How much should I practice? This is one of the first question a new student usually asks and is extremely important to your success.
A better question would be how often should I practice?
The answer is often. The more you pick up your instrument to practice the more you will make progress. People tend to be most focused in the first 5- 15 minutes of practice so, practice for only as long as you are still focused and; do it multiple times through out the day. To me, three 15 minute practice sessions spaced out are much better than one 45 minute session all at once. Information is retained better with more sessions. The idea is that the longer you wait to practice again the more likely you’ll be to forget what you previously learned. So the good news is that you don’t have to practice for long hours, but you do have to practice often and consistently.
Here are my suggestions for effective practicing:
- Practice in multiple short sessions everyday.
- Practice for only as long as you can remain focused. 5-30min for most.
- Have a routine. Practice the same things each time.
- GO SLOW and BE ACCURATE!!! Music is learned thru habit. If you make lot’s of mistakes you are only getting worse. Frequent mistakes are a flashing red sign that you are going too fast. This is an extremely hard thing to remember to do yet, easily the most important.
Here are some of my favorite practice tools:
1. Metronome – If you can’t play a song in time with a metronome then you don’t really know that song very well. I like this metronome because it has a lot of useable features and its versatile.
- Capable of multiple meters- from 2-7
- It subdivides into 8ths, triplets, 16th, and more…
- Volume nob
- Headphone jack
- Has a TAP tempo function for figuring out tempos.
- Provides tuning pitches
2. The Amazing Slow Downer- This is the single greatest invention/tool for a musician in my lifetime. It is a program that has the ability to slow down, change pitch and loop any section of any song that you have on your computer, ipad or cell phone. It makes practicing and transcribing songs extremely easy and productive. Why play along with a metronome when you can slow down and practice right along with your favorite songs in any tempo or key you want. If you make any mistakes you’ll instantly know because you’ll hear it against the track underneath as you play. Then you can go back and loop that section and slow it down for deeper practice.
Here is a link to the creators website where you can get a free trial version for your phone, tablet, MAC or PC.
iReal b for Android
3. iReal b – This is a great program as well. It is a play a long program that allows the user to create their own play alongs or download them for free from a forum that contains thousands downloads of all your favorite songs. The program allows you to change key and tempo as well as remove instruments from the track. For example if you are a guitarist you could remove the guitar part from the song.
Check Out: What Kind Of Guitar Picks Should I Use?
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I tried to do guitar 1-2 times per week and even skipped weeks at a time and made zero progress. This year, I get in an hour maybe 4 times per week and I have seen dramatic improvements! I will try out the smaller sessions several times per day and try to remember to report back here.
I believe in less time between practice sessions because it’s less time you have to forget what yo’ve learned. I also think you should only practice for as long as you can keep focus. Some days it’s 5-10 minutes others it can be 1-2 hours. Don’t force long sessions if your not feeling focused; it’s time better spent doing something else. As you become a better player you will also find that you can handle longer session as well. Let me know how it goes!