Practical Approach To Practicing The Guitar

This is such a common question asked by our guitar students, and we can help break it down in a simple formula. For the most part everyone is different but what is equal across the board for all guitar players are 4 common subjects for practice and they are Scale Work, Chord Work, Rhythm Work, and Song Work. Let me explain…

The first thing you must remember is that short consistent practices verses long sporadic practices is  what will make the difference! An example would be practicing Monday for 3 hours and then not again until Saturday. Rather the better way would be 45 minutes on Monday – Wednesday – Friday; it’s consistency that will allow you to progress much quicker. So let’s take a look at the break down.

First subject I like to start with is scale work especially for warming up since it provides your fingers to stretch at a nice even pace. Now scale work can consist of many areas i.e. working on new scale patterns, different warm up patterns, lead guitar patterns, soloing over chord progressions etc… Next I move onto Chord work. This is where I keep working on previous chord lessons as well as move forward onto new material. Practice switching between difficult chord changes, or playing progressions etc…
 
Now I move onto Rhythm work… This can consist of anything from specific rhythm patterns, to playing with a metronome or drum machine and even lead work (believe it or not lead guitar requires a great sense of rhythm and timing and is frequently overlooked).  Lastly this is usually the students favorite; Song Work! Now I don’t time myself on this subject only because this is what we guitar players are working for, Right? This subject can consist of working on new songs, old songs, practicing or learning solos, just jamming or messing around, basically this is your time to really dig into the instrument and have some fun to keep yourself motivated and hungry for more knowledge.

In a nutshell take the time you have to practice and then divide it by 4 then take your 4 subjects Scales, Chords, Rhythm and Songs and get to work. I have been teaching guitar for over 12 years, and own many guitar instruction websites. I can guarantee you this will make your guitar playing skyrocket. If you have any questions feel free to contact me over at www.learnguitar.net  Rick Napolitano

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