Official Luthiers Forum!

I know we're all great at building guitars, but let's talk about playing for a moment. How much did you practice today (Saturday)? A completely random sample of a day. Then tell us whether the amount of time you practiced on this random selection of a day is a good reflection of how well you play.

I practiced about an hour today, and it was solid practicing (working at learning something new, not just playing songs I already know). That's fairly typical of how long I practice when I practice, but there's a lot of days I don't practice. I don't think it's a good reflection of how good I play, because someone who practices an hour a day should be better than I am.

At 50 years old I finally decided that I will never be rich ands famous for my guitar playing. I do, however, play 3 times a week at church and sometimes more if there are other events going on where I can play. I have one offical practice session for about 2 hours each week and I am always having to learn new rifts and songs and making changes to my playing style. Unfortunatly, the combination of lead, rythem and accompliment that I am required to play doesnt lend its self to playing alone. Because of this and even though I consider myself quite good at what I do, I rarely play a complete song.. only bits, pieces, backups and fills.

So to answer your question, I play about 7 to 10 hours a week. I doubt that I am a better player than you. After hearing some of the guys sond tracks that are members on here, I am almost ashamed at my playing skills compared to them.

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Reguards,

Ken H

My friend and I are discussing the very real possibility of doing gigs....we've got a 6 song set coming up in October...

I've been playing since I was 15, with the intention of being dedicated to the guitar, but I have TOO many interests!!!

I should be playing an hour a day and was up to an hour a day this time last year, but it's more like half that. With being a parent with a part-time job and a full time family to look after, I am at that stage at the moment where I play the guitar to relax and have fun.

I've got a book full of Celtic pieces to learn, and I keep procrastinating!!!

Kelby, I try and practice about 2 hours every day, Saturday was the same 2 hours. For every hour I'm going to practice I do five minutes of warm up excersises, to warm and gently stretch the 60 or so muscles in each arm, this is important to avoid tendonitis and carpel tunnel problems.

Practice shouldn't just be playing songs that are already in your comfort zone, that's rehearsal, or ego massage, practice should have a challenging goal related to technique or music theory.

Also practice ssessions should be connected, with the goals set and acheived from one session carried forward and built on to advance ovarall technique or repertoire.

Finally, don't forget to warm down with the gentle excersises at the end.

I can get quite passionate about correct practice!

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

     I've never procrastinated! I just don't do it. Though... I've been meaning to.

I play typically 2 hours a day, sometimes more, sometimes less. I find it almost impossible to relate how well somebody plays!

      There are guys I know that have a real style, but aren't technicaly very good. Other guys are very defined in ability but I don't have a lot of regard for what and how they play. Most fall somewhere in between.

     I used to play for hours and hours a day but found I was just rehashing the SOS over and over. I try to put more imagination into what I'm doing and find that my abilities always seem to rise to the concept... er after 10 years or so!

    I had a buddy that used to work out and was built pretty good almost professional. I wanted to improve my health and strength and asked him about what he did in his workouts. I usually worked out 4 hours a day, slept 12 and kept a very regimened diet, when he went into detail I could see why he was in such great shape. Few have the desire of sacrifice for the results.

     It's the same with guitar, though some have more natural ability than others ultimately it comes down to work, meaning, time + effort.

     I read somewhere that John McLaughlin played typically 8 hours/day. Geesh! my fingers would wear out!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

I love playing guitar which is why I wanted to make my own. I will usually grab my OM when I get home a bust out a few of the things I have been learning. Maybe 30 minutes. Then after dinner I will go down stairs and get the amps going. After an hour or so I will come back up stairs with an unplugged electric guitar and practice scales and things I have been working on. This way I do not disturb Julie too much. Then I will play rest play rest until I go to bed.
Weekends I play heaps. As much as my fingers can handle balanced with time in the workshop.
My ability. I have been serious for about 18 months now and am getting better all the time. So no stable relationship yet.
I have a shred special edition of Total Guitar and in it they say Steve Vai had to practice for 10 hours a day to be able to play as well as he did which included being able to play 21 notes per second. If only they had been nice notes.
Dom

I used to practice for a couple hours a day, until I started to build guitars. Now I practice a couple hours a week. When I finish my current build,(by next weeend) I will get back to my regular 2 hours a day. I play in a Bluegrass band, and Saturday night we played at a wedding reception for 2 1/2 hours.
I play dobro and guitar, so I divide the time between the two instruments.

Yesterday (Saturday), I practiced a little over an hour.  I am just beginning to learn to play so I make sure to practice every day, even if it is just for a half hour or so.  I have read and heard countless times it is more important to practice a little every day, than to skip days and then try to make up the time with one long session.  Once my fingers can handle longer practice sessions, I want to get up to a couple hours a day.  Right now I go until my fingers start hurting.

I am anxious to get to the point that I can record and post some sound clips of my guitars that actually sound like something other than a dyin' calf in a hailstorm!

Hmmm I love my uke but between the job the kids and all the other " Stuff "
Im lucky to get in a coupke hors a week in small bursts at random
times..sigh I am definetly a beginner..and its hard to advance when you dont
practice enough...

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here

EDIT

coupke = couple

hors = horse no wait hours   

/EDIT

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Zac

Anchorage Alaska

Finshed my 1st! See #1 here

Colin,

I would like to be able to practice 2 hours a day but manage only one+ with more time on the weekends. I would be interested in hearing about the warming up exercises you do. I feel that is important but have not seen a good set of things to do.

I agree that practice should build and work towards a goal, at least for classical music as I assume you are working on. For me if I dont practice then my tremelo, rasguedo and other things start falling apart.

For non-practice playing, since I collect instruments, I have instruments in every room of various kinds. I always have an instrument of some type within arms reach so if I am not working, I will play along with any music I hear, just to keep my ear training to hearing other genre's.

While I practice with others for church it is not the same as dedicated practice as it is more performance related that development related.

Hogan, what type of Bluegrass do you play? I live in the Washington, DC area which has always been an active area for bluegrass so I play all of hte typical bluegrass instruments as well since the town I am closest to has a bluegrass jam once a month. I build and play classicals but to let down my hair I have lots of fun playing bluegrass. I am sure that I was in the UK, I would be hanging out in pubs playing celtic music...

I`m practicing as much as time and responsibilities will allow. This is everyday, the Lord willing and the creek don`t rise. Very seldom do I see less than 2 hours, and often as long as 10 hours if my hands don`t wear out on me. It`s really cutting into my shop time, but my situation will allow me to hang up the guitar, close the office door and be in my shop working on one part of a build or another in about a minute (yeah, gang, I`m blessed in that area). Sometimes you just have to take a break from the strings and work on something to string up. Not having a set build schedule helps in that area.

It`s kinda funny that when I broke the neck on my old el cheapo guitar and decided to build one that I could learn to play, little did I dream that building guitars would be such an obsession. Five guitars in one room and I still want to build that "perfect" instrument. Who cares if it takes me until the bitter end to accomplish that? Not me.

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Give me 50 cents worth of regular.
Check my oil too, if you don`t mind,,,

Practice?

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"I want to know what kind of pickups Vince Gill uses in his Tele, because if I had those, as good of a player as I am, I'm sure I could make it sound like that.
Only badly."

I'm with Don on this. Practice sounds too much like work. Although I need much practice, I just play for an hour every couple of days and attend the Bluegrass Jam on Sundays.

Peter

[quote=Hesh]I don't practice at all.[/quote]

Yup! That's what I heard!

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Billy Dean Thomas
Covina, CA

"Multi famam, conscientiam, pauci verentur."
(Many fear their reputation, few their conscience)

This is really making me feel guilty.  I have ensemble practice once a week, and that is a couple of hours, then I usually find a few more hours a week to work on stuff for the next week.  I don't usually work much on solo playing any more.  It is something I want to do, but this building thing has really taken over my interest.  Maybe after I get the first out of my system, and it is a little more routine, i.e, not reinventing the wheel every day, I can return to my  practice routines when I put in a couple of hours a day without fail. 

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Somewhere along the way I lost my inspiration and probably haven't played more than an hour a month for the past two years. It doesn't me not to play, though, I just don't have the passion for it that I had for the previous 40 years. It will come back around, I'm sure. The older I get, the harder it is to multi-task. Whatever has my interest gets 100% of my available time and right now that's building.

Ron

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OLD MAN formerly (and formally) known as:

Ron Wisdom

Somewhere in the middle of Arkansas......

I've enjoyed being able to practice a lot this summer. Lately I've been
working on turn-arounds and some voicings. I consider the thinking side
of learning practice as well. Some improv work, too.

This one might be long guys and it's just the short version, so just move on.

Shawn,

My warm up starts before I pick up the guitar, by first shaking out the loose arms and hands, then doing rythmic 'piano' excersises with the fingers followed by sequential contractions of each finger gradually introducing more speed. This I believe stimulates production of synovial fluid in the sheaths around the tendons and results in smoother strain-free fingering.

The, onto the guitar. I always use a metronome which I first set at 60bpm. I start on the left hand, with simple longditudinal excersises starting at the 12th fret gradually working back towards the nut. This helps gradually to increase the stretch of the fingers. repeat at faster metronome speeds.

Then I move to gradually increasing complexity right hand excersises, including things like rasguedo you mention, at increasing metronome speeds.

Finally I move onto to boring old scales, all over the fingerboard, again at increasing speed. Scales to me are the most important practice that you can have and should be second nature to every player, however in the warm up they are more aimed towards warming up the mind. By the time you get to the scales the fingers should already be working smoothly, so the scales job is to get the mind warmed up so that the playing of the note becomes an automatic process that happens when the mind wishes it.

The hands are involved in the physical process of playing the notes on the guitar. But, they need guiding by the mind and ears to make music. So the warm up just doesn't involve getting the fingers operating efficiently, but more importantly to get the hand-ear-mind feedback system tuned in.

Only when the whole system is 'up to speed' can meaningful practice take place, when technique can take care of itself and the music come to the fore. (I'm assuming a certain level of technical ability here, which I know you have) My aim is to get to a point where I can think the music and the hands will play it.

If you want the long explanation, just ask .

Colin

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I don't believe in anything, I simply make use of a set of reasonable working hypotheses.

I'll usually play for about 1-2 hours a day. Lately, I've been having a 'revival' of sorts and I'm really into guitar playing once more. Last week, I had two sessions that lasted 4-5 hours...

In my sessions, I always try to maintain what I already now and I also try to learn something new. Lately, I'm trying hard to compose my own material as well...

Gotta love it!

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I'd like to be able to prove, just for once, that money wouldn't make me happy...

I play everyday, a lot... I work from home and I keep a guitar in a stand a few feet from my desk so I'm always reaching for it. But I don't practice nearly enough. Not disciplined enough, I guess. Realizing that, I started taking lessons, figuring that would would actually force me to practice. We shall see.

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Jim Womack

"Be thankful we're not getting all the government we're paying for. "
Will Rogers

Playing guitar?? The fact my guitar playing is so attrocious is the main reason I prefer to make the things.

I have been playing the ukulele for 4-5 years now and my wife has some observations. She says that my unique musical and singing skills can take all the songs in the world and morph them to sound exactly the same. If it wasn’t for having two high quality instruments and the surprisingly nice one I built, my playing would sound even worse. Having no musical talent, sense, understanding, or rhythm but this has not stopped me from enjoying my pitiful plinking. I have 4 builds in the works and just have to apply myself a bit more. My time is currently taken up by Poker where I do have some skills. This is where I’m putting my practice time since I keep just missing the money in tournaments. That includes a million dollar tournament last year.

Philip

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aka konacat

If you think my playing is bad you should hear me sing!
Practice breeds confidence and confidence breeds competence. Unfortunately, I'm stuck in practice.

Thanks Colin for a review of your warm up exercises...I do similar ones and do believe that getting the joints warmed up and fluids circulating helps both the playing and the ability to play longer.

I also agree that scales are the foundation of all practice. For me to keep from getting bored and to get both my head and hands in synch, I practice modal scales for all of the modes. It breaks me out of patterns of just major and minor and helps me to remember finger placement so that the next movement is anticipated rather than repeating the pattern by strictly muscle memory. I alternate patterns with each hand also as it helps me to prepare for passages that tend to get my fingers tied with either hand.