Everything you learn requires practice… A lot of practice.

You’ve heard the infamous 10,000 hours to master something, right?

Well, I’m sure there’s some scientific validity to all this. However, there are a few things to keep in mind to get scientific results. After all, if you walk 10,000 miles in the wrong direction, you end up being somewhere you never intended to be. Here are a few things to help you take the right step in the right direction.

How You Practice

If you don’t have good technique, you don’t have good results. Here is a riff that requires alternate picking to play it successfully at the right speed.

If you practiced this with only down-picking, you wouldn’t be able to play at the required speed to play this riff. No matter how hard you try. It just won’t work. Even if you do it 10,000 times. You need to use alternate picking. Oh, and always, always, go slow and don’t rush it.

How Much You Practice

Now that you are using the correct technique, you can then practice it over and over again. The average professional guitar player practices 8-10 hours a day. Start small and work your way up. The most important thing is to practice consistently. Start with 15-30 minutes a day and then build from there. Below is a schedule you can follow. The more you practice, the better you will get. Of course, you will have to practice more than just this riff. 😅 Know your chords, scales, and theory like the back of your hand.

Here is a practice schedule.

Why Practice

Well, if you don’t practice, you won’t get very far. However, that reason doesn’t seem to be enough to get most people to practice. Over the years of teaching, I found that getting people to fall in love with music was the best reason for wanting to practice. Sometimes, this takes time. But once it happens, you no longer have to practice; you want to practice.