I am a 60 year old low-intermediate player and need to rapidly improve on a couple items, playing lead and not looking at the guitar being the biggest hurdles. I have a practice schedule of 5 events at 5 minutes apiece. I am also starting the balancing exercise beforehand hoping to tap into the neuroplasticity of learning. How often should I practice? I was thinking twice a day? Anyone have any insights?
I have always been a “practice when you can guy”, for the most part. Justin recommended two half hour practice sessions at the intermediate level.
I’m guilty of getting sloppy with my practice schedule. I try to practice for an hour a day then work on songs for an hour a day, but that doesn’t always happen.
We are all different Bryan. Some people are very structured with their practice time. Others (like me) are a bit more haphazard. The bottom line is practice as much as you can, but it must be fun, enjoyable and realistic in terms of time. We all have lots of other things and people in our lives that need our time too.
Practice time also has to be focused. No point spending 30 minutes fiddling around without a specific purpose or aim.
If I feel like simply ‘noodling’ I’ll spend my time trying to improve my playing of a particular song or scale.
I appreciate the comments about focus and structured practice. My poor playing is probably the product of IM-perfect and sporadic practice for many decades. I assumed practice made perfect and never progressed past “kinda good enough” to perfect. No more - I will only practice perfection as Justin describes. I have committed to doing 5 minutes each: arpeggio with pick, fingerpicking, scales and minimum finger movement exercises, and 5 minutes of soloing. I am using a timer for all sessions and metronome for the scales and minimum finger exercises. I do 5 minutes on a balance ball before practice per advice of Justin (he references Huberman Labs podcasts which I had some familiarity with). Thanks for the input. I will let you know if this old dog learns any new tricks!!