How long have you been playing??

[Paragraph51]

Just wondering what the range in time spent playing here is amongst everyone. Please exclude any years between when you began and when you skipped playing for any reason, armed forces, job, just gave up playing for a while, whatever.

 

Also, if you spent about 20 hours per week practicing or playing, count every year as two years of playing the guitar. 3 hrs per day, every day.

 

Now, that will give a closer idea of where you are at in regards to someone who has practiced less than 10 hours a week for a number of years. Which, for the average person who has a full time non playing related job, would be the average years worth of playing and would count as one year. 1 and a half hours per day, every day.

 

And if you spent 5 hours or so a week playing and practicing, call each year a half a year, and for every two years call that only one year. 45 minutes a day everyday.

 

The idea is to give a rough estimation of the actual time you spent with a guitar in your hands making sounds with it.

 

If you spent around 40 hours a week practicing and playing guitar,for each year that you did this, count those as three years of playing. 6 hours per day everyday.

 

In doing so you will see why someone with a bit of determined effort and a lot of time to devote to disciplined practicing will develop the skills and the abilities and have a extremely high level of familiarity and ease with playing the instrument in 2-3 years that was acheived by someone equally talented but needed ten years to develop to that level, because they only had an hour, or two at best, to devote out of each passing day towards proficiency at their instrument.

 

If you spend 12 hours each day, 3-4 hours at a time and 3 to 4 times a day, practicing correctly, and practicing the right things, and constantly pushing yourself to be more accomplished on the guitar, you will develop virtusosity in a rather short time span.

Within 2-3 years if you keep focusing on perfection, but not getting caught up on it, just allowing it it's chance and doing your best to assist the odds, but be not at all concerned if it doesn't happen, because you will just keep trying, hoping but not really expecting, that you might just be a little closer the next time.

 

By perfection I mean perfection at playing what you mean and giving meaning to what you play, and beng able to flawlessly execute any musical whimsey you can imagine hearing that you may feel like actually hearing in the physical world.

 

So, if you've only been a casual player for 20 years, you'll be no better than the kid who plays 12 hours a day for a couple of years, playing wise, but you'll have had longer to listen to more music and to have been expsed to more ideas.

 

So how long have you really been playing?? A few years stretched out over a decade or two??

[Eddie]

I started about 20 years ago. For the first year or two I "practiced" at least 10 hours a day.
Unfortunately, it was not structured, I did not have a teacher, I was not interested in theory, I was not interested in technique, etc.
Still, there's things I used to play back then that I can't play now!

In January 1996 I had a motorcycle accident. I did not play guitar (or did anything else) for most of the year. Around 1997 I began to re-learn the instrument, and maybe 3 years ago I began to focus more on theory, proper technique, and in general in becoming a better musician. I began to study bass, ear training, recording, mixing, etc.

I'm thoroughly enjoying the time I'm able to spend around music, and I enjoy playing even with my 2 fingers that 10 years ago were broken: my left thumb (which healed out of place) and my right index finger (the tip of which was going to be amputated and was saved in the end).

[fatfat]

First of all...


Second of all.. been playing about 10 years. I played a couple hours a day when I started out, probably for a couple years. Haven't played quite as much as I did then. I'm not going to do the math.

I think the last couple years or so I've really developed more of the ear and feeling that I don't think I could've developed, say, 5 years ago. To me, it feels like something that comes with age and exposure. I started out on the grunge stuff, went through the metal (Pantera) stage, then to the rock stuff (largely randy rhoads and other ozzy tunes), then got into the cacophony type neo-classical, then to some "symphonic gothic rock" type stuff, back to the classical (yngwie), along with 60s/70s classic rock for a lot of the time, etc, etc. No need to go through every single band, but you get the idea. It took a while for each type of music to sink in; it's not really something I feel I could've picked up in like 1 year.

I think it's kind of hard to really quantitatively judge how "good" or how much "better" someone is strictly on time they've spent with the instrument. If I had much stricter practice regiments (sometimes I wish I had done this), I'd be much better technically, now, but a lot of time was spent just screwing around and learning songs, and jamming... the FUN stuff.

I guess it also depends on if you were taking lessons, too. I'm self-taught (though I had piano lessons for a few years before that). I probably would've progressed faster had I had more guidance..

[Knottyhed]

Corr - that's complicated.

First picked up guitar when I was 8, played classical for about 2 years - only about 20 minutes a day, not even every day. I was a kid and had plenty of other hobbies.

I more or less stopped playing by 10, i wasn't having lessons, i wasn't progessing and i didn't want to play classical. Randomly got the bug again at 15 and convinced my dad to buy me an electric. Probably practiced anywhere between 1 and 2 hours a day since.

I'm actually practicing more now than ever before - averaging 2-3 hours a day, but i've only been doing that a few months - since i started taking lessons from an absolutely stellar player down in london. I've probably made more progress in those few months than i did in the previous 4 years - proving what you say about it being how much and what you practice that matters rather than how long you've played.

I guess that's about 12-14 years by your estimation?

[Knottyhed]

Why not work out the approx amount of hours you've been playing instead?

I've assumed an average of 1.5 every day for the last 12 years - giving me approx 6500 playing hours.

[Darylb23]

Originally posted by Paragraph51 Just wondering what the range in time spent playing here is amongst everyone. Please exclude any years between when you began and when you skipped playing for any reason, armed forces, job, just gave up playing for a while, whatever. Also, if you spent about 20 hours per week practicing or playing, count every year as two years of playing the guitar. 3 hrs per day, every day. Now, that will give a closer idea of where you are at in regards to someone who has practiced less than 10 hours a week for a number of years. Which, for the average person who has a full time non playing related job, would be the average years worth of playing and would count as one year. 1 and a half hours per day, every day. And if you spent 5 hours or so a week playing and practicing, call each year a half a year, and for every two years call that only one year. 45 minutes a day everyday. The idea is to give a rough estimation of the actual time you spent with a guitar in your hands making sounds with it. If you spent around 40 hours a week practicing and playing guitar,for each year that you did this, count those as three years of playing. 6 hours per day everyday. In doing so you will see why someone with a bit of determined effort and a lot of time to devote to disciplined practicing will develop the skills and the abilities and have a extremely high level of familiarity and ease with playing the instrument in 2-3 years that was acheived by someone equally talented but needed ten years to develop to that level, because they only had an hour, or two at best, to devote out of each passing day towards proficiency at their instrument. If you spend 12 hours each day, 3-4 hours at a time and 3 to 4 times a day, practicing correctly, and practicing the right things, and constantly pushing yourself to be more accomplished on the guitar, you will develop virtusosity in a rather short time span. Within 2-3 years if you keep focusing on perfection, but not getting caught up on it, just allowing it it's chance and doing your best to assist the odds, but be not at all concerned if it doesn't happen, because you will just keep trying, hoping but not really expecting, that you might just be a little closer the next time. By perfection I mean perfection at playing what you mean and giving meaning to what you play, and beng able to flawlessly execute any musical whimsey you can imagine hearing that you may feel like actually hearing in the physical world. So, if you've only been a casual player for 20 years, you'll be no better than the kid who plays 12 hours a day for a couple of years, playing wise, but you'll have had longer to listen to more music and to have been expsed to more ideas. So how long have you really been playing?? A few years stretched out over a decade or two??

I needed a calculator to decipher the complicated mathmatical formula but after entering all of the relevant figures, I have been playing for .................... 6 weeks.

I have learned and can play open position major, minor and dominant chords. I am a bit sloppy on the switching sometimes and I detest the G major.

I tried to move to the next level the other day and found that I hate the concept of barre chords even more than I hate the G.

I practice some scales up and down the neck and have learned a blues solo from the DVD I have. I cant play it at full speed yet but I have the various licks figured out and they sound really cool if I dont go too fast.

I have learned the intros to "Walk this Way", "Rock and Roll Aint Noise Pollution", some ZZ Top songs, some Skynyrd songs, and a few others and have played all the way through a couple of songs in a book I bought (melody). I find it is necessary to learn some of this stuff once in a while to keep it interesting. Plus if anyone asked if I have learned anything yet, I cant just play a minor pentatonic for them.

My challenges so far, besides needing to get better at above mentioned skills, learning to mute strings to keep the unwanted noise down. Well, that and anything that involves the G major.

I am not completely sure what your original question was but I think I have done pretty well in 6 weeks considering I have about an hour a day, probably 5 and sometimes six days per week to practice.

[kyoun1e]

What a tough question.

I've only been playing for 3-4 years and my playing is highly seasonal:

* Fall: Low/moderate playing
* Winter/Spring: Heavy
* Summer: Low/moderate

Winter/Spring is when you see me on these boards and where I try to accelerate my learnings and skill every year. On average, I'd say I average 1-2 hours per day.

In low season, I probably average 30 minutes per day.

So while I've been playing for 3-4 years, I feel like I've only been playing for 1-2 years.

KY

[gennation]

I've been playing right about 30 years now. Been playing pretty steadily throughout the whole time too.

You can check out a BUNCH of my music at my web site. Just follow the Music & Video link. Haha, those videos are from the mid-80's to now!

You'll see I've always played a WIDE variety of music styles.

[PRSnotPOS]

I've been playing for about 1 1/2 years. I got this piece of crap classical guitar from my grandpa and took guitar I class in high school. Then I stopped playing because the guitar was such a piece of junk I couldn't play anything on it. Like the only frets that didn't buzz like hell for 1-5 anything after that you couldn't hear. So then my friend got a starter Yamaha for like... 150... and that drove me to get one too, which is where I really started playing guitar. I practice and learned the ground works of theory and then , over the summer, I decided to buy a PRS and my Traynor Amp. I worked for like.... 3 months straight... lol.

Anyways, I try to play at night on weekdays because I'm always working on the weekends. I usually play around 2-3 hours but sometimes I can go a lot longer. Playing guitar is kind of about feeling for me. Sometimes I will be focused and creative and sometimes I won't.

[simeon]

i've been playing for about 23 years...up to 8 hours a day for the first few years, but i'm convinced it's not how much you practice, it's the quality of practice that you do. if you played 8 hours a day for 10 years, but only played the same lick over and over...!

sim

[paulo999]

I did about 18 months or so when I was 11. Group lesson once a week after school. Never put any effort in and was crap. Was playing a nylon stringed guitar and once picked up a steel string a couldnt' take the pain.

Have just picked it up again this weekend (age 39!), new steel string acoustic - doing about an hour a day - and have pretty much caught up to where I left off, probably a bit better.

I'm quite chuffed by this. The structured web lessons and a bit more determination are paying off so much more than before.

[Edit... have got rid of the buzzes on basic chords, basic scales aren't perfect but getting there... barre chords are still a big ouch]

[red|dragon]

8 months.

[Paragraph51]

Originally posted by Knottyhed Why not work out the approx amount of hours you've been playing instead? I've assumed an average of 1.5 every day for the last 12 years - giving me approx 6500 playing hours.

I passed the 10,000 hour mark around 1997, but although I started out with all the right ideas, the rigor of what I knew I had to do was simply overwhelming, so I slacked from 84-88, went for it half way from 88-89, slacked off from 89-91, went 1/4 assed at it from 91-96, went full time from 96-97, really slacked off, (I discoveed the Internet), from 97-2001, was 1/4 assed from2001-2003, went full time from 2003-2005. Sold everything in 2005, and am stagnating until I pay my friend back for his timely loan, and get my guitar back. That's probably not even close to being accurate, though. My life's been all over the place, and when I have the time I put in 6-12 hours per day, and then off and on I'd go for weeks and months and even years without playing..over the last 25 years.

[Paragraph51]

Originally posted by simeon i've been playing for about 23 years...up to 8 hours a day for the first few years, but i'm convinced it's not how much you practice, it's the quality of practice that you do. if you played 8 hours a day for 10 years, but only played the same lick over and over...! sim

It's a combination fo the two. You can barely liken it to moving to a new city. If you read maps you can know how to get anywhere, but if you simply go everywhere, until you have a map of it in your head that guides you instinct like, then you'll be better off.

[Paragraph51]

Originally posted by gennation I've been playing right about 30 years now. Been playing pretty steadily throughout the whole time too. You can check out a BUNCH of my music at my web site . Just follow the Music & Video link. Haha, those videos are from the mid-80's to now! You'll see I've always played a WIDE variety of music styles.

Yeah, I've played so many different syles I lost my own styles, although they often return when I am playing for an audience and if the band is good and doesn't distract me with any bad playing.

[Knottyhed]

Originally posted by red|dragon 8 months.

 

 

How come you know so much about music theory RD? You play something else?

[LaurentB]

Originally posted by Paragraph51 So how long have you really been playing?? A few years stretched out over a decade or two??

 

 

Now, I'm not going to figure out all these formulas you've conceived, but I've been playing for thirty years now.

First ten years a couple of hours a week, then ten years of a couple of hours a day, and the last ten years an hour a day, approximately.

[Li Shenron]

My turn!

I started at 17 with the electic, without having picked up the acoustic before, and I'm currently 30.

If I remember right, here is what used to be my approx schedule.

Age 17, 18, 19: went to lessons (1 hour/week from September to May) and played about 1-2 hours per day, with some peeks at 3 hours. I guess I have been playing about 2/3 of the days only however, because of high school study demands and then 1st year of university. In summertime I could rarely play longer than 30min per day, due to high temperatures in Italy
I think we can count there years as slightly less than 1 each, for a total of let's say 2.5 years.

Age 20, 21, 22: went to lessons on a more loose schedule, played some more at home due to having a "serious" band.
Not much more than before, I think you could count these as slightly more than 1 each, let's say 3.5 years.

Age 23, 24: no more band & more university study, depression times. Still some hope in the future, meddling with the guitar 1/3 of the days or even less.
Let's count these years as 0.5 each , total 1.

Age 25 (to 29): enter the big girlfriend (I mean great, not huge...), change country guitar & guitarist split up. No play: 0 years.

Age 29: girlfriend allows affair between guitarist & old guitar. Play restricted to once every couple of weeks, 1-2 hours, and mostly with acoustic.
Probably closer to 0 than even 0.1.

Age 30: renaissance begins, 1 hour per day but quite regular for the last 6 months. 0.5 years.

My estimate is I've been playing 7.5 years

[red|dragon]

Originally posted by Knottyhed How come you know so much about music theory RD? You play something else?

 

 

Who is to say that the things I know hold any truth to them? Maybe I just went to every website on the internet.

[FilliamHMuffman]

now for my story....................back in the days of old.............perhaps 2001 i was a teenager listen to pop punk and first decided to pick up a guitar for the first time

i was probably the worst player of all time at that point i would try to play tabs and it would sound nothing remotely like the sound i was a mess but i pretended to play to guitar to impress people like 20 million other teenagers

years later my friend took up guitar and i started up again and was actually getting somewhere

then i start playing very seriousy since like decemember and i have come farther than i ever though possible in such a short period of time i guess i was just on the cusp of major breakthru and just need to practice to get there.........im probably 3 times better than i was 2 months ago today

this ever happen to anyone else..it just clicks eventually?

[PRSnotPOS]

Originally posted by FilliamHMuffman now for my story....................back in the days of old.............perhaps 2001 i was a teenager listen to pop punk and first decided to pick up a guitar for the first time i was probably the worst player of all time at that point i would try to play tabs and it would sound nothing remotely like the sound i was a mess but i pretended to play to guitar to impress people like 20 million other teenagers years later my friend took up guitar and i started up again and was actually getting somewhere then i start playing very seriousy since like decemember and i have come farther than i ever though possible in such a short period of time i guess i was just on the cusp of major breakthru and just need to practice to get there.........im probably 3 times better than i was 2 months ago today this ever happen to anyone else..it just clicks eventually?

 

 

yes it happened to me

[Knottyhed]

Originally posted by FilliamHMuffman now for my story....................back in the days of old.............perhaps 2001 i was a teenager listen to pop punk and first decided to pick up a guitar for the first time i was probably the worst player of all time at that point i would try to play tabs and it would sound nothing remotely like the sound i was a mess but i pretended to play to guitar to impress people like 20 million other teenagers years later my friend took up guitar and i started up again and was actually getting somewhere then i start playing very seriousy since like decemember and i have come farther than i ever though possible in such a short period of time i guess i was just on the cusp of major breakthru and just need to practice to get there.........im probably 3 times better than i was 2 months ago today this ever happen to anyone else..it just clicks eventually?

Rapid improvement happens when you play outside your comfort zone most of the time, focus on what you're doing and put the hours in

I do think there are sometime ephiphony moments when you realise you've improved alot since

[Knottyhed]

Originally posted by red|dragon Who is to say that the things I know hold any truth to them? Maybe I just went to every website on the internet.

Ummm - right, not sure what point you're trying to make. If you wanna be like that - for all i know you're a figment of my imagination.

music theory is just theory, so you could know everything about western music theory and not know any 'truth' - i like to know a enough to get by and enable me to talk to other musicians without getting bogged down in it. It's invaluable when talking to people who play a different instrument as it gives you a common ground to discuss things on. It seemed to me from some discussions you've been in that you've an in depth knowledge, which is surprising when you've been playing a short time - unless of course you play other instruments...

For me my ears are where it's at, when i play/improvise - i use my ears. When I compose i use a combination of theory and my ears.

[Janx]

I started in July '05, and it's now Feb '06, that's 8 months. I probably average 2 hours a week. That's 2*4*8=64 hours of GPT.

I'm self taught. No musical background.

Right now, I know:
8 chords: CAGED, Eminor, D minor and F

I'm working on Power Chords (which from my perspective, is to gain mastery of the shape, played on 6th, 5th, and 4th strings with precision).

I know 2 scales. It helps build dexterity and coordination, but other than an exercise in memorization (I can learn a scale in 2 hours), I don't see a huge need to learn a ton of them...yet.

I need to work on timing and rhythm. My goal is to be able to pick a song in tab, and be able to learn in and play it, in time. That's not a huge goal, but in achieving it, I'll be able to play various songs for fun.

Janx

[pretaanluxis]

I've been playing for 6 years, about 5 hours a week. If I practice more than 5 hours a week I get tired of guitar and want to take up bass or drums or just watch TV


..but of course I can jam with friends for 5 hours straight and it's still fun if the energy is flowing