

I first picked up the guitar when I was 12 years old. The trend was so clear, I was able to advise busy students to structure their practice time around what I like to call the “Minimum Viable Practice Session.”Īnd in a moment, I’m going to show you how to put this idea to work for you, so you can make consistent progress even in the midst of a busy schedule. Work, school, and maintaining a healthy social life all compete for your time.Īnd after more than a decade of teaching private guitar lessons, I’ve come to realize consistency of practice trumps total hours of practice, every single time.Īcross the board, the students who practiced a little bit every day made faster, more consistent progress than students who “loaded up” and practiced several hours at a time, once or twice a week. Listen, if you’re practicing for an hour, two hours, three hours every single day – and you’re practicing the right things in the right order – you’re going to progress by leaps and bounds.īut outside of a small minority of professionals and college students majoring in music, that kind of schedule isn’t realistic.

There’s no way around it… if you want to get good, you have to put in the time. Practice is absolutely essential to master the guitar. To the point where it felt like a natural extension of your mind, and the music you create would become a perfect expression of how you felt inside. You figured at that rate, it’d only be a few months before things would start to click and you’d really “get” the guitar and be able to translate the music in your mind to the sound you were aiming for… Just the thrill of feeling like a guitar player was enough to keep you going.Ĭoasting on a wave of excitement, you’d practice every day, blocking out an hour or two to watch videos, search out chord charts, and maybe even try to play along with your favorite songs. Very quickly, you realized just how hard it is to move your hands across the fretboard and make the guitar sound the way you want it to.īut you kept on trying. learning basic notes, a few simple chords, and trying to figure out how to push down on the strings so they don’t buzz. You bought your first guitar and dove in.


You knew who you wanted to play like, what songs you were going to learn, and maybe even had plans for recording your own music. You started trying to learn guitar with all the motivation in the world.
