guitar sabbath?

No not Tony Iommi.

For those who practice and play daily, do you take days off? I take Saturdays off. 99% of the time I don't play at all on Sat. I will change strings and read about guitar and the AGF but I try to avoid playing. I find it helps to take a break and rest my hands and spent extra time with family. One exception is when I'm at FPR.

How about you?

[Gitfiddlemann]

A day off? No sir. It would never occur to me to do so.
It’s one of the day‘s most enjoyable time for me, so I look forward to it every day. I would miss it if I didn’t play at least a little.
I hope you don’t treat your playing/practicing time as work or a chore! ;-)

[DenverSteve]

Not intentionally. I play when I play and don't when I don't. Nothing planned or predictable. I play a lot more when preparing for a gig/show and less in between.

Originally Posted by AndreF

I hope you don’t treat your playing/practicing time as work or a chore! ;-)

Nope. Outside of spending time with my wife and kids I can't think of anything I'd sooner be doing. I just need rest.

[Pitar]

No. Ordinarily I'm looking forward to continued development of something that's got my interest piqued and there are rare occasions when that doesn't happen. But, I will say that I took a 29 year hiatus when I didn't even have a guitar. Life took another turn and it wasn't towards music. Since I returned to it every day has found me looking forward to playing.

Yes frequently, sometimes two or three days and sometimes none. I’ve never noticed it’s detrimental to my ability and in fact often I find it benefits me.

A lot of this boils down to how you practice. I realised a few years ago that you can achieve considerably more by focused practice and what I personally believe is that taking a day off or two allows your fingers to have a rest and your brain to incubate the information you have fed it.

It’s all a personal view though — there’s no right or wrong.

[leew3]

yes, just yesterday when I played mandolin instead!

Thanks for the comments guys. Nice to hear others approaches to this topic.

[Mr. Jelly]

Originally Posted by Mojo21

Yes frequently, sometimes two or three days and sometimes none. I’ve never noticed it’s detrimental to my ability and in fact often I find it benefits me.
It’s all a personal view though — there’s no right or wrong.

When I find I'm playing and not real interested I back away. Or if I have trashed my fretting hand from fretting to hard. It helps also to clear a guys head when comparing different guitars or arrangements of songs even. I find my working with arrangements or working on personnel songs is better away from the guitar. But then I change everything up from time to time to experience a new perspective.

[ljguitar]

Originally Posted by J-Doug

…How about you?

Hi J-D

I'm nearly 71, and playing less scheduled gigs. I have twice a month where I am scheduled to play, so often I'll go a couple days without playing.

So far (in the 6 years since we retired) I don't seem to have lost a beat (figuratively nor literally), nor have my calluses gone away.

I've been an all-flesh fingerstyler for over 55 years, and I remember arrangements from 40 years ago better than I remember people's names these days.

I have no need to (nor issue with) missing days. I mostly play for enjoyment. Occasionally I pull out the Strat and my Blues Junior.

[DukeX]

Originally Posted by DenverSteve

...I play when I play and don't when I don't. Nothing planned or predictable...

Same here, probably play five days a week average lately.

[islandguitar]

Originally Posted by DukeX

Same here, probably play five days a week average lately.

Yep, I"m in this category as well..........I'm much more focused when I'm composing, or pointing toward recording one of my tunes and will rise to more time and days toward these goals/outcomes.
If I'm not playing, that doesn't mean I'm not going over stuff in my head.....visualizing and "patterning" what I want with phrasing, volume for certain sections....options to what I'm currently doing, thinking through what tone I'm getting with certain strings/notes and figuring options.......sequencing A and B sections in a piece ( and C sections too!).
So, my head is into stuff, no matter whether I'm actually playing or not! But I'm usually a 5 day guy as indicated above.

[rick-slo]

Been noodling mainly the last few years but usually play at least a bit most days. Sometimes I will compose something to completion and be playing a fair amount during that process.

[TBman]

Lately I have been playing/practicing every day working on covers and my own stuff. We had a tax deadline yesterday at work and the past week was brutal. So last night I just watched the football game on TV while I played a bit of random noodles on my J-45. Generally though I will take one day off a week from playing/practicing.

[jaymarsch]

I generally take days off mostly due to work and other obligations rather than a
planned sabbatical. I find that a break can be helpful at times.

Best,
Jayne