The Ultimate Guitar Practice Routine - Exercises and Schedule

One of the most popular pastimes today is playing the guitar. However, not everyone can do it to become a good guitarist. Even those who have mastered them must practice regularly to be able to play at their best. If you are a beginner, you should also have a guitar practice routine and not give up halfway. Some of the shares below will help you get more useful information when learning guitar.

Importance of a practice routine

To be motivated to have a guitar practice routine, everyone has to know why it's important to start practicing in the first place. For all guitar players, building a habit is essential to becoming a pro. Then people need to start from basic skills to advanced techniques to reach the goal of mastery in the process of playing guitar. It also helps you step closer to your dream.

Every day, if you can't spend too much time on this job, you also need to spend a certain amount of time playing. Everything must happen regularly and regularly, not leave it halfway. Another problem to consider is that if you play the guitar with the wrong habits, it's just a waste of everyone's time. Make a plan for yourself, including goals, advantages, and disadvantages that need to be overcome. If you can do that, surely the path to becoming a professional guitar player will not be far away.

Qualities of a Guitar Practice Routine

To get the results you want, you should also learn what a good practice habit is to maintain. At the same time, it is also important to know what is a bad practice habit to avoid. Some examples below will help you get certain insights:

What is a good guitar practice routine?

In fact, there will not be a habit of practicing guitar exactly as desired. Habits are individually created by each person depending on the skills and techniques one wants to learn and perfect. A great habit also has measurable goals that you set for yourself and that you work on on a daily basis.

An example given for beginners is that when you're just starting out, you'll want to practice the basic chords and scales every day to get better at it. But when you're at a higher level, it's not as simple as that, but you'll want to practice the songs you're writing. Or dream even higher to create playlists to perform live in front of audiences. This example shows that based on the individual ability of each person to come up with the best guitar practice routine.

[caption id="attachment_368" align="aligncenter" width="1024"] A good guitar practice routine needs to be right for each person's level[/caption]

What is a bad guitar practice routine?

What happens if you have a bad practice habit is that you are not learning anything new or you are just strumming a few chords carelessly. Even if people spend a lot of time doing this work, the results are not as expected, you always only know the basics. It's a mistake that most guitar beginners make.

A question of concern is why do beginners make those mistakes? The main reason is that players don't have to strive, they feel extremely safe because they already know the basics. This is especially common for those who regularly have the habit of practicing intermediate level guitar. This problem means that everyone knows they need to practice but don't know what else they will have to learn themselves. So people just focus on strumming a few of their favorite pieces and call it a daily practice routine.

Concentration is also one of the great practice habits that everyone should know. For example, people need to practice their play. But instead of practicing how to play, you choose to check out the latest products offered by your favorite guitar company. You will then be researching different guitar specifications with the desire to choose the best guitar. But you should still understand that a beautiful guitar does not mean that it will make you a professional guitar player.

When deciding to practice guitar, don't get distracted by other things, choose to focus on your original main goal. Choose to start with one main goal and then focus on smaller goals to help you get closer to your original goal. For example, if your goal is to excel enough skill to play in a band, masterly practice different chords and hone your technique. All of this will make you a more versatile player, so you'll write great songs and different musicians will want to join you.

What should you focus on?

In fact, anyone who plays the guitar has set different goals for themselves with the beginner guitar practice routine. However, time to practice, improve skills and have specific exercises are factors that everyone focuses on.

Practice Length

In the perception that everyone wants the best results, they will have the mindset that they will spend many hours a day playing the guitar. But in reality, many people don't have time to start practicing every day. That's why people make time goals for practice sessions in the most appropriate way.

For Play Video specifically, you can choose a good goal of 60 minutes per day. Many people will feel anxious or embarrassed when they can only do a few minutes a day. The most important thing is that each person must know how to use this time intelligently and effectively. Then you need to play the guitar in a realistic way, not in wishful thinking. If you don't think you can spend three hours a day practicing, don't set that goal. But conversely if you can confidently say you can do it in 15 minutes a day, then work towards this goal and stick to it. When people start with the right training plan, the results will definitely be the same as the original goal they set.

If you really want to improve your guitar playing, you will have to identify the technique you want to learn or it's difficult to learn. You can perfect them with the exercises given in the next section.

Let's say that you are trying to achieve a goal of being solo. For this matter, there will be many solo related skills. You should separate these skills and focus on them individually before playing your favorite solos. For example, people will first need to come up with a plan to build their own pace. Once you've done that, focus on the vibrato and bends of a piece of music. When setting a goal on a certain song, many people have succeeded and found it effective.

You also need to listen closely to solos and guitar parts to identify different techniques. Look at the tabs or write notes if you want to learn by ear and learn how to play the basics without specific techniques. You can also do this with as many songs as you want to learn, just separate them by difficulty and study easier than before.

Some easy sad guitar songs that you want to learn

[caption id="attachment_369" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Everyone should make time to practice regularly[/caption]

Exercise

For the exercises that have been given by the experts before, you can apply and search for a best guitar practice routine for yourself. When you're setting a goal or trying to find your weakness, you need an exercise to perfect that skill. If there is something you do not know, you can boldly ask your guitar teacher and guitar friends for an introduction. On the other hand, there is a lot of information on YouTube and various guitar forums that people can also refer to.

[caption id="attachment_371" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Choose exercises to practice and practice every day[/caption]

Example of a good guitar practice routine

A lot of guitarists learn better by using tips taught by experienced players. Below are examples of common practice routines, broken down by difficulty.

For Beginners

Most guitar practice routines for beginners should start with basic playing techniques before increasing in difficulty, such as:

Do the basic exercises of finger stretching
Basic skills (typing, playing or memorizing open chords, playing without looking, etc.)
Finger control
Learn to coordinate fingers on the same keyboard
Basic riffs / melodies

Each person practicing should focus on each skill for at least five minutes, although you may need to spend more time on certain techniques. This habit will be normal, people need to diversify their habits and at the same time should spend more time and focus on the areas where they are struggling. Doing these habits will take the average person anywhere from 25 minutes to almost two hours, depending on how much time you can dedicate to the practice.

For Intermediate

As an intermediate skiller, you can then master the basics and get a better idea of what you want to focus on. You can naturally form the habit of doing your own practice exercises. You can also follow the skills below or adjust to your needs:

Finger exercises and warm-up exercises
Learn the song
Intermediate techniques (bend, vibrate, hammer, scissors, pentatonic scales, other advanced chords, slides, scale runs, etc.)
Intermediate technique-based exercises

Once you reach the intermediate skill level, you won't need to spend a lot of time on the individual skills you've already mastered. You can then do a simple warm-up, such as doing exercises, stretching and working out for a few minutes. Anyone who spends a lot of time focusing on what they want to achieve. For example, people need to spend more time learning their favorite songs in order to perfect their technique.

Compared to beginners, intermediate players often spend more time playing guitar, every day they will spend about 2 hours learning. Besides, if you are a person who does not have too much time, you should still spend 10 minutes practicing, still better than not practicing at all.

For Advanced

Guitarists who reach the advanced level will have a clear understanding of their skills and come up with what they need to practice to become a pro.

At this point someone will choose to write their own music, and it is important to start practicing songs that they wrote themselves. If you're in a band, regular group practice becomes essential. Many guitarists may even dedicate their practice routine to the techniques and skills we mentioned before. Not so that you neglect to learn, you still have a lot to learn and practice at this level, such as:

Finger exercises, stretching and warm-up exercises
Chord progressions and other advanced theoretical practices
Song set
Plays both main guitar and rhythm part
Write better songs
Practice your own songs
Jam with private musicians or bands

Reaching the intermediate level means that we are spending a significant amount of time playing the guitar. A lot of people opt for this which can equate to at least four hours a day and even more. Of course every plan will change from time to time and there may be a few days where you only practice for half an hour. Be persistent and don't let that stop you, just make sure to set goals and work on the most important parts of your workout routine.

[caption id="attachment_372" align="alignnone" width="1000"] Advanced level people also need regular practice[/caption]

For Expert/Professional/Master

These levels can be grouped together in one category because you probably don't need help with a routine at this point. You are now an experienced and fully proficient guitar player.

It took you a few years to get to this level and you've learned a lot about the guitar and how you play in those years. As you know, once you have reached this level, regular practice is extremely important. You participate a lot in a band, often play shows and write music on any stage. You may even be on tour. However, to get the best guitar practice routine, here's a sample routine that you can compare to your own:

Start the guitar with scale models
Learn new songs and excerpts from different genres of music
Practice the band's set list and practice new songs

Set aside a certain amount of time each day for guitar practice. While a couple of hours is ideal, if you get an hour of practice each day you're still on the right track. When practicing with your band, be sure to aim to practice for about 4 or 5 hours at a time. Most bands practice once a week and more often to practice for the show and prepare to record. With hard work and perseverance, any song you can conquer easily.

Tips to have a good practice

Here are some not-so-dry practice habits that contribute to your success. Those are the same experiences that professional guitar players have done and succeeded. You can also review and learn these tips from them to get the results you want.

Play to a Click Track

A click track aka metronome, will make sure your playing goes smoothly and you're always on time. As a starter, a click track will improve your timing so your play doesn't crash. Click tracks also give you better speed control and are a great tool if you're trying to speed up your play.

What's more, the great click tracks for beginners are because they prepare you to play with drummers and even bass players. A lot of click music is also commonly used in the studio, so owning one now can enhance your expertise.

Play at Varying Speeds

Everyone's goal is to increase the speed, but still need to make sure to play proficiently from any angle. You might think your slow play is expert level, then you'll be surprised at how difficult it is to switch keys. Instead of just focusing on playing fast, focus on playing at different speeds for variety.

[caption id="attachment_373" align="alignnone" width="1024"] You need to be flexible and play at Varying Speeds[/caption]

Train Your Eyes and Your Ears

In this step, not simply stop at improving the tab, but you should pay attention to your listening skills as well as your ability to read music. You need to regularly practice your ear, famous guitarists all start from improving this skill. Ear training means you will have to identify the different notes on the guitar by ear, which can also help you improve your song learning.

Why when training is not simply learning songs by reading tab? An example to help you better understand why is, say you're in a band that has at least one album of documentary value for you to peruse. But they never took the time to translate their documents into tabs. Then if you want to learn the music of that band, you have to learn by ear.

Not only stopping there, ear training also has various benefits. Understandably, when you can tune the guitar, if you understand it, you won't need to use a tuner and spend a lot of time. If learning by ear is so important, the question is why is it also recommended to improve your ability to read tabs and symbols? That's because tabs are always essential for beginners.

Learning notation will be essential to learning chords quickly. People will then be able to learn chords faster, which will help you advance and maybe even write your own music. Many writing platforms also use notation, which will help you with your writing.

Anyone needs time to practice to perfect both skills. You can apply what musicians love to do, which is to learn a song first by ear, and then read the tabs. As for using notation, try and find a song in notation instead of settling on a tab.

Learn New Chords and Scales

As for music, the theories are diverse, limitless and there are many chords and scales that you may not have heard of. Learning new chords and scales not only improves your knowledge of the theory, but also helps you to write better songs and solos, and also aids in improving finger technique. The biggest benefit is that players will always play the right tune through the corresponding rhythm parts and master the mix.

Record yourself

Recording your workouts is exhausting, but the benefits are huge. Then people easily identify their mistakes to improve quickly. Saving your recordings will also help you see how you've improved or where you're lacking.

Recording yourself, though tiring, is an easy thing that anyone can do with just a phone. Depending on your smartphone and choice of recording application, you will get a complete recording. When the app in your phone doesn't record high-quality audio, choose to invest in a better recording system for practice.

How about using Yousician App to learn guitar in the best way

Experts also recommend that we record a video while we are playing a song. While the disadvantage of this is that you haven't mastered every skill yet, it's sure to be frustrating to watch yourself on video. But the benefit is that you will be able to see your fingering technique and hand position better. Most phones can record video, if you don't want to record on your phone, you can also record yourself on your laptop or webcam.

[caption id="attachment_374" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Make it a habit to record yourself to know your capabilities[/caption]

What should you do if you're stuck?

As a beginner, you will inevitably encounter difficulties and deadlocks when implementing a guitar practice routine. But don't give up because of that, we will give you some methods to improve your skills.

Ask a guitar teacher

If you are in class, the person you should ask the most is your teacher. Because teachers are people who have enough knowledge and experience to help you solve any problems quickly. If you are a beginner, the teacher will identify your weak points and will give you some exercises to do to improve. Your guitar instructor will also teach you discipline, so you can create a guitar practice schedule. Not just for beginners, when you are an intermediate player or an advanced player taking an advanced class, your instructor can teach you new skills that you can add to any routine and what kind of exercise.

Read guitar forum

Almost at famous guitar brands, you can find their guitar forums on the internet with lots of useful content. On those forums, if you have a question, someone else probably has the same question. Then you should check out the guitar forums and see what other players have to say about how to play to see the answer.

On the Telecaster forum, this is the topic most people are interested in. The original poster (abbreviated as :OP) mentions the field they want to work on and the amount of time they can spend playing. Forum commenters had some incredibly helpful advice. Since the OP had already set their goals back then, many commenters asked the OP to write down their goals for help. Where a particular person says to write them digitally but there is nothing wrong with writing them by hand, they will also check the fields they have completed.

If you're not sure about your goals, you're bound to get nervous. Don't feel ashamed to post a thread that acknowledges this. Ask for recommendations on how to start a workout routine. It would be helpful to provide other users with some information, such as the skill level you are at, what you already know, and how much time you can practice daily.

Go on YouTube

On the YouTube app, anyone can find videos with content related to this issue. Lots of guitar-related YouTubers will give tutorials of exercises you can do, and some other youtubers even create their own guitar practice videos. You should also read the comments section on the video to see what other players have to say about their advice and whether they provide additional insights.

One channel that a lot of people have suggested is Bernth, he is an Austrian guitar player who also composes his own music and takes advanced classes. His content is very diverse, he is always a friendly video starter with a lot of intimate content. Such as developing appropriate selection techniques as well as more advanced techniques. In some videos, he also provides a tab at the bottom so you can find out the notes he is playing.

More than just a beginner guitar player, even if you are an advanced guitar player you can watch Bernth's videos to challenge yourself and set goals you may not have thought of before.

Another popular guitar genius YouTuber you can learn from is Shredmaster Scott. He posts many educational videos that are completely fun and entertaining. In addition to his videos, he also has a Patreon page where you can see more lessons as well as any exercises and music he mentions in his videos.

Not only is he famous for his antics to amuse anyone, he is also an extremely skilled musician with a great knowledge of theory. For beginners, this is something worth learning about as he explains each and every detail. The content he shares has a lot of useful skills that all guitar players can successfully build on.

[caption id="attachment_375" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Shredmaster Scott is also a good guitar player that you can learn from[/caption]

Talk to other guitar players

Guitar is a popular field so there are many players, then if you have friends who also play guitar, quickly contact and ask about their daily practice routine. If you're a fan of a particular guitar player, it's even better to practice with. You can ask about their practice habits that will help you understand why they are so good and what you can do to get to their level.

If you don't have friends who also play, contact other guitarists who are professionals in different genres. Learning their same practice routine is probably significantly different from that of other metal guitarists, and you'll learn even more new skills and techniques.

Besides, when you don't have a particular habit, at least identify the areas where you want to improve and how your friends can help. If you know you want to improve your picking technique, consult other guitarists. If you're more advanced, you can ask about practicing for live streaming. Even asking for general advice, such as how to improve your concentration during practice, helps a lot.

FAQs

Should your guitar practice routine be balanced?

You can understand that a balanced workout means that you split the same amount of time across all the areas you want. The balance session will include scales, chords, theory, technique, and how to choose. Doing balance practice will help you become a good guitar player all-round without being biased towards a certain skill.

But the question is, are those habits of yours really necessary to be balanced? If you want to be an all-rounder, don't ignore it. But if there's an area you need to focus on, spend most of your time working on improving that skill. You should also not forget about other important areas that you need to cover. Focus on perfecting that skill over the course of a few weeks, once you've improved it's time to start rebalancing your routine. Besides, we should not add things that we don't care about in our practice.

When should you change up your guitar practice routine?

Life is full of surprises so there will come a time when you will have to change your habits too. The question is when should that happen to everyone?

One suggestion is to change your practice routine as soon as you start to improve from the beginning. Repeat the previous exercises and see if you have really improved. If you've got the basics down, you'll be practicing the bends and it can take weeks to perfect them. Then when you feel you have mastered the vibrato, you can move on to another more advanced challenge.

People also need to be aware that there are some key habits that won't be changed. Examples include finger stretches and exercises as well as some warm-up exercises. Your warm-up exercises may vary, but don't forget to stretch and exercise your fingers before you play.

Conclusion

We all know there is a guitar practice routine and regular practice will make you perfect, especially if you are learning guitar. A practice routine will target your weak points and help you become a more well-rounded player.

Get in the habit of identifying the techniques and skills you want to learn and find exercises for them to work on. While playing a few hours a day is ideal, set a play time goal per day that is realistic and aligns with your priorities. Hopefully with the above sharing about guitar practice routine you will get useful information for yourself. Anyone can conquer the challenges of the guitar with effort and persistence. Wish you success!