Little and Often- The road to a great practice.

Over the past couple of months I have begun taking singing lessons, and all is going very well. My vocal ability is progressing at great speeds and my overall musical knowledge has grown.
When it comes to discussing practising my singing at home their is always this one quote that my teacher comes out with, 'little and often'. But what does he mean by this? What he means is that singing is a physical exercise, and like every physical exercise you have to take rests, and if you just go for it all in one go your muscles will just get tired, your singing will loose quality and your muscles will begin to ache. So if you spread your exercises out you will be able to have a much more production session.


Now, I am sure at this point you are all very confused, this is a guitar blog and I am talking about singing. But this will all make sense to you very soon, because you see, guitar is a physical exercise to, just like singing.


If you just play for hours on end every day, just going from one technique to the other, your muscles just get tired, your playing looses quality and your muscles begin to ache, especially if you like to play lots of fast stuff. I know this very well from experience. But after applying this advice from my singing teacher to my guitar playing my practices and work outs have become a lot better. You see, taken regular short breaks gives your muscles a chance to relax between each exercise, meaning it can work for much longer through out the day.


Here is how I apply this rule:
-Stretches
-Warm up
- finger strength exercises
- Practice improvising
- Picking/ Speed picking exercises.


This will take up at least an hour to an hour and a half of constant playing, so after this I take a rest for about 10 minutes.


- Sweep picking (2 string)
- Sweep picking (3 string)
- Sweep picking (5 string)
- Sweep picking (switching amount of strings)
- Scales
- Improvising in the scale I am working on
-Arpeggios and chords


Then its time for a small 5 minute rest.


- Rhythm guitar exercises
- A variety of riffs and song sections
- Tapping
- Legato
- More tapping.
- Other (any extra thing I want to work on, or time for writing)


This will usually take up about 5 hours through out the day. I will also often take one of the rests as a longer one, often over an hour, where I will eat and watch TV. I will also swap techniques around, spend more time on a technique I see weaker or give a technique a day off all together sometimes, depending on how im feeling each day, or how much free time I have.


Practising like this will be much more productive for you, it will be miles better at improving your stamina and will help you to avoid any injuries you can get from playing the guitar.


I also always take at least one day a week where I avoid intense practice, I might still play, but I will play less, and no fast stuff. This is a great chance to give your muscles a longer rest, Which is also very important, like with any physical activity. You can use this day as a day off from guitar, or you can spend it learning some theory or a new song.




So take this advice, but arrange the routine to suit what you want t play, how you spend this time is completely up to you, just play what you like to play and have fun.