Developing Practice Habits

No matter what level you are it's critical to get into a regular practice habit to make your best progress. This routine should be done at the same time every day if at all possible so it becomes habitual.

First determine the length that you are able to and willing to practice – obviously the further along you are the longer you'll need to practice in order to get better. And as lame as it sounds, use a clock and time yourself, don't allow yourself to get away with practicing less then normal unless a situation you cannot control arises – keep a practice journal for this purpose.

I generally don't recommend practicing any more then 30 minutes in one sitting, generally your hands need a break, even if it's to get up – stretch then sit right back down, personally I practice in 15 minute chunks.

What to Practice

Now there are quite a few aspects to, depending on your levels and goals what you need to practice changes, but basically what you need to practice falls into a few categories.

Tunes
Chords
Scales
Arpeggios
Chops
Ear Training
Theory

Tunes:

This one is fairly obvious, but even it can be broken up into two categories: Tunes you can play and tunes you can't play.

Work on some stuff you can't play: break things down work through it by section slowly, expand your repertoire.

Work on stuff you can play: This is what breaks up intense practice sessions, and helps you enjoy your playing, smooth things out, get it faster, change some notes and add your own spin.

Chords:

“I know all the chords” I've heard this a lot, if you think you do – you don't.

A chord is formed by any 3 or more notes, there are 12 notes, do the math, there's a lot of chords. And there are always different voicings you can learn for them (My old teacher had math showing that there were about 36 000 different ways to play a C major chord if my memory serves correctly).

Scales/Arpeggios:

Memorize, learn with a metronome, play faster, in different positions, in different sequences, etc.

Chops:

This one is pretty vague, Scales and Arpeggios tie in with this one, as well as things like right hand tapping, pinch harmonics, basically any technique developing exercise you have.

Ear Training:

For the most part people do this playing and tuning their instruments, however, if you really want to develop your ears, you have to learn to sing. Don't worry about tone, just hit the notes, sing scales, sing intervals, don't worry if you can't sing, anyone can learn to hit the notes. Also try transcribing some songs that you don't know, be patient with it, I'll post an article on the process soon.

Theory:

This is the only one not completely done with your guitar, learn something new theory wise and experiment. For example take Tri-tone subs and work with them over a progression you already know with a lot of dominant 7 chords. If you're not at that level theory wise, then there are resources such as musictheory.net that you can use to learn the basics.

My typical day looks like this:

I get up around 10am, after breakfast and showering it's usually around 10:30, and I practice until one. I then eat lunch and head to my studio, I then practice there until I start teaching (usually four). I go to work early so that I don't have all the stuff at home to distract me, I generally have a really short attention span. If I sleep past 10, I won't practice nearly as much, most of the time trying to practice in the evening fails for me, simply because I currently don't have the habit of doing that in place.

That's over five hours of practice “time” but generally I only get 3.5-4 hours done during that. I then try to spend some time transcribing something, write something for here, or even screw around a bit before bed.