Top 3 reasons you’re not getting results from your guitar practice
In my guitar teaching, I often encounter some widespread misunderstandings about what it actually means to practice the guitar.
In my experience, the most common reasons that my students are not getting results from their practice time is because they have a wrong understanding of what the concept is actually about.
The 3 reasons stated in this article is meant to help you break out of your wrong practice habits and start forming new, better and more effective ones.
1) Are you practising or playing?
To play the guitar and to practice the guitar is two very different things and it is critical to know the difference between the two if you wanna improve your guitar playing. It’s important to note, that there is nothing wrong with “just” playing you guitar, but problems can arise when you confuse playing with practising.
By its very definition “practising” is the act of trying to improve one’s abilities in a specific area. This means that practising in its core concept can be one of two things.
Either it’s the act of acquiring a new skill(a new technique, lick, solo etc.) or improving upon something that you already know, but haven’t yet mastered.
“Playing the guitar” on the other hand is all the things you do with your guitar, that is not actively working towards bettering yourself in some area of you playing.
In other words when you are sitting in front of your tv or your computer “practising”, you are actually playing.
When you are “practising” while having a conversation with your girlfriend, you are actually playing the guitar not practising.
When you are noodling around with your guitar, you are playing not practising. I could write many more examples like this, but you get the idea.
The common theme here is the fact that your mind is only half involved in the actual practising. Therefore you can by its very definition only practice things, you already know well enough to practice them with only half a mind. And this is not what you NEED to be practising in order to improve your guitar playing.
Then what is guitar practise?
Guitar practice is the means with which you will be able to play the way you want and you playing is the result of you being able practice efficiently. This distinction is critical to your overall ability to reach your guitar playing goals.
2) Are you practising with a goal in mind?
Your guitar practises should always have a specific and well defined goal. What is it you ultimately wanna achieve with your guitar practicing and how is this specific activity that you are doing going to help you reach that goal. If you can’t answer those questions in a concrete way, chances are that you are wasting valuable time practicing the wrong things.
To ignore the goal you are working towards is like getting into a bus without knowing where it’s going. The chances of you reaching your desired destination are extremely low. No matter what you wanna achieve with your guitar practise you will get there a lot faster if you do it with a specific goal in mind.
3) Practice session length
A question I often get asked by my students is “how much/long should I practice”. They might have seen Steve Vai’s 10 hour workout or heard Yngwie tell the story about how he practiced 8 hours a day from the age of 13 to the age of 18.
While these stories can demoralise everybody, they also tend to overemphasise the importance of “how much” you practice.
While practice time is important it is only one among many factores that determine how fast you will develop your guitar playing.
In reality the only case where practice time is the determining factor is if this is the only factor that is changing. This means if you are practicing a specific lick for 10 minutes instead of 5 and everything else (your focus, practice method, concentrations, practice environment etc.) stays exactly the same.
In reality, the question you should be asking is not “how long”, but “how efficient”. Only when your entire practice routine is optimised should you be focusing on the amount of time you practice.
Practising your guitar in the right way will mean the difference between you being able to reach your guitar playing goals or not. Implementing the above mentioned things will get you well on the way to optimising your practice routines.
About the author: Janus Buch is a long time guitar player and founder of the Bredballe Guitarskole, where he teaches guitar students of all levels. If you’re not satisfied with your guitar playing progress contact Bredballe Guitarskole and let us prove to you that we offer the best Beginner guitar lessons Vejle, by helping you reach far beyond what you thought possible on your guitar.