It’s generally heard that the more time you give in practice the more result you have.
Standard practicing is recommended at a 30 minutes/day or 90 minutes a week. Many guitar learners would say that this is not much of enough practice time; and they don’t feel the growth even after giving 1-2 hour/day.
I would say that this is because the right practice method is not yet clear to them. Attend a guitarmonk session and you will know that how 30 minutes of practice session is too much for a student to bear. Doing a 30 minutes Guitar practice session is a great workout indeed. I sometimes see that most of my students are not even ready for more than a 15 minutes workout. Well, this is the job of your teacher to offer you an accurate practice regime. So let’s first absorb these 3 tips
Tip # 1 If you are a beginner, your first few months of practice should be able to grab your guitar for a 5-10 minutes practice anytime and whenever. Try to practice for 10 minutes as many times in a day. Pick it at night, morning, lunch time.
Your first 3 months are focussed on gaining enough finger strength so short work out helps a lot as they also offer enough rest to fingers. Another crucial point is to develop finger stamina, assess finger state (soreness Vs pain) and practice with awareness. Take rest if it pains but when I say pain – see whether it’s normal stretching or just demand of relaxation? You have to make sure that it’s not overly tensed muscle due to wrong guitar or improper practice regime.
Tip # 2 Guitar learning is not a rat race or competition. Don’t compete to any one, just to yourself. Your fingers physical sensitivity, your mental receptivity, is all your individuality. You have to start from yourself so don’t move astray from yourself else it will be unnatural. Be yourself and understand your development process. As a future learned guitarist, your playing will represent your individuality so why not pick it right from the beginning?
Tip # 3 Some people take guitar practice time as an agenda of unwinding themselves from hectic schedule. This is undoubtedly great indeed and in-fact one of the objective. But also note that you are yet building up your stamina, finger dexterity so guitar practice is crucial and rewarding. Once you have crossed a lot of steps and developed lots of skills, the practice is not same. So note it that your practice changes with time.
2ndly, most working people are so busy enough that the above philosophy of unwinding themselves at right time basically becomes delay of practice.
So picking guitar for five or ten or 15 minutes here or there is not of a much effort but helps you in a “cumulative” effect of having gained development. So my advice is that you should pick both model of practicing, unwinding (once in sometime) and remote playing of 5-10 minutes.
I advise my students that hold guitar not as an agenda, this is your guitar come-on, love it and hold it as many times, have fun with it, don’t count your time, fun and smiles, just strum it, either before sleeping or take it at lunch time, and also place guitar at a position where you can find it quickly. Enjoy these 3 tips until I bring some more perspectives in practicing.
(More tips to continue…)
AUTHOR – KAPIL SRIVASTAVA | COPYRIGHTED @ GUITARMONK
