I would like to ask you one thing that is in my head and its about whats âthe rightâ way to think about guitarâŚ
On one side I can see I have to strict do practice routines daily best 15-60 minutes, so I can learn something.
On other side there are many people saying take it slow, dont hurry⌠enjoy guitar, play what you like.
I guess right way is somewhere in the middle, but I am still fighting in my head if my progress is enough or I am too much in hurry. I cant judge it by myself. I think there wont be a time I can do literally everything and just play - the practice is always needed, but should I feel bad if I just pick guitar 1-2 weeks in a row just for playing what I can and enjoy it? Without learning anything new at all?
Like there are days I can stay on guitar hours⌠then there are days where I just pick guitar for âone minute songâ and put guitar back. I pick like this guitar 5-10 times a day when I go or sit around. When I finished my meal or when there is commercial in TV.
Sometimes I think that pushing myself to learn new things is too overwhelming⌠even when I know it will make me better guitarist.
I dont wanna find excuses to avoid learning new things, definitely not⌠I am just fighting inside my head what is right in the moment.
Because after all⌠is not playing what I like even short time kind of practice and making me better guitarist?
You know it already, but Iâll just repeat it for clarity-
It only depends on what you want from your guitar playing
If you want to become a technically proficient guitar player, that requires time, dedication and focus, including repetitive (sometimes boring) exercises. Much of your pleasure will come from the progress you make.
On the other hand, once you have a few basic skills under your fingers, you can get just as much enjoyment out of your guitar as the masters. Play what you want, as often or as little as you like.
I once heard Tommy Emmanuel ask a kid:
-How long do you practice?
-Two hours every day.
-Thatâs OK, but youâll really start notice yourself getting better when you practice over four hours every day.
Like you said, the answer for most of us lies in between.
Find your own sweet spot
Hi Michal
With a little bit of practice you get a little bit better⌠with super focus and long practice you get a lot better⌠what is your goal? if you just want to have fun and donât have too big star ambitions, you are doing absolutely fine now and I would continue with what you are doing⌠if you want to play in a pub or small parties and places, you will make great process if you gather other musicians around you, which is always a nice and good fun stepâŚ
I donât have a strict (not just a loose one ) practice routine myselfâŚI play/practice a couple of songs every day and if this involves special exercises to improve, I throw them in throughout the day or weekâŚmy wish is to meet some people. to stand on a small stage (or in front of a stage ) and play some music âŚnothing more nothing less
I think once you introducing time into the equation (e.g. am I progressing fast enough?) then youâre on the wrong path in my opinion. If you enjoy playing guitar youâll keep doing it and get better and if you donât enjoy playing (because youâre putting pressure on it) then youâll quit is how I see it.
What Iâve noticed is that as Iâm improving, Iâm playing more because Iâm enjoying it more. Less of the tedious (but necessary) exercises and more playing songs that I actually enjoy. Different things work for different people. If I schedule time every day then it starts to feel like work not fun to me. Prioritise enjoying your guitar and improvement will follow
I am beginner at Grade 2 Module 12. I took a little visit to fingerstyle from different teacher, because fingerstyle is main reason why I picked guitar. I dont wanna play in pub or public⌠but I wanna play on YouTube. In master goal being able to play song by just fingerstyle so the notes are telling the words. If you know what I mean by that.
I know this is like the TOP goal, so I have to divide it. Now I worked on blues fingerstyle and now I will start learning christmass songs fingerstyle like âWe wish you a merry Christmassâ.
I am learning and playing guitar around⌠17 months? And I dont think about quitting guitar at all, I cant imagine my life to go home and not see guitar here and not pick it.
I am just big âthinkerâ and things like this are overwhelming, because I feel like someone will judge me one day how is it possible I cant do this or this, so I think its problem only in my head because music community is really nice from my experience.
@Carreta There is no right way. I started off going headlong into the course thinking -I must get good -I must get good- then along came a shoulder injury and couldnt play for 6 months. This led me to re evaluate and now I play for fun. Im 66 and started almost 2 years ago. Can play quite a few âcampfire!â songs and am happy with that. I still practice new things but I know my limitations and the amount of work required. So, long story shortâjust play when you want and enjoy.
set your goals : why do I play guitar ? what do I want to acheive and you ll get your answer
If you want to progress : " Practice what you struggle with , not what you re good at " but thereâs no timing set and how long will it takes to get better , thats up to you !
Create your own schedule
and practicing doesn t mean not playing for fun too , you just need to be careful to not end up playing only for fun the stuff you already know
@MacOneill I understand what you are talking about, but where is that border to play stuff you know and not getting better and playing stuff you know and getting better?
Like I got few âsongsâ where I do hammer on or flick off. Also I got one where I change finger pattern for melody. I cant really say I can do it 100% masterclass, so for me playing this over and over makes it feel better. Like that is concept of learning too, you play it again and again. Slowly and accurate.
Here is my take for Justins competition, I really enjoy playing just this. I can hear note which I missed with my finger and I think I will fix that for future if I just play it again and again.
I can understand playing only D to G with downstrums wont give me that much like some complex song playing⌠but I think I am not on that level anymore. When I look back on my videos. Today I can do things I never thought about and I am still beginner.
Somewhere between us and Steve Vai before he got really good âŚhe taught Justin to practice what youâre good at âŚ
Good luck finding that sweet spot , but I believe that almost none of us here have gotten that far yet, but a light focus on a style or songs can of course do no harm at all
Great video, thanks for sharing. I think I wont take it to this level because I dont want to⌠or I dont know how to describe it. He is too strict to me. I cant imagine I would play wrong or buzzy note in front of him.
But I will definitely take from this slow practice is the key.
I have this internal debate all the time. Sure, I should hunker down and spend 30 non-stop minutes doing exercises with the metronome. Often I donât, I just play some songs or try a new lesson. At the end of the day, the more time I spend with my hands on the guitar, the better I feel, and the damned relentless metronome just keeps staring at me no matter what.
@mfeeney0110 I think we have similar thinking. Great to see it.
I used to practice with metronome a lot, but I did not use it months now. Guess I should start again. But inner feel is telling me I dont have big problems with keeping in time.
My approach is to keep learning songs that have at least some challenging aspect in them so Iâm enjoying it and improving. For me currently thatâs 1/16th note strumming and it sounds like for you it might be hammer-ons/offs. I suppose the challenge is getting the right mix of practicing the technique and using it in a song. If you always do it in a song it can disguise sloppiness so itâs worth doing the exercises too. In my case I do make sure I do some practice without a backing track so I can clearly hear if Iâm sounding good or not - of course playing in time with a backing track is a skill in itself worthy of practice.
It is good if you can have some measure of your playing to be able to assess improvement. Maybe thatâs a recording, maybe itâs simply that you can now play part of a song that was defeating you last week, maybe itâs how fast you can keep pace with a metronome. Iâve got a Green Day song thatâs got a load of single note picking in thatâs too fast for me, but I have it on a loop in an app and Iâm gradually able to increase the playback speed which is another measure of progress
I am in the camp that has no real agenda. I want to play and enjoy music on guitar. I am slowly getting closer.
I prefer to play and practice songs in and out of my wheelhouse. This pushes me to places where I find I need to drop back and do some exercises to build abilities to play them, so I do more rote exercises again, back and forth.
I do try to use warmup exercises each time that help build right and left hand coordination. But I am not here to get lost in a bunch of exercises. That is for those with more ambitious or professional goals. My exercises are there, they are just motivated by my actual attempts at playing.
@mattswain Yeah, its great to have something you can work on even on things you play. Like you said⌠for me its video recording. I got it all on YouTube and I know I got here âWe wish you a merry Chistmassâ here from last year. But I was not able to strum that, so I got here only poor chord change not even in time. This year I am aiming for strumming and also fingerstyle version and with this I can compare how big step I did through whole year, because I think I am ready and able to learn it now. I know I wasnt able to do it last year. Now I can.
Technique practice - like exercises focusing on specific things like PFC with chords you are going to use in new song.
New stuff - like new song, etc.
Now while enjoying guitar we tend to play old stuff in which we are very proficient or some new song which we came across and really liked. And you only do technique practice when you need them to help you with whatever new stuff your learning. There is no fixed time limit on anything and you do whatever makes you feel satisfied.
While someone who play guitar for living do have a well defined schedule of revising old stuff, learning new stuff and technique practice to supplement both. Yes, they practice more than a regular guitar enjoyer by just putting more time and being a little more organized.
For me personally following JustinGuitar modules works great in terms to progressing and keeping myself satisfied while I also keep revising old stuff and applying it other songs and experimenting and doing whatever feel good. I like focusing on one new song at a time while revising old stuff. But as I progress more, I do have to drop some old songs because I canât revise 100 songs daily
Edit: Small time bound goals are great like learning a song in a month but still be flexible. While big time bound goals donât work for me like completing a module in specific time.
) practice routine myselfâŚI play/practice a couple of songs every day and if this involves special exercises to improve, I throw them in throughout the day or weekâŚmy wish is to meet some people. to stand on a small stage (or in front of a stage 
, but I believe that almost none of us here have gotten that far yet, but a light focus on a style or songs can of course do no harm at all