hitting the woodshed - guitar practicing

y2jake215

so, i used to play guitar a lot, and did a lot of technical exercises and all that business, and saw my ability increase a lot as well. but having actual things to do has cut into that for a few years, and id like to start up again. i used to do a lot of the stuff from steve vai's 10 hour workout, and id like to do that again. its just that the sheer volume of stuff there is to do is overwhelming. i never know how long to work on each permutation of 1-2-3-4 at what BPM, when to move onto other things, all that. does anyone have any advice for time management of technical exercises?

Reckless

Work on the things that give you the most trouble first and for the longest amount of time.

With that said, I spent my first year of playing guitar doing a lot of those exercises. After that year, I was a fairly excellent technical guitarist, but I couldn't play music worth a damn. Remember to play with other musicians and develop a sound with soul alongside doing those exercises.

Pheezer

Well, if you're not interested in actually enjoying playing...

Play each progression until you can play it with satisfactory accuracy. Start slow, and each time you play it correctly, move up in speed or complexity, and keep going until you fuck up. Repeat the ones you fuck up until you play them clean. Keep going.

Remember to start out slow every day though, or you're not going to be able to play at a consistent rhythm at any speed other than the very fastest you can go. You'll end up speeding up as you play every time because you won't be used to forcing yourself to maintain an even tempo at a slower pace.

EggyToast

And as Reckless says, don't forget to take time to learn songs as well. If you're playing songs that are technically simple, or that even have somewhat complex solos or bridges or whatever, and you're blowing them out of the water, then you would be better suited to work on expression than raw technique. Technique is there to support the music.

And as Pheezer says, don't forget about slow. It's often far more difficult for people to stay in time at slow tempos, and there's a large body of music under 100bpm. When I practice tempos I often will put the metronome at 40bpm and do quarter and eigth notes down there, because all that empty space forces me to work on my own internal rhythm.

y2jake215

yeah, for this i dont need to actually enjoy playing. i do enough random playing and all that. its just whenever i sit down and try to actually improve lately that i lose focus.