Practice Anywhere: Take Your Practice On The Road

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Practicing on the road can be a hassle. Thankfully, there has never been a better time to take your show on the road. If you’re already traveling with a laptop or iPad, all you need to add to your gear is a travel guitar and some sort of adapter to plug your guitar in. In this lesson, we’re going to talk about the killer combo that lets you easily practice guitar anywhere in the world.

First, Choose a Travel Guitar

There are a wide range of travel guitars, starting from the ultra-portable Traveler Acoustic Ultra Light Guitar^[?]Affiliate Link. This instrument does not play or sound like a typical guitar, but is probably the most compact design possible.

On the other end of the spectrum, you could get an ordinary guitar, but opt for a smaller-bodied instrument such as a parlor guitar.

Somewhere in between, there are guitars made to be more travel-sized, such as the Taylor GS Mini (Mahogany)^[?]Affiliate Link. An electric guitar would work too, but consider getting a hollow or chambered instrument to cut back on weight.

Practicing Repertoire on the Road

You’ll want all of your music in PDF form.

You can practice solo guitar tunes and tabs with either your laptop or an iPad set up to view the music. Keeping all of your sheet music synchronized via cloud will allow you to access it anywhere in the world—and from any device.

If your travel guitar is of the more silent variety, you will most likely need some form of amplication. For trips longer than a few days, the silent practice session gets a little old.

Practice With a Silent Guitar

These products are for Apple devices, but there are similar products for PC.

With this killer combo, you can easily carry everything you need to maintain an effective guitar practice routine even when you’re traveling internationally.

You can use this software to practice or even to record.

Practicing Technique

You can drill through guitar technique exercises or memorize fretboard patterns anywhere in the world— all you really need is a guitar.

A Warning

If you’ll be traveling extensively or long-term, you may find that the most compact and silent practice guitars do not meet all of your long-term guitar practice needs. In this case, it’s a good idea to investigate some of the other travel guitar options.

As the creator of Hub Guitar, Grey has compiled hundreds of guitar lessons, written several books, and filmed hundreds of video lessons. He teaches private lessons in his Boston studio, as well as via video chat through TakeLessons.