What is Your Practice Routine?

[Jim Comeaux]

I am a creature of habit, and as such I have developed a “routine” when I start a practice session, and it doesn’t change. Why do I even have a routine? I don’t know, it just sort of happened. It does not concern me that I have a routine, Imjust find it curious that my routine is so rigid and unchanging. I don’t consciously try to do things in any particular order or sequence it just seems to me to be the logical,progression and I am just curious as to whether you folks also have routines. So, here is my routine: 1. Select which guitar I am going to play today. 2. Remove the tuner from the guitar that I played yesterday and put it on the guitar that I am going to play. Now on this one I think that I know why. I must have a little touch of O.C.D. (obsessive compulsive disorder).I originally did this to remind myself of which guitar I Played yesterday. 3. Tune the guitar to pitch. 4. Start my warm up exercises. This consists of playing two octaves of the G Maj., the A Maj., the C Maj. and the D Maj. Scales using both open and fretted strings. 5. Play the same scales using only fretted notes. I’ll play each scale about 8:to 10 times each or until I can get through them without completely screwing it up two or three times in a row. This takes me about 20 to thirty minutes depending on how my muscle memory is working that day and I’m pretty much warmed up. I can then go ahead and work on whatever I had decided to work on that day. In total my sessions last about 1 1/2 to 2 hours and I make a concerted effort to do it every day. O.K.,so why those four scales, you ask? It’s because my genre of music is bluegrass and 95% of all bluegrass is written and/or played in those four keys, unless you are a banjo player and then EVERYTHING is written and played in G Maj.

[rick-slo]

If I am working up to do a new recording I just get right to playing through the particular piece I am working on and that usually means an original piece
or an arrangement of some other tune. Occasionally I do a note for note piece of something I have heard. No new thing in mind I just play through prior
pieces I know. Not much into doing guitar exercises in isolation.

[FrankHudson]

I call myself a composer, as my musician skills are limited, but I need some of them to realize what I'm composing. I also still play for pleasure, and would continue that if I wasn't composing/recording new pieces.

So, I'm no generalizable model of how to develop musical instrument operator skills, so the rest of this isn't a recommendation, only a data point.

On acoustic guitar my usual "keep up some chops" practice is to play old-school "folk songs" as one would find in folk-music performances 60 years ago or so. This means a mix of folkie-blues, Child ballads, early C&W, late 19th and early 20th century pop songs that were adapted by the folk-revival as if Trad., early singer-songwriters up to and including Bob Dylan. I play them to keep my fingers limber, to practice simple things like chord changes and voicings, and as I play them I'll sometimes spontaneously "re-arrange" them which exercises my composer muscles too.

On electric, my usual practice these days is based around the instant music of the Digitech Trio pedal where I quickly play in a chord progression, and then hear what the Trio interprets that as (often it's not what I expected/intended, which is a feature not a bug for me) and play over that. Again, I'm keeping my finger strength and flexibility up, and I'm learning how work with/in contrast to various beats and bass lines.

The great thing about the Trio is that I can easily be using it in less than 5 minutes in my studio space, and that I can play against 6-10 different things that I've never heard before in even a short 1 hour practice session.

I do other things too, but those the two most common.

[The Bard Rocks]

Other than tuning, no routine. some days i practice something I expect to perform soon. Other days, just ramble through the iPad and play whatever suits my fancy. And some days I noodle.

[rmp]

yep..

I grab a guitar, take it out of the case..

and I play it.

from there, I let the muse find the way home.

[Bushleague]

Originally Posted by rick-slo

If I am working up to do a new recording I just get right to playing through the particular piece I am working on and that usually means an original piece
or an arrangement of some other tune. Occasionally I do a note for note piece of something I have heard. No new thing in mind I just play through prior
pieces I know. Not much into doing guitar exercises in isolation.

More or less this. If I am trying to get better at any technique I write or otherwise arrange some music so I can work on that technique. They call it Playing guitar, not working your guitar. I've always felt that once it feels like work I'm obviously headed in the wrong direction.

[raysachs]

I don't have a prescribed routine, but what usually happens is when I sit down I'll have a song in mind I want to work on. If I don't, I'll usually page through my OnSong catalog and something will strike my fancy. Then I'll play through it a few times and if I like how I'm doing it, I'll turn on the recorder and record it, and if I like it at all, I'll add a lead guitar track, occasionally a second rhythm track, sometimes a second vocal track. That's usually an hour or two. Later in the day or week, I'll listen back through what I've recorded, most of them I'll trash, but every now and then I'll like something enough to keep it.

Occasionally, I'll just pick up my electric and jam with my looper, but I'm doing that less and less lately. And some days I'll play some finger style but I'm doing that less and less lately too. I learned some basic blues finger style over the past few years, but once I got to a point of semi-competence, I kind of lost interest in it. I can sort of do it, but it feels like it's all about rote repetition and memory - I don't feel like I'm at all creative with it, so I don't enjoy it that much after the initial challenge of it. I'm turning into a song guy, which is a drag because I rarely sing well enough to like what I come up with, but every now and then I like it well enough. But I LOVE doing it, regardless of the quality of the finished product...

All of which is essentially NOT A PRACTICE ROUTINE at all. I just play. But that's my typical routine...

-Ray

[j3ffr0]

I avoid "practice routine" like the plague as my decades of playing have taught me that it is poisonous to my playing, creativity, and motivation. I also understand and respect that a routine might work wonders for some people, but it just ain't for me.

[CASD57]

My routine is weird....

New Song...I attempt it in multi-keys...Either/or both by Key or moving the capo I practice it verse by verse, If it's a hard song I might only do one verse at a time until I'm happy enough to do the whole song, and then I fine-tune it until most of the rough spots are working right.
Then I slow it way down, which helps with learning it...Speeding it up and finding a good tempo for me.
I do this in short 10-20 min sessions...1-3 times a day and sometimes miss a day...
It seems I make good progress when I take breaks.

I've also been trying to make the guitar playing Intros and outros and general feel similar to the original, Which helps me feel the melody better= singing it better.

I'll usually have a harder song ready in a week or less
I'm finishing up on the song "Please" by Chris Isaak and will probably have it on Songcloud this weekend

The one in my signature I did in three days, with some adjustments that fit me better.