Guitar Progress Needs Both Play Time and Practice

Are you Learning guitar or have a child learning to play?

This is a quick guide to give you the best chance of progressing without it being overwhelming.

The most important thing to understand is the more you physically play the guitar, the more you will progress. Even if you don’t learn anything new, you will be developing your finger control, speed and strength. so playing every day is important.

Finding time each day can be hard so I have made a list of 5 mins, 15mins, and 30mins of practice routines

How I would suggest practicing with only 5 mins for guitar progress (not for everyday but for busy days)

• 1 min of a finger warm up (Something that uses every finger)
• 1 min of playing your favourite riffs (this can be as easy or hard as you want it to be)
• 2 mins of working on progress (new song, exercise, techniques, improvising etc)
• 1 min of finger warm up as a cool down (with a metronome to log maximum speed you can reach)

Practicing with 15 mins only (not for everyday but for days you’re not into it)

• 2 min of a finger warm up (Something that uses every finger)
• 2 min of playing your favourite riffs (this can be as easy or hard as you want it to be)
• 7 mins of working on progress (new song, exercise, techniques, improvising etc)
• 2 mins of experimental play (do these notes work?)
• 2 min of finger warm up as a cool down (with a metronome to log maximum speed you can reach)

How I would suggest practicing with 30 mins (aim for this each day)

• 5 min of a finger warm (Something that uses every finger) up along to a metronome. start slow and keep increasing the speed and log your top speed somewhere
• 5 mins play your favourite song in full (this can be as easy or hard as you want it to be)
• 10 mins of working on progress (new song, exercise, techniques, improvising etc)
• 5 mins of fun play (another song you enjoy, experimenting, improvising, learning something of the internet or the academy “classic riffs” etc)
• 5 min of finger warm up as a cool down with a metronome to log maximum speed you can reach. Did this beat last practice session? did it beat the warmup stage of this practice?

Other Considerations to Make Guitar Progress Easier

Have a practice space. at a desk, on a chair or bed side, it doesn’t matter but what does matter is that your guitar is kept in arms reach of this area and kept out of its case to limit as many road blocks as possible to practice.

Have a phone or computer close by so you can log in to The Guitar Ninja Academy and go through the lessons, or so you can play music on the device to practice with. Playing along to music helps more than anything else with timing and recognising mistakes etc.

Learn things you enjoy off your own back by searching songs and music you like on a site that people upload Tab on. My favourite is Ultimate Guitar. This site has almost an unlimited amount of tab, you can look at the ratings and ensure it is good. You can also see on the search if it is guitar tab, chords, or paid (pro). There is plenty of great tab without needing to look at pro so I would just avoid these unless you feel the want for more. This is what you should do with the experimental play or fun play sections of the routines above.

To Learn guitar online check out our online academy with over 200 video lesson arranged into easy to follow courses here: The Guitar Ninja Online Guitar Lessons

We also have clubs local to Northampton and Leighton Buzzard for face to face group guitar sessions. Read more here: https://www.roryprice.com/