for this lesson i'm going to offer another mental consideration to think about that is somewhat related to The Apex Shredator's Shreditation article. we've all been there - you're practicing lick A for a painstaking amount of time. you're tired, your fingers are red and ripping up, and while you were progressing nicely 30 minutes ago, you're somehow falling on your face now and regressing to sounding even worse than when you started. what's going on here?
cut to another day. and another situation entirely....
it's 9am. your Stand Out! guitar lesson is today at 1pm. you haven't practiced your frosted mini sweeps all week, but you figure since Shredator said to work on these for 30 minutes a day that 4 hours straight before your lesson will work even better. hey, you'll even be nice and warmed up for when he gets here. 4 hours later at 1pm, you never got there. what happened?
both of these situations are seemingly different, but both have the same reason for failure - you didn't not practice correctly.
every time you learn a new lick, your brain, hands, arms, and eyes need to work together to make it happen. the first time you play a new passage, most of this is a mechanical process. all of your associated parts have to figure out how to physically make lick X happen. think about the first time you learned the blues scale - it sounded nothing close to 'bluesy' - it was just a bunch of notes getting plunked down on your instrument for reference. it's only after mindlessly beating it into your brain over and over again that the notes start to sound like something. start to mean something. start to have some soul to them. while it's true that practicing over and over helps you to cross over to this point, the time spent not practicing also helps as well.
your hands and arms need time off to release tension created from learning harder passages. your brain needs time off as well, but something different happens inside your head while you're not playing. when you relax your muscles, they get to recharge their batteries. when you take your mind off guitar playing, your brain is still working on what you were practicing at a subconscious level. it's like that awful math lesson you had to sit through one day at school - it seems foggy the day you learn it, but a week later the concept of the lesson becomes clear and 'easy' to think about. it works the same way, and i know nobody practices math class on their own time to get better at it!
now let's keep this in mind - you still need to practice regularly. you can't just merely think about guitar on your off time and expect to get better consistently. this is more about budgeting and prioritizing your practice time and time off from the instrument. you cannot get these skills hammered into your brain by trying to 'cram' for hours before a performance or a lesson. however, if you try for a '30 minutes on, 1 hour' off kinda of a schedule, you might find yourself learning things quicker, with less overall time spent hammering on the instrument. everyone's time limits will be different - i recommend practicing for a decent amount of time up until you begin to get frustrated. once that happens, you're likely to slow down any progress, and just get more and more angry. don't quit in 5 minutes, but anywhere from 20-60 minutes spent on a single topic should be good enough for one practice session.
the next question - what to do when you're not playing? the answer is simple - anything else. sports, video games, social activity, sleeping - any of those healthy (in moderation) activities will help keep your mind fixed on something else besides your instrument, which will in turn relax you and prepare you for your next practice session. when you do return to your instrument, you should feel recharged and calm, ready to hack away at whatever you're working on.
give it a shot, and see if any differences in your playing show up. practice is important, and so is 'not practicing' - but only in moderation!
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