Green Monster Tip of the Week

• Learn With Every Experience
• Adopt Their Training and Philosophies
• Stretch List
• Listen to Jeff Beck Today
• Divide Your Practice Time
• Palm Muting When Practicing Scales
• Program Your “Computer” the Right Way the First Time (Garbage in/Garbage out)
• Explore
• Celebrate
• Metronome
• Balancing Your "Focus Pool" or "Focus Energy"
• The Race Car Driver and Guitar Player - Part 3 of 3
• The Race Car Driver and Guitar Player - Part 2 of 3
• The Race Car Driver and Guitar Player - Part 1 of 3
• Going to My Lesson with a Chip on My Shoulder... or Play It Like You Mean It!

Divide Your Practice Time

“Oh, so many things I want to practice, such little time to do them.” We all get like this some times. Here’s my suggestion for getting the most out of your practice time. Whatever amount of time you have to practice, divide it into three parts. Segment one will be “warm-up”. Warm up with some technique work. Run through some familiar scales. Play with a metronome. Play through some of your favorite rhythm patterns too. The next segment will be “growth”. Growth usually consists of non-musical work. Things like learning new scales and chords would fit into this category. Going over new theory ideas, learning new rhythms or anything else new, these are all things that fit into the growth segment. The last segment is the “Fun/Jam” segment. That’s when you just have fun and play songs that you like, or put on a Jam-along CD and wail some pentatonic licks over it. Make music!
Now we are all at different levels and all have different goals. So feel free to be a little flexible with this plan. Lets say that you have an hour to practice. You can divide that hour into three 20-minute segments or two 15-minute segments and the third segment being 30 minutes. Maybe you really want to sharpen up your rhythm playing or your pentatonic scales for an upcoming gig, audition or rehearsal. You can make your “growth” segment a little longer and condense the other segments.
Also, make sure your goals are clear to you so that you know how to best customize the segments to fit your needs. Have fun with it!