The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #139593   Message #3202810
Posted By: Crowhugger
06-Aug-11 - 02:43 PM
Thread Name: Practicing...How Much?
Subject: RE: Practicing...How Much?
Adding to what 999 said, you also have the option to work up 100 songs really, really well. All depends what time you can or want to give to the task.

Let's say you have 2 hours per week not already taken up with feeding the kids or milking the cows, or whatever the must-do's are in your life. When deciding how to spend your practice time, consider that people typically acquire more muscle-memory more quickly if they practise 20 minutes per day 6 days per week than if they play 2 hours once or 1 hour twice weekly. Learning is better retained by a joyful mind than a frustrated one, so if you get stumped, best to work on something else for a few minutes and come back to the problem passage. If a problem spot continues, break it down into smaller parts to work on or get some help.

A pragmatic approach: Look at how long it takes you to learn various components of a song. If it takes 10 minutes per day for and you want to know 10 knew songs a month from now, you can, as they say, do the math: 100 minutes per day. At that rate you'll know a LOT of songs in a year, but do add some practice time for refreshing what's already learned.

A tool to help with lyrics: Record yourself reading (spoken or sung); even record it 2 or 3 times at different speeds. Play these back daily for a week or 2. For me, learning words is the slowest part (songs only use so many chords, I've long ago learned most of the one I need); by using a recording this way before I sit down with the guitar, my actual practice time is more productive plus I feel better when I use otherwise wasted (driving) time this way.