I’ve often wondered about what your mind can do to improve your playing even when you don’t have a guitar in your hands. As a teenager I remember vividly using the 30-45 minute bus ride to and from school to think about what scales I could use to improvise over a song… or to think about the chords in a song I knew and try to analyze the progression mentally.

In fact, I would even go so far as to come up with progressions in my head, and then try them out when I got home to see if they sounded the way I expected.

There are other little things too… and I never gave them much thought until I received an email from a student who outlined his own “no-guitar-in-hand” practice routine. And it was almost exactly the same as mine.

So I figured, “okay, must not just be me then.” And I think it’s worth sharing here because I think you can get a lot of benefits and make progress on an airplane, driving in a car, sitting through a boring lecture… almost anywhere.

So I’m going to turn it over to James now…

These exercises have helped me….

#1 I used to warm up my left hand by squeezing a tennis ball, the best results come by using my finger tips besides squeezing the ball I slowly release the squeezed ball since I must be able to release the string (pull offs) as well as hammerons.

I spell, scales, chords, ect. forward ,reverse, inversions (slowly in my head).

Here’s one that helps my left hand, buy tapping my fingers of the left hand slowly both forward and reverse on to a stable object like a table top, first thinking or speaking the note then tapping. This method is very useful in developing the left side of the brain.

Have you ever tapped out a series of beats with your right hand, then tried to repeat those same patterns with your left? I have all ways found my left hand to be slower and sloppy. This exercise may well be the best one for me… of course if left handed… just reverse the exercise.

In addition to  tapping out a beat… I think the name of the note to be played and vision it’s place on the guitar neck. This may be the best exercise I’ve discovered.

For myself, simply knowing I’m not alone was quite a revelation. But what’s important here is that, when you stop and think about it, you probably have a lot of down time in your day when you’re not doing anything.

Take that time and think about your scales, your chords, beats, rhythms… any of the elements of music that you can enhance without your guitar in your hands.

And if you have any other little exercises like the ones above from James, please share them in the comments below.


    24 replies to "Practicing Without Your Guitar"

    • Nelly Curey

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    • darryl

      when i worked in a factory, i was on a job using a hog ring gun(a sorta stapler) and this is where i developed my timing skills. i would wear a walkman and staple to the beat of the music. there was 4 of us working this little sub assembly section and we raced each other while building, so i wasn’t just stapling on 1/4 notes, depending on the song tempo it would be 1/8ths, 1/16ths triplets and so on, as well as measured rests as i would have to repostion each piece.

      i find these days i still continue this practice at the gym while working out, reps are done to the time of the music, and pace for cardio to the time of the music. I am just realizing why as i write this, but when there is no music on at the gym, i quickly fall into tempo with someone elses cardio or rep pace

    • John Hawk

      I’m new to these lessons but not to playing out. I’m very excited about it. I want to get better.
      Now! I was a heavy equipment operator for many years. My favorite machine was the road grader. This machine has 9 control nobs. I ran the grader for a while and really wanted to be better. But It was two years before I was able to operate one again. In that time I realized that I would run the grader in my mind. I would picture grading flat surfaces and sides of hills etc. Much to my delight when I was able to run one again I was so much better than when I last was able to run one. These lessons are going to help me so much. ( I’ve had them for two days) I know I will Think about them and learn as well. I want to be better…

    • ger

      interesting–whole notion of working the left hand–but surely its the right side of the brain you re developing??Ger

    • Kai Pan

      This is not really an exercise – but listening to music and trying to transpose to the guitar neck in your head of course 😉
      And trying to make your own variations of what you listen to, again in your head.

    • rebecca

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    • NEEDLES

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    • ruth housman

      Hi, I have BIG problems remembering chords and hearing them in my head. So I am coming back to all this, having a long time ago, for a short time, studied classical guitar. I think I am WAY too dominated by visually seeing things on paper, and not using my EAR. I think this has got me into a lot of trouble learning to play. I need to hear it, inside my head.

      It’s interesting to find this on line NOW, because I need a guitar and I am looking into those LUNA guitars for not so big hands, to make stretches, and anyhow, in the interim I am thinking in my head about chords. Maybe one or two a day, what they look like. I have a very small travel guitar which I am using here and there. To practise some, having just come back to this.

      I was thinking it’s very doable, to use one’s head, when one doesn’t have a guitar, and hands, too, as in this blog, to practise, as seeing in the mind’s eye and ear is very important. One can visualize where the hands go, and each chord. And I so agree with Griff about going at this in small steps that then to aggregate into bigger and bigger.

    • Gary Hylton

      I do this before going to sleep at night especially when learning a new piece. It is amazing when I awake how I remember the chords and runs.

    • dennis richard

      I have tried some of those things before and it does help

    • Chaliq

      Iam attempting this now & it is much harder than it sounds

    • Barry

      Ha! LOL!! I have been practicing a lot. Last night my wife woke me up and said “stop it! my arm is NOT a fretboard!” It seems I was ‘practicing’ on her left arm!

    • Michael

      What I have done is found on the internet a graphic of a guitar neck complete with frets and strings. I made a master plate using a heavy card stock. When I want to make a chart of a scale or a lick I will have some copies ran off and slightly enlarged them so I can clearly write the note in the fret, on the string, that is to be played. This is the way I learn what and where the notes are anywhere on the neck. This is how I create practice scales all the way up and down the neck. I even did the same thing with a keyboard and I use that to find chords, inversions and scales then transpose, for lack of a better term, them to the neck chart.

      Sounds like a lot of work but that the way I learn.

    • Chaliq

      Could you explain more about spelling scales & chords in your head. I think I know what you mean but not positive about going about it.

    • kate

      One thing I remember someone saying…..take a nap (usually a power nap works for me, about 10 minutes or so) after you have learned something on the guitar and somehow this helps it go deeper in. I’m sure a practice before bed would work the same.

    • Mick

      Hi Griff. When I need to learn a new song for the band, before I pick up a guitar I put it on a CD in my car and play it until I know the song, while I am driving to work and back for a few days. Then I get the guitar out and learn the chords, then back to the car, and during my travels I play the CD and play the chords in my head. Usually when I go back to the guitar then I can play it, just have to get my hands to learn the ‘muscle memory’, but half that is in your head anyway and I have done that bit already. Each to their own, but this method works for me.

    • Rob Iacullo

      I used to go through the scales in my head when I wasn’t using my brain for anything else, such as when I’m in bed and can’t sleep.

      first note, step step half-step, step step step half-step

    • Ric Ewing

      I have an iPhone and always have it with me. There a number guitar apps for the iPhone to help you read music and learn the notes on the fret board. When I have down time and not near my guitar, I turn on the iPhone app and test myself. It has helped a lot.

    • Gilles

      I really new to guitar; someone wrote on internet ( not my idea ) , a good excercise whitout guitar is to try to find AND MAINTAIN the strumming pattern , when you are waiting at red light, or jammed in traffic and listening to radio or CD

      It is helping me a lot , because I found really hard to maitain 4 minutes of steady strum pattern …so when i have the chance and listen to radio ; ex: D-D-U-U-D-U AND I think it is a great way to make muscle and brain MEMORIZE …

      it is not blues yet for me , but I like it, may be one day …
      keep going with your videos GRIFF…

    • Roland Krueger

      Griff,
      When I first began playing guitar, I wanted to get better at playing chords. I had an old Kent arch top that I bought for $15. It had extremely high action that I didn’t change, because I just didn’t know any better. It really bruised my fingers quickly, but I played it as long as I possibly could trying to switch between chords as quickly as possible. When my fingers wore out or when I wasn’t home to play it, I came up with a way to continue practicing chords and chord changes. I’d use my right arm as a guitar neck with the wrist being the nut and practice switching between chord shapes in the open position close to the neck (wrist) walking through progressions or songs I was learning or had learned. I did this with open chord forms (C, A, G, E, D, etc.) and also with bar chord shapes for the major, minor, 7th, etc. chords trying as best possible to move along the arm in the proper position where the chord would normally be found on the neck of a guitar. When I did this, I would make sure to say the names of the chords as I played through the progression or song, so I would memorize the relationship between the 5th and 6th string root bar chords and any other chords (or shapes) I was trying to learn. It was a lot less complicated than trying to describe it here, and it really helped me move quickly between neck positions and shapes as well as helped me memorize the chord patterns for songs. It also helped me memorize the notes on the guitar quicker and gave me a better spacial awareness of the neck and where to play all of the chords. I still use this method when I try to show someone how to play a chord (along with writing it out) or chord shape and do not have a guitar handy. I found it helps them visualize the chord better before they toddle off to try it own their own. I hope this helps.

    • Jerr

      Griff;
      Tapping you fingers (Like a horse galloping) from pinky to index. Try it in reverse order index to pinky it is awkward at first, but a good exercise. Then try it with left hand, even harder!

    • Griff

      Dee… that’s amazing. Joe was one of my first guitar teachers when I lived in Colorado. I’m pretty sure that’s the same guy, it’s an unusual name and though I haven’t seen him in 25 years I think it’s him.

      If you speak to him, please tell him hello for me. I’m going to try and catch him through his website. i wonder if he’ll remember…

    • Dee LAwrence

      Hi Griff, A dear friend and amazing guitar player, Joe Scott of Acoustic Eidolon, told me that you should practice only in short intervals, because your minds attention would divert to the things you already new. He also suggested using your right arm to simulate the guitar neck when you were away from your instrument. Also, the practice of the mind was a very worthwhile activity especially when learning new/difficult passages. (Check out acousticeidolon.com. It might not be blues, but the double neck, 14 string guitar is worth watching!)

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