Does Griff Talk About Practicing?

[DBF]

I signed up for BBG several weeks ago, and am only just now finding the time to get into it. I don't have as much time as I'd like, but I do try to get in 15-30 minutes a day. I am currently on lesson #3. One thing I am wondering about is if/when Griff talks about practicing - what to practice, how to practice, etc.?

Right now, I am simply playing along with the videos in the early lessons. When previously trying to learn I found that my practice was very inefficient as I kept just playing the same thing over and over again hoping to get it right. Many times, I never did get it right. I don't want the same thing to happen this time so I think I need advice on what to practice and how to practice effectively and am hoping that Griff covers this at some point in the first few lessons.

 

[LeftyJohn]

I don't recall seeing anything on how to practice, perhaps someone else might?

Personally I tend to mix several things into my practice:

1) Just changing back and forth between pairs of chords in the piece, so for The Sitting Easy Blues that was E7 and A7 E7 and B7, A7 and B7 with a strum on each chord focusing on getting each note to sound cleanly and slowly building up the speed - this approach is borrowed from Justin Sandercoe's one minute changes: https://www.justinguitar.com/guitar-lessons/stage-1-one-minute-changes-bc-115

2) Memorise the individual bars / licks - I can't play and read and count at the same time so this seemed like the easiest first step to reducing my mental load.

3) Learn the order of the bars/licks/section I've memorised.

4) Work on correcting/improving/perfecting the counting and rhythm last as this my weakest area. I'd have been trying to get it right up to know, but here I try to make it the focus having now hopefully freed some mental capacity to concentrate on it.

I'm also finding it quite useful to video myself regularly When reviewing the videos it's easier to see my own mistakes (than in the moment whilst trying to play) and coach myself (or share them here for feedback). Plus very satisfying to see the progress I've made when I look back at older ones.

Regards, John

 

[DBF]

Thanks.

I have signed up for a trial with the practice generator, but would love it if Griff would chime in or, better yet, do a video about practicing as I am sure that some guidance would help a lot of people and would prevent them from practicing inefficiently as I tend to do. Not much point in practicing mistakes!

 

[LeftyJohn]

Hi DBF,

I had a quick look and Griff has a category on his blog for practice: https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/blog/category/practicing/

There's a few I found useful when looking through:

1. Two Types of Practice: https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/blog/the-2-kinds-of-practice/
2. Practicing 1 Bar + 1 Beat: https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/blog/vlog-practicing-1-bar-1-beat/
3. Why Practice Slow? https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/blog/why-practice-slow/
4. 3 Steps To Better Guitar Practice: https://bluesguitarunleashed.com/blog/3-steps-to-better-guitar-practice/

Regards, John

 

[DBF]

Thank you, I will take a look at those later today.

 

[PeterSchroeder]

What I do before I get to the real practising part is a good warm up. I start without a guitar, just stretch and shake my hands and fingers until they feel warm. Like in sports - I would never touch a piece of rock with cold hands. Next I continue the warm up on the guitar for about 5 minutes. Play some scales with different picking patterns and stuff like that, a chord or two in between. Then I hit the part or parts I am currently practising for as long as I can really focus on it. This is usually something between 5 and 10 minutes. To give myself a break I play some stuff I already know and can (kind of) play well. Then back for another round of practise. Usually I run out of time rather than out of motivation, but when I am done with the second round I love to just play whatever comes to my mind. Could be an easy blues rhythm, an AC DC lick, or anything else. When I only got 15-20 minutes it would only be one round of practising, but I never skip the warm up and the fun part in the end.

 

[Jim Laney]

Thank you, I will take a look at those later today.

I am writing to tell you about my experience with practice. I stumbled on a small book titled "First, Learn to Practice" and downloaded it to my Kindle. Later I bought several copies to share. Reading that first book changed my view of practice. I now know that there are many short books on this subject and I have copies of several. It is very helpful to me to read these and get different views of practicing. It has also been helpful to learn more about the piano as it is far easier to understand the layout of the notes and keys.