, so practice comes with honing them and getting them to flow naturally and intuitively.

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For all of those that imply that they don't practice or that practice is for suckas, here is a question: How did you learn all of your scales? How did you learn difficult songs?

 

 

I used to practise. I just don't any more.

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I make it a point to practice on at least one of instruments every night, no matter how tired or sick I may be. The point of this sometimes less about you think might learn, but keeping up the routine, knowing that it is at least reinforcing what you already know. At the minimum, I practice scales. Forwards and backwards, multiple octaves, chord arpeggios.

 

I feel lazy when I've allowed a night to pass without practicing.

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i used to play (piano) between 4-8 hours a day in college and maybe 2-4 hours a day just after i finished. some technique (scales, arpeggios, etc), some metronome work and rhythm studies using syncopation for the modern drummer, some random guitar study books from mick goodrick, jazz standards, graphic scores and other weirdly notated works, a classical piece here and there - most of it was just free improvisation, making individual pieces of music out of nothing (i recorded most of it as well). the goal was always to make practicing more enjoyable/musical and less a boring routine - making music, not "practicing".

 

i haven't done it for a long long time because i don't have a proper piano to play on at the moment, i'm not so interested in "practicing" on keyboards so much and i don't have quite as much time as i used to. i'm getting a piano soon though, so i'll probably go back to an hour or two a day.

 

regardless of how much time you spend practicing alone though, nothing is like playing with other people. i used to play weird scales and work on different meters with my first band - with either the guitarist or the drummer or all three of us together. sounds weird but it was really fun to just drink beers and work on odd meters and {censored} without playing actual tunes.

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I don't "practice" anymore. I got the scales under my fingertips when I was first starting out, by playing them slowly with a metronome to get the sound connected to the motion. These days, I rarely touch the guitar at home unless I'm writing something. And I gig enough that the songs stay in my ear.

 

Anyway, I listen a lot more than I play. Once you have the sounds under your fingertips, it's all a matter of hearing. If you can hear it well enough in your mind that you can sing it, then you can play it on the guitar. As long as you don't let thinking get in the way of those subconscious connections.

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Working graveyard shift and having a roommate that sleeps odd hours from you makes it hard to practice. Sadly I play electric guitar maybe once a week at best. Maybe. My days off are pretty chaotic so I'm usually not even home to play anyways. I do play acoustic a couple times a week, usually for an hour or two. I wouldnt call it practice as I just fumble through my catalog of songs as I try to unwind.

 

I'd love to be able to sit down and practice more. Hopefully when I move to my new place this month.

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Working graveyard shift and having a roommate that sleeps odd hours from you makes it hard to practice. Sadly I play electric guitar maybe once a week at best. Maybe. My days off are pretty chaotic so I'm usually not even home to play anyways. I do play acoustic a couple times a week, usually for an hour or two. I wouldnt call it practice as I just fumble through my catalog of songs as I try to unwind.


I'd love to be able to sit down and practice more. Hopefully when I move to my new place this month.

 

 

Practice with head phones?

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...Frank Gambale's Chop builder...

 

 

I've always been intrigued by this and might finally give it a shot. Are you able to do the full hour? I'm especially interested if it helps with fretboard visualization.

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