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Hey folks, here are the notes from our workshop last Saturday. Thanks to all that came out and hope you are already putting some of these ideas to practice. This is a long article, so you may want to print it out.

D.E.S.I.G.N. your  practice routine ....

D - Dedication - There are no secrets, there are no shortcuts and certainly no magic pills to make you a better player. There is one proven way to get better, your dedication to improving through regular, consistent practice.

When you make up your mind that you are ready to put the work in, you have to be dedicated to practicing. This means you need to have a routine and stick to it. If you set a goal to practice 6 days a week, don't let anything stop you. Yes, sometimes life gets in the way with school, kids activities and work. But, don't let any of these become an excuse for you not to practice.

If you find your evenings are too hectic and there is always a good chance that you may not get to practice, get up an hour earlier every morning and practice (you can do it, just drag yourself out of bed and drink two cups of coffee instead of one!). Try practicing on your lunch break. For those of you still in school, take your guitar or bass to school, if allowed, and practice during lunch or your study period.

You can always practice away from your instrument as well. Read here for more information on practicing away from your instrument.

Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. And if you honestly assess how you use your time, you will find down time (watching television, internet, nap time, shopping time, etc) that you could squeeze out some practice time.  

Make the time and put the work in!
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E - Enthusiasm - Remember how excited you were the very first time you strummed the strings? Or how about when you bought (or received) your first guitar? Yes, for some of you older players like me, that was many years ago. But you can still feel that excitement, that enthusiasm for the future when you could play music.

Have you lost that enthusiasm? Do you view practicing as a chore? Why?

We're still playing guitar right? We're still playing guitar instead of digging ditches, right? We're still making musical sounds instead of writing a Junior Term Paper on the literary comparison of Homer's Odyssey and how it influenced the Dick and Jane book series! (I would like to read that term paper!).

Bottom line, we're playing the coolest instrument in the world! Get excited about it.

Don't know how? What if you could play your favorite song, would that get you excited? Then learn your favorite song. Not good enough yet, then learn just the introduction or write a short song yourself. Play with your friends...who cares what it sounds like, have a good time.

Just get that enthusiasm back and look forward to grabbing your guitar or bass every day. If you do that, you soon will be playing better and you know that the better you play, the more you like it. The more you like it, the more you practice. The more you practice, the better you play. See the cycle here?
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S - Systematic Approach - If you don't know what you're going to work on when you sit down to practice, don't expect to get much accomplished.

One of the biggest wastes of practice time (besides Myspace and Video Games) is the dreaded Guitar Noodling.

Guitar Noodling - the activity of moving your fingers, in a pleasing manner, on the guitar or bass neck while accomplishing nothing toward becoming a better player....
  Jason's Dictionary 2007

Most people have a set amount of time they can practice. Thirty minutes, an hour, etc. When your time is limited, write out specifically what you will practice when you sit down.

For example, a 30-minute routine could be broken down to the following items:
-Warm Up - improvise over a blues in A - 5 minutes
-Technical Exercises - 3 note per string legato patterns in G Dorian, E string Root - 5 minutes
-Scale or Arpeggio Work - map out and memorize the Zirafkand scale in E - 10 minutes
-Chord or Chord Progressions - transpose Autumn Leaves to Db seventh position - 10 minutes

With limited time, you may have to repeat this specific routine for several days until you accomplish all tasks. However, with structure and a systematic approach to learning your material, you will always be moving forward and never stalling out, or worse, regressing.

If you need help with structuring your routine, let me or Brian know!
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I - Improve Each Day - This is your mantra. Your goal should be to improve every single day. At the close of each day, before you drift off to dream about Marshall Stacks, Taylor guitars, Hartke amps, etc. Ask yourself "Am I a better player than I was yesterday".

Even if you cannot see the improvement, which is hard to do from one day to the next, by practicing with focus and working through your "to-do" list, you improved as a player.

A better view would be to compare yourself to where you were a month ago. That larger view will really show you that you have learned new things or accomplished tasks that were difficult at the beginning.

Now say it with me... I Will Improve Today! Now, go practice - wait, read the rest of this first, then go practice!
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G - Goals - Where do you want to be as a player? Do you have a picture in your mind of what your ultimate dream would be as a musician (i.e. writing songs, performing, two-handed tapped arpeggio solo at 290 bpm).

I'm talking about a clear, defined picture, not a fuzzy "I would like to be awesome" or "I wanna Rock!".

Take a minute and define what you want to do with your music. Once you have that, think about what it will take to make that happen. This is where your goals come in. Once you've defined your goals, you then have your target to aim for.  I'm not going to spend much time on goals as I have another entry in the wings specific to New Year's resolutions. Watch for that for more around goal setting and working to turn those goals into achievements.
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N - No Excuses - Bottom line, it's up to you. No one can make you a better player except you. It will be your work that helps you become the player you want to be. If the work is done, you will be the player you want to be.  If the work is not done, you'll always wonder why you aren't as good as you wished you could be.

Make the time to practice. Get out and stay out of your comfort zone. Always push yourself to learn something new. If you fall off the wagon and have a bad week of practice, forget about it and have a killer week of practice the following week. It is up to you!

There you go...D.E.S.I.G.N. your practice routine!
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In closing, one of my students, Barb K., has a blog of her own (check it out, it is really good!). I have a saying that learning to play an instrument is like a marathon and not a sprint. Meaning, we're in it for the long haul. Learning your instrument takes time so don't be too hard on yourself if you do not progress as fast as you want.

Well, she quoted me in her blog and one of her readers made a better analogy. To paraphrase, Julie likened learning how to play more to a race without and ending, or better,  a journey with no end.

Think about it, with work, you will always reach your goals, no matter how hard they seem. You then have to set even higher goals. By doing this, and having a practice routine that builds your skills and knowledge, you will be able to accomplish anything you set out to do!

Good Luck!






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