When learning to play any musical instrument, the importance of good practice habits cannot be over-emphasized. Your success with what is hopefully a lifelong study of the guitar will hinge not so much on how well your teacher conveys information to you, nor so much on your ability to memorize that information, but rather on your practice habits—how often you practice, the time devoted to practice, and the quality of your attention to the tasks you set for yourself in practice. Learning the information is one thing… getting your fingers to perform what you learn is quite another.
There’s an old musicians’ saying that sums it all up very succinctly:
“It’s not how many years you’ve been playing that count… it’s how many hours.”
Hitting Plateaus
There’s a certain “general level of competence” which many players reach but never transcend. We’ve all seen players who can say they’ve been playing guitar for decades, yet the level of their playing remains nonetheless unimpressive. Perhaps they only play a couple of times a month, or perhaps they play a lot one week but then hardly touch the instrument for weeks on end. And when they do “practice”, they play the same old stuff they’ve been playing forever… the same songs, the same riffs, leads and fills. They reach a certain level of competence, become satisfied (complacent might be a better word), and don’t challenge themselves to improve. So their playing ceases to evolve. They have hit a plateau, and that’s pretty much as good on their instrument as they ever get. While there’s certainly nothing wrong with being content in your playing, if you really want to improve, you have to challenge yourself on a regular basis. And you can’t beat daily for regularity!
Andre Segovia, the godfather of classical guitar, once said, “If I miss one day of practice, I notice it. If I miss two days, my manager notices. And if I miss three days, everyone notices it.” For professional musicians, daily practice is a lifestyle.
The Zen of Guitar Playing
Meditation is, in essence, a letting go of the mind, a surrender of self in contemplation. A good example of meditation is where one sits still, focusing on one’s breathing, or staring at a burning candle. The particular focus of one’s attention is not as important as the degree of surrender to the exercise one achieves.
Losing yourself in practicing your guitar is thus a form of meditation. I’ve often sat down to practice my guitar for maybe 10 minutes, and later discover that an hour or two has gone by. Time has passed, BUT my guitar playing has improved a bit, and my mind feels refreshed. Practicing your guitar is an effective way to relieve stress and escape from the trials and tribulations of life for awhile. We all need time in our day to just relax and let go of our worries and tensions. The great thing about music is it is both an escape AND a skill-building exercise. In this regard, playing music is much better than any drug known to man.
Go For The Burn
Those who succeed at mastering (to even a modest degree) any musical instrument will tell you that it takes many, many hours of practice over many, many years to develop control of the fine-motor muscles involved in playing the instrument well. This is especially true for guitar, which, as instruments go, is actually quite challenging on a physical level.
Playing guitar is, odd as it may sound, an athletic undertaking. Moving your fingers around real fast isn’t as easy as a pro makes it look. Muscles of the back, shoulders, arms, hands and fingers must all be trained, conditioned and strengthened to withstand the rigors of playing for protracted lengths of time. Calluses on the fingertips must be developed and thickened to ease their tender discomfort. Accuracy in the placement of the thumb and fingers, the angle of the hand to the neck, using a pick with accuracy and agility and speed… all these physical challenges are dealt with in your practice time.
Keep a Practice Log
It can be very useful to keep a log of your practice time, and I often recommend this to my students. Every time you practice, be it for 5 minutes or two hours, write it down in a notebook. Then look at it once a week or so, tally up the minutes, and strive to increase your time the next week. It can be a challenge to find time in your busy life for music, and sometimes you have to literally make time to practice. But if you do, you’ll see the results on down the road.
What Is Talent?
I have this theory on the definition of talent. From my observations of players (from beginning students to professional artists of the highest caliber), it seems apparent that those we might call talented have an innate aptitude for learning and utilizing what is learned. But more significantly, they have an ability to actually enjoy the daily, mind-numbingly repetitive act of practicing their instrument, and don’t allow any minor frustrations associated with the endeavor to interfere with their focus and determination. Talented people seem to intuitively know that perfection of a skill can only be achieved through repetition.
So how much should you practice?
A 30-minute practice session every day should be considered a minimum. Shoot for an hour or better when you can. And if your day is hectic, try to avoid the thought of skipping that day and making it up the next. One, you don’t really make up anything, the time you practice is the time you practice on any given day. And second, it’s much better to at least warm the hands to your instrument for 5 or 10 minutes than to skip playing that day altogether. It’s the daily devotion to mastering an instrument that yields the best results.
Taking the Long View
I can guarantee that you will experience frustration at times. There will be days when, no matter how much you practice, it will seem as if you’re making little or no progress. Or you might hear some hot-shot player and think the quest is useless, that you’ll never be able to play like that. This is letting self-doubt and cynicism get the better of you. The really good players got that way because they cultivated a love of playing… period. Goals or no goals, they simply love to play, and do it with dedication. They make it a part of their lives, and give their playing priority over their inevitable moments of frustration. Making music isn’t a competition, it’s an act of artistic expression which, with time and practice, can bring more joy to your life than you might imagine. It doesn’t really matter if you ever achieve “greatness” as you (or others) might define it—focus more on your innate desire to make music part of your life… a desire that brought you to your instrument in the first place.
So learn to love the learning, because no matter how good you get, there will always be someone better, and always room for personal improvement. Be patient with yourself. Take the long view, relax and enjoy the process. It’s not about the destination, it’s about the journey.
Copyright 2009 Jeff Foster. All Rights Reserved.