Practice Routines and Schedules

[MarkO]

Hi all
I am looking for some advice on creating a practice routine (or routines). I have many of the BGU courses and am trialing the practice scheduler. I was hoping the scheduler would offer some guidance on what things to be practicing, not just how to split up available time for things I enter.
I don't feel confident that the items I choose to practice are going to get me where I want to be (semi-pro player doing low level, local gigs with my Wife (singer) and sometimes other guest players; bass, drums, harp etc)
I have been playing 3 years and feel I have hit a glass ceiling in my progress.

As an aside to this, I really think if Griff did a 'Blues Practice Unleashed' course it would be a huge help. Adding the right structure to a practice process would be such a great help.

Looking forward to hearing your ideas
Thanks
Mark

 

[WindInTrees]

The important thing for me about effective practice time has been to have a clear goal and a vehicle to get there (usually meaning the right training material and instructor). It has also been valuable to have separate "play" time, brcause all practice and no play limited my progress. We learn a lot unexpectectedly when we jam with others.

You state a goal to do gigs with your wife as a singer. You do not mention whether she will also play an instrument, or your current level of ability on guitar relative to where you want to be at the moment.

To achieve the vision of you on guitar and her on vocals, you need to learn to play bass line, rhythm and melody all at the same time. That is what the ABGU unleashed teaches. Example artists whose reportoire you might use (sticking with the blues, since you asked about blues guitar) include Lightnin Hopkins, Son House, Mississippi John Hurt and others like them. Their recordings for the most part are just guitar and vocals, with occassional percussion or harp accompaniment. For a non-blues example, check out the Nebraska album by Bruce Springsteen or others like that. You'll need to learn songs, and ABGU will help prepare you to do that. My practice recommendation is to complete the lessons sequentially and record yourself at the completion of each lesson to ensur ethat they way you are hearing it in your head is the same as an audience is hearing.

To achieve the vision of playing gigs with others (including bass guitar and drums, presumable another guitar either rhythm otr lead) it would be hard to find better than the blues gig in a box courses. There you have a reportoire of about ten songs with vocals and every move explained. You will be gig ready when you complete that course. Depending on your current development, you might need some of the other courses to prepare you for BGIAB. BGU especially. By gig ready i'm assuming you and your wife would video+audio record yourself together doing those songs at some point to guide what you need to practice on.

What works for one may not work for another, but focusing our practice on one desired outcome at a time is typically far more productive than trying to practice five different things at once. Keeping a practice journal of the date you begintoward at objective and the milestones along the way is very helpful. Break it down into achievable steps, such as 'record the first four bars of lesson x at 50 beats per minute' or 'record the first 12 bars of lesson x at 100 bpm'.

Hope this helps.

 

[tommytubetone]

Most of the time I get in a couple of practices a day. Even if one or both of them are only 15-20 minutes it's still worthwhile.
In the morning I like to work on new stuff I'm trying to learn after doing 10 minutes or so of warm up exercises. My brain seems more receptive in the morning. I do Griff's method of learning the notes on the fretboard every day. This will make everything easier in the future, especially switching between major and minor from different root notes.
In the evening I may review some of the stuff that's new, but I try to have fun. I maybe turn on some backing tracks and try to fit in licks or solos I learned, or I might turn on internet radio and try to play along. That's the closest thing to a jam that I know of. You never know what's coming up next.
Find people to play with, whether it's in somebody basement or at a jam. That's what most people would say helps them the most.

 

[Scott 2.0]

I assume you mean gigs with a variety of genres - not just blues. If my goal was to gig with my wife - I think I would spend most of my time learning songs. Start at the campfire level. After you learn them, then begin the task of adding dynamics and "flavoring" those songs to make them interesting. There are good on-line teachers that teach songs and do the hard work of interpreting songs (usually done by a band) so that they can be played by a single guitar. These guys teach the song - not around it - so they apparently are paying the royalties. My theory is that you learn songs first - learn to play the guitar second. That's the reverse of the way I am doing it; but my end-state is not to gig any time soon. Guess it depends on how fast you want to get out there and play.