How often Do You Practice/Play

[G McBride]

I am just curious how often everyone else plays a guitar and what kind of practice do you do.

 

I am taking lessons right now so I have specific things that I must learn and practice each week for the next weeks lesson. I practice at least an hour every day. What do the rest of you do?

[Bob R]

About that. Not that it shows though.

What now takes me 4 hours to learn took an hour 40 years ago.

[eljay]

7 days a week; 1-2 hours per day. a day without playing guitar is a day that could have been better!

[guitarfish]

I don't get to play anywhere near as much as I'd like to. An hour a week is average. Life is very busy.

[L5Larry]

Part of what I do with guitar in hand is play with a college sponsored 20-piece jazz big band. This necessitates a REAL need to practice. I would say I spend 10-15 hours a week at the practice table.

[Brayton]

Solid practice is about 15 minutes a day. That's after 20 minutes of noodling around to warm up my fingers and all. Then after the 15 minutes of serious stuff, I screw around playing something old and fun. If I just concentrate on serious theory or a particular song, I tend to lose interest and skip a day or more. If life get overwhelming, I can still squeeze the 15 minutes of serious stuff in an then sleep!

[badbluesplayer]

I play almost every day. I try to work for 30 min. on new stuff - songs, scales, etc. - and then I spend 30 min. to an hour just playing. I try to learn something new every day.

[luvmy175]

I play almost every day. I try to work for 30 min. on new stuff - songs, scales, etc. - and then I spend 30 min. to an hour just playing. I try to learn something new every day.

 

 

Some great advice!

[Versatile]

I try to keep motivated and fresh....mixing acoustic and electric...clean and with effects...different amps etc

 

Maybe 1-2 hours 3 times a week.

 

 

 

[Notes_Norton]

I practice almost daily, at home on non-gig days, and on stage on gig days (after all if you can't practice on stage, where CAN you practice <grin>)

 

Notes ♫

[G McBride]

I think I agree with the taking longer to learn something now than it did when I was younger. Important thing is to keep learning something new.

 

I also spend time just playing so that it doesn't get stale. I play different guitars through different amps. I am always amazed at how the tone of the guitar or amp you are playing will lead you to play certain songs.

[davidl]

I get about 3 or 4 hours a week sporadically. Sometimes more if I can snag some weekend time.

I would like to schedule an hour or so everyday but life gets in the way.

Any time is good to me.

 

Dave

[vincentw]

This all depends on the gig. You practice until you are tight, either on your parts or with the band or both.

Whatever it takes. Sometimes a gig commitment is the best thing in the world to motivate you to practice longer and smarter.

[tlwwalker]

I'm like eljay. 1-2 hours per day. Everyday.

A lot on my ES-335 unplugged on the sofa watching sports on TV. Pandora's Box with headphones, too.

GuitarPro , YouTube learning. I tend to learn things more quickly if I leave them & then come back days or weeks later.

One 3 hour jam session each week with a buddy.

[Rodd]

I play whenever I get a spare moment, very rarely get time to dedicate hours a day, although I really wish I could. 20 mins here and there, not ideal I know, work and family responsibilities take priority these days. 15 years ago it would have been 2-3 hours a day most days.

[G McBride]

I am sticking to turning off the TV and staying away from the computer for at least one hour every evening and practicing guitar. I play what ever I have been assigned that week for my lesson and then just play what ever comes to mind. I have been playing guitar since 1966 and decided this was the year that I would get some professional training.

[KDRR]

I started playing at 14 , I`m 59 now. Even now with all the aids you have today. You Tube..ect I`m still not as sharp at picking things up as well as I did at 16

[Kenny V]

I play 2 to 3 hours everyday unless work gets in the way. It's a joy after not playing at all for many years. I do agree that it's takes a lot longer to add new songs now than it did 40+ years ago.

[G McBride]

Being a rhythm guitar guy most of my life, my instructor thinks that he needs to move me up into soloing. My goal when I started lessons in August were just to improve my playing and learning more from someone better than me.

 

I spent this weekend playing Diagonal Blues Scales. Last week it was Chords to Let It Ride by BTO, that moved me up and down the neck playing chords in different voices to make the guitar sound more unique. The purpose of the last two weeks practice were to "Get me out of the Box".

 

I have played at least an hour a day for the last year. I found myself playing familiar songs from my past and not really getting better at guitar. Now that I have an instructor and a lesson plan each week, I find myself improving and moving forward again. I just needed to be playing with someone with greater skills than I have so that they can teach me.

 

Keep practicing and playing. I am 57 and find that the more I play the more things come back to me that I played many years ago. My grandsons are now listening to the music that I grew up with. A couple of the boys are learning to play guitar and I love to be able to play along with them occasionally.

 

Practice with a goal in mind and not just play for an hour or so and you will start to see improvement in your techniques.