Don't waste your valuable guitar practice time

Practice Success

Practice every day. Whether you feel you are doing well or not. Nobody is inspired all of the time. The truly great people on this planet got that way through the habit of carrying out their work regardless of their mood.

Make a goal. Successful music learners have a practice goal and they follow it. Everyone can learn an instrument. If you are busy with work or school, revise your goal. But never quit.

Setup a place where you can practice daily. The more time you have to spend “getting ready” to practice, the less time you'll practice. Your practice space just needs a chair and whatever accessories that you use. And it should be ready to go as soon as you are ready to practice.

Travel is not an excuse — it’s an unsolved problem. We know guitar players who have practiced while staying at their relative’s house, sitting on a train and even hiking through ancient ruins in South America. As I write this, I am sitting near the ocean in Pattaya, Thailand. I brought a Traveler Guitar with me for the journey.

Make an appointment with yourself. Just as you set a place to practice, you must also set a time. It is crucial. If you rely on the possibility of having “spare time” to practice, life will make other plans for you. The best time of day is different for everybody, but we find that the most successful learners will practice at the same time every day when they can.

Get organized. Write down what you are practicing or what you practiced. Resist the temptation to think that the time spent organizing is wasted. These few moments save you from thousands of minutes lost to unproductive work. Nothing could be more important than being organized.

Be deliberate. The best way to do this is to have a single area of focus for your guitar playing. You might decide that you want to focus on your rhythm for two months. Or, you might want to focus on your improvisation skills for one month. However you do this, we find that the students who have the best results are the ones that are the most focused. Remember: it is impossible to learn to learn the guitar. At any given moment in time, you can only ever be learning one aspect of the guitar.

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.