I have been studying classical guitar for a few years:self taught. I am not getting better. I need a good practice routine,because I just keep jumping around.
Bob


Edited by Forum Admin at 04:00 on Friday, April 11, 2003
Reason: title clarified]

What is your practice routine at the moment?

I am using a book "100 graded guitar studies". There are different studies emphasising different areas of efficiency on the guitar:barring, scale runs, chords,and some sight reading. My problem is I get bored with an exercise before I become proficient on it,so I move on to another exercise and another exercise and so on.

Unfortunelty you gotta learn to crawl before you walk. That means getting used to the menial boring tasks in guitar (as in with any instrument) before you can get good

It`s all about patience.

Thanks for your reply. One more question:how many hours a week would one have to dedicate to practice to show some improvement?

Believe me not less than 5 hours in the day(NOT BY THE WEEK)
That is only if you want to be the best!!!!
Okay i will suggest a sugestion to you
Try to practise so hard every day for 5 hours or more and not less and be patient for only 2 or 3 monthes
and believe me after those littel monthes you will send me a gift and thanks
Good luck!!!!!

I`ll give it a shot.

Thankyou for your patience.

whoaa!!!! the only people who practice that long have been playin an instrument for all their life and been playin in orchestras. if you practice that long you dont get anything done b/c ur so tired and nothin sinks in. u only need to practice about an hour a day, hour and a half at most. if you practice for a long time you could really screw yourself over just by ruining your fingers. you have to be really talented to be able to play that long, even practice

An hour a day solo music per instrument is what most music teachers will tell you. A few hours if you are within a month of an exam. Anything more and it starts to become counter productive. Never practise for more than an hour at a time, if you really need to practise for a long time then do it in hour shifts leaving a few hours in-between. And obviously practise for other things like ensemble or orchestra on top of that if you do them.

yeah, you need to work into longer practice times, but also, 5 hours a day is reasonable for just about anyone as long as it isnt 5 hours straight. Segovia used to break his playing up into 1 1/2 hour blocks and would do 2-3 sessions of practicing a day. I recently heard about this and it helps alot, after a certain amount of time practicing(several hours) it can become unproductive and even counter productive. It`s different for every person though, it takes me almost an hour to get to where I feel like I`m really at my best(I also live in fairbanks alaska and its winter, in the summer its much easier to get warmed up).
Another very very important thing, especially for classical, use a metronome to build up your speed, but when you are performing there are points where you may want to slow down or speed up the piece for dynamic purposes.
hope this was helpful

Everyone needs to go to www.guitarprinciples.com and check out Jamey Andreas.

From what I could gather from the J. Andreas site,I am skeptical about people who think they have the answer to all questions about anything.My opinion is that it is a rip off and just a weay to gesnerate a profitfor J. Andreas. But thanks for the sugestion.

Bob, your problem has less to do with how long you practice and more to do with organization and setting goals. You should be able to make progress whether you can practice 1 hour a day or are lucky enough to have access to 5. Even if your life becomes hectic, you should be able to make progress at a mere 1/2 hour every other day if you learn to focus your time.

First, what is your big goal? Mine is sophisticated improvisation, specifically in blues and country. Yours is probably to advance to the point where you can play advanced repertoire, but maybe there is something else you are really reaching for, so figure that out.

Second, set smaller, more reachable goals. For instance, you may want to finish that book of studies and maybe there are some pieces you specifically want to learn.

Now, set a lesson plan. Since you are not seeing a teacher, you have to do this yourself. Seriously, give yourself assignments. For instance, this week I am going to work on Exercises 6,7, & 8, learn the intro to piece A, work on the middle section of piece B, and memorize piece C. At the end of the week, evalutate your progress. Maybe Exercises 7 & 8 are ready to check off, but exercise 6 needs more work, etc. Once you get used to the idea of assignment, you don`t have to be so strict about the week thing. You`ll just know when you are done or when it needs more practice.

When you are working on a piece or exercise, decide what you are working on for the session. Is it rhythm, dynamics, articulation, evenness, right hand fingering, left hand fingering? If you need to work on several areas, focus some run throughs on one aspect, some on the another, etc.

Now, if you are lucky enough to be able to do several practice sessions during one day, then you have another decision to make. Do you want to focus on the same material both morning and night with the hopes of learning it faster or do you want to explore several areas? I always perfer the second option, unless I`m preparing for a performance. It`s keep you from getting bored. You could also opt to let your second (or third session) be you play time instead: play through old stuff you like, sight read everything in sight, play around with scales and improvisation, explore something out of a totally different style, jam with friends or a CD, etc. Don`t forget to schedule fun time. It will keep you interested.

If you are going to practice more than an hour a day, then it is very important that you learn some stretches. Classical guitar especially demands extreme prolonged flexion (bending toward palm) on the wrists, so you need to learn some extension exercises (bending away from palm) to counter that. Also,never practice for more than 1 1/2 to 2 hours without a long break. Ideally, you should take a break every hour for 10 minutes to allow the tendons in your wrists and hands to relubricate so you don`t develop tendonitis, but you can stretch this time if you take a longer break afterwards.

Oh yes, one more thing. Musicians at all levels often get frustrated that they are not making progress as fast as they would like. But usually, we are missing the forest for the trees. Go back and look at those old pieces. Do you see patterns that weren`t evident before? What were you doing a year ago that seems easy now? What things do you understand now that seemed a total mystery before? Go ahead, give yourself a pat on the back for all you have achieved. You deserve it!!!
Julie