015 - What To Practice When You Are Short On Time

In this episode, I discuss a few ways to get the most out of your practice when you are short on time.

The most important thing is what you practice. Instead of playing the same riff or song, you have been playing for the last 20 years. Make sure you have structure and are practising the seven essential skills which are:

• Picking
• Chords
• Arpeggios
• Scales
• Rhythm
• Notes
• Aural

Break up your practice into four different sections:

1. Picking/Warm-up
2. Skill One
3. Skill Two
4. Song

For skill one and skill two choose from the list of seven essential skills and rotate through the remaining skills every time you practice. The goal is to get to the end of the week having practised all seven skills.

You can spend as long as you like on each section such as 5 minutes on each section totalling 20 minutes or if you are short on time even just one minute on each section.

A little bit of something is better than a whole lot of nothing.

Have a clear goal when practising, I want to get my G to C chord change quicker is not clear whereas I want to change between G & C 10 times in 30 seconds is clear.

When coming up with a goal make sure it is a smart goal:

Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.

Here are a couple of apps to download to allow you to practice when you do not have a guitar:

Tenuto - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/tenuto/id459313476

Ear Master - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/earmaster-music-theory/id1105030163

Hope you enjoyed this episode! see you next week.