How much do you practice each day?

[SteveHung]

When I was in high school and college, I would practice on average about 4 hours a day. Some days I would practice for 8 hours straight. Other days I would only practice for 2 hours.

As an adult with a dayjob and other obligations, I find it harder to devote time to practicing. These days, I usually practice 1-2 hours on the weekdays, and 4-6hours on the weekend.

[sayheyjeff]

I try and play at least 3 hours a day. It takes me at least that to improve my playing. When I get 3 hours of really working at guitar and another couple of hours of playing - particularly with others, that is when I feel like I improve and enjoy playing the most. Never occurred to me it would be any other way. Its been easier to make the time now that I am retired, of course.

jeff

[ljguitar]

Hi all...

I'm nearly 65 and have been playing actively since age 16, and teaching for 37 years locally. I'm part of a worship team, and teach fingerstyle guitar.

Practice, sometimes. Especially if I'm learning something new.

How much? Some days 30 minutes, some days 3 hours, and some days I don't even touch a guitar. Not running my life by a clock, and developing new projects and songs, and staying in shape.

I think perspective and projects have a lot to do with my schedules. I know when it's necessary and what's necessary to practice when I do.

[815C]

Originally Posted by ljguitar

I think perspective and projects have a lot to do with my schedules. I know when it's necessary and what's necessary to practice when I do.

I can relate to that.

Last August I put in at least 200 hours arranging horn charts for a big gig - and barely touched my guitar.

Last Nov/Dec I did a Christmas tour and practiced more than usual on some of the tunes (it was a jazz based show with tight written arrangements that required some prep on my part).

If I have something coming up, I'll put in a lot more time than if I'm just in neutral.

[815C]

One more post and I'll shut up.

I heard that Segovia practiced 5 hours each day.

I may have exact times of day wrong, but it was something like this...

An hour & 15 minutes in the morning
An hour & 15 minutes after lunch
An hour & 15 minutes before supper
An hour & 15 minutes at night

Seemed to work well for him.

[Toby Walker]

Originally Posted by 815C

One more post and I'll shut up.

I heard that Segovia practiced 5 hours each day.

I may have exact times of day wrong, but it was something like this...

An hour & 15 minutes in the morning
An hour & 15 minutes after lunch
An hour & 15 minutes before supper
An hour & 15 minutes at night

Seemed to work well for him.

That much? I never would have taken Segovia for having a 'paucity of natural talent.'

[Geof S.]

At the moment I usually practice between 60 and 90 minutes a day, 4 to 6 days a week.

During the week I practice in the evenings after I get home from work. 60 to 90 minutes is about right.

Sometimes I practice a little more on weekends, but rarely more than 2 hours a day. I just can't seem to focus for more than a couple hours, even if I take breaks.

About half my practicing is devoted to fingerstyle, about half to working with a pick. I've found that I am more engaged in the process when I mix things up a bit.

I seem to be making slow but steady progress which is good enough for me. In another 10 years or so I might be pretty decent.

Practicing for me is more like a kind of meditation than anything else. It helps me unwind after a long day at a stressful job. So although I do want to progress as a player, it's not the main thing for me.

[Bern]

Originally Posted by 815C

I practice as much as I can - but not enough

That sums up my situation as well.
IMO, QUALITY practice is important, which varies from player to player. Some players find it hard to figure out their weak spots.

[skitoolong]

To add my thoughts to some made before.

My son has natural golf talent. I took him to some exceptional instructors through his development.

At first he was head and shoulders above the rest. Then over the years those with perhaps slightly less talent but much more passion and an insatiable need to practice and be taught grew even and then became superior golfers.

I learned to re-evaluate my perspective on "talent".

Oh.... I try and get 8 ours a week in, but yearn for more. Much more.

[BlueBird2]

I spend somewhere between fifteen minutes to three, four hours everyday. I may be watching TV while moving my fingers, I may be laying on the bed doing finger exercises, I may be sitting in a chair in front of music stand practicing whatever Im not good at. I used to set a time to shut out everything and commit for at least twenty minutes a day, but now I'm just grabbing a guitar whenever wherever I can and don't really think about time. I'm not.sure which way is better way to practice.

[Jackknifegypsy]

Toby, I admitted pretty much everything you said.

But as the Dali Lama once said, "There is your perspective, your experience of "the Tree"; there is my perspective, and everyone else's perspective of 'the tree'. And then....
There is the tree".

The Tree will not be denied.

Mozart didn't practice in the context we are talking about here. As your video states in the narrative, he had it all worked out in his head. So did Beethoven, and many maestros. They have the gift, talent, the something--- no matter what you call it--- that Clapton, and others do not. Clapton is technically a monster player. But his compositions are repetitive, and ultimately to me listenable, but hardly inspired. Not in the same league as Glenn Gould, as an example.

Fame and fortune are not necessarily going to come to the great and magnificent in their lifetimes. The number of those who are made famous and rich are culturally chosen, witness the rappers whose relentless non-musical beats are fundamentally hypnotic to many millions but poor almost duplicable assemblies of one creation. Like a car assembly line.

Then there's Christine, Andrew Lloyd Webber, Elton John, Britney, Beyonce, Bieber, Michael Jackson. There are immense levels of difference in their performances and some of them possess superior talents vs other loud screaming performers vs the Diva, the genius of the Maestros.

Without belaboring it, I think that given enough time and the obsessive compulsive, and let it be said, neuroticism that I could get immensely better. But my increments for every given hour of 'perfect practice' (there's really no point to practicing or repeating the same motions to get down a perfect riff if one is going to practice it imperfectly, is there?) are so small that I need to drop a note in chord to make it acceptable to me, rather than playing it in total synch with how it is written. A stretch from fret 1 to 5 may --and usually is-- eliminated.

Charlie oozed his music, it flowed from him, as did that of George Benson (my origjnal inspiration) or it seems so to me, from his very being just as the old Blues that inspired and motivated the likes of Clapton who always pays his homage to them, who suffered so much under poverty, slavery, and exploitation. TheBlues were were born because of these devastations to the human spirit, triumphant for some of them in the end.

[Jackknifegypsy]

I'd love to hear Segovia with a quarter of that practice. My bet is that we as the audience would not be able to tell the difference in his performances under both scenarios.

I learned that one day in my dorm room. A guy down the hall came to my room as I was playing a Malaguena I had by then nailed and could play for 5 minutes. He'd always ask me to play it again while he sat there listening to me, he loved it.

And yet to me, there were so many mistakes and coverups I would be complimented at his being an audience for me, but I was also amused at what I 'got away with'.

After spending much time and still occasionally listening to Segovia among others, I had to stop playing Classical guitar, overwhelmed finally after years, by their talent, their gifts, their music, compared to my 'playing the pieces' with a 'paucity of musicality' even their simple airs.

But as I stated originally, this will always and forever be a bone of contention among the obsessed who possess far more desire than they do talent. '

Sure, there are those like the golfer's child who backed away and let those with less talent and more desire than his boy did who will succeed.

But which heart surgeon are you going to choose? The practiced one or the one who is talented, from the get go Who also has done 5000 heart surgeries??

[clintj]

Work days, between a 12 hour shift and 90 minute bus ride each way I'm lucky if I get in 15 minutes outside of sleep, meals, and such. Off work days, I can get anywhere from an hour to three total in easily, sometimes more if I come back to it a second or third time in a day. I was taking my Backpacker in to get 20-30 minutes in at lunchtime, but the winter dryness put a stop to that. Found out two days at less than 20% humidity will make it start fretting out and buzzing.

[gibbyguy]

2-3 hours/day

I usually split this into two parts one in morning before I head to work,
The other later at night.

It is hard for me to imagine that someone sits and just practices drills and exercises on their guitar for several hours straight just as a discipline in itself. I tend to think that most great players are driven by a passion of achieving new heights and this may include drills and exercises as they fit into a bigger picture.

I am not a discipline freak...I am driven by my passion for the guitar and learning/creating songs. Repetition and hard work however is mandatory. There are no shortcuts. It helps having a wife that encourages my playing, and every time she walks by while I'm practicing, she bobs her head to the beat of the music I'm playing. Bless you Honey!

Ed

[hobbesy123]

JackKnife

I agree with you. There are just those who seem to be able to grasp things more quickly and fully than others. I've always loved music, but after years of playing my left hand is still miles away from feeling effortless.... it still won't quite do what my head can visualize it doing. It's still a struggle and my gains through practicing seem so incremental to me. There are those who are able to see things in a completely different way than others. Synesthesia.... musicians who can visualize music or mathematicians who do the same. Liszt and Rimsky-Korsakov disagreed on the colors of music keys. Is there something actually different about these people or is there just something more? Have you heard of acquired savant syndrome? Here's a link to a fascinating story on NPR of a 40 year old man who suddenly was able to play the piano after he suffered a head injury diving into the shallow end of a pool. Is there something going on besides raw talent? Can some of us even hold ourselves back with self doubt to some extent? You hear quite a bit about tension and overthinking being incredibly detrimental to playing well. It's very interesting

http://www.snapjudgment.org/sudden-savant