How Long To Practise Guitar?
One common question asked by beginners, as well as by intermediate guitar learners trying to take their skills to the next level, is how long to practise guitar each day. Should you set aside a solid hour or more per day to practise?
As a guitar teacher in Leeds, I often get asked by my students about where they can practise and rehearse their music. Here are the best rehearsal studios in Leeds.
There are actually a lot of different factors that can affect how many hours' practice to play guitar like a pro. Some of these depend on your existing musical ability, while others are more about your personality and attention span.
Of course, professional guitar lessons can help you to improve your skills. Professional guitar teachers offer a mix of expertise and experience - I have been playing guitar for over 12 years, teaching for more than 5 years, and have taught students from a wide range of background and culture. Each student is a unique individual, so it is interesting to observe any factors affecting their practice and motivation based on different ages, styles, and abilities.
Coming from a strong academic background of studying music at Leeds College of Music, I attained a Level 3 Diploma in Popular Music, Level 4 Diploma in Performance, BA in Jazz Guitar, and MA from Leeds Conservatoire. Outside of academia I hold qualifications from Rockschool and Trinity for Grade 8 Electric Guitar as well as Theory.
You can read more about my experience here.
Aim for sustainable success
It's important not to set your ambitions too high. With all the enthusiasm in the world, you're not going to be able to sustain a schedule of several hours per day, especially if you have other commitments to keep up with.
Having taught various age groups from children to adults, I can see that it is a challenge in itself for adults to prioritise practise amongst other things. When reflecting back on giving up, the worst excuse anyone can use is that ‘life got in the way’.
Rather than aim for the absolute maximum number of hours you think you can put in, be prepared to adjust your practice schedule to avoid burnout, and to focus on specific skills when you notice an area in need of improvement.
There are different styles of guitar playing. Decide if you have a preference, and your professional guitar teacher will be able to adjust your lessons to focus on the skills and techniques involved in rock, pop, jazz or blues.
Focus on quality
The simple answer to "how much should I practise guitar?" is "as much as you need". You might discover a natural talent for the guitar, you might have musical ability you can carry over from other instruments, or you might find practising is something you can do for hours at a time.
But especially when you're just starting out, it's more important to get good practice than it is to get a lot of practice. Like learning to drive, beginner guitar lessons will focus more on the technical aspects of the instrument. Once you're more familiar with the basic techniques, then you can move on to practising more generally to make those skills second nature.
This is at the heart of my guitar teaching method: walk before you run, focus on musicality rather than technicality, and learn from the masters in the style of music you want to play.
There is no shortcut for quality, but that’s not to say that you don’t need to put in the time. Without going into the science of the much quoted 10,000 hours rule of mastering anything, the short answer is that it is both Quality AND Quantity. To read deeper into this topic, check out my other blog titled exactly that. Or if you are keen on the maths and the mathematical predictions, scroll to the bottom to the section where I share my views from personal, hands-on experience.
Stay focused, set goals
Have an idea of what you want to achieve, and work towards that outcome. Be realistic - aim to play a short, simple song before you try to lay down an epic improvised guitar solo. With practice, you'll get there in the end, but beginner and intermediate goals give you valuable milestones along the way.
As you start to achieve your first goals, whether that's to learn how to read guitar tabs and sheet music, or how to find a certain note or chord without looking at the strings, you'll probably find your enthusiasm grows. This also changes the answer to "how long should I practise guitar?" as it's easier to keep playing for longer, once you have the basic technical ability.
Head over to my YouTube channel and watch this beginner lesson on how to find notes on the guitar!
Increase frequency rather than length
One problem with asking how long to practise guitar daily is that longer practice sessions don't necessarily equate to improved learning. This is why, for example, weekly guitar lessons will help you to build your skill level over time, while giving your brain time to absorb what it has learned.
Try to get used to picking up your guitar when you have a spare few minutes, without any firm plan about what you are going to practise. At the start, it doesn't even matter if you play the wrong notes - it's just about getting used to the feel of the guitar in your hands, and normalising guitar practice as something you do regularly. As regular as eating and drinking, or browsing the internet (if you are guilty of that).
Short bursts work better
Repetition is an important part of learning. By performing the same practice elements multiple times, your brain starts to recognise patterns and build the 'muscle memory' you need to make guitar playing second nature. Short bursts of practice are ideal for this.
For example, once you learn to play your first song - or even the first line of a song - you have something you can practise over and over for just a few seconds or minutes at a time, while still giving your brain that all-important opportunity to reinforce what it has learned and solidify those skills in your long-term memory.
Make sure it's achievable and measurable
All of the above boils down to a guitar practice schedule that suits you. That might mean multiple minutes-long moments over the course of the day, or a solid hour of guitar practice set aside each evening, if that works best for you.
Whatever schedule you choose (and remember it's not set in stone), there are several more techniques you can use to increase the sense of reward you get for each milestone you reach, and even for more minor progress you make along the way.
Reward your brain
Have a reward system in place, so that your brain starts to associate progress - and practice - with a happy outcome. That could mean allowing yourself a treat after spending a certain amount of time practising, if you're still keen to set a minimum number of hours for guitar practice each day or week.
For example, you might allow yourself your favourite meal on a Friday night if you've hit your guitar practice goals for the week. Or you might set a long-term target, such as buying something you've wanted for a while, once you master a specific skill or song.
Putting it simply, you can categorise the reward as either materialistic or experiential. Either way, it is recommended to be related to music and guitar playing, in order to loop that circuit. Otherwise, you run the risk of making progress on the guitar in order to advance in some other area, which may not be the best for motivation.
See your improvement
A big problem many beginners face when they start learning guitar is an inability to see any improvement. That's why a lot of people quit so early on, and it's something you should be aware of and try to resist.
Even intermediate and advanced players can become disillusioned if they don't see any apparent improvement. Be kind to yourself, be honest about how far you've come, and remind yourself that with frequent practice of even just a few minutes at a time, you will get better eventually.
Track your progress
To help with seeing your improvement, there are several ways to track your progress. A professional guitar teacher can offer an unbiased opinion on where you've improved, and where you need to focus your guitar practice next.
You can use songs as a way to chart your progress, by noticing how many (and hopefully how few) notes you get wrong with each subsequent play-through. If you find it hard to keep track of this when you're playing, try to get over the nerves of recording and listening back to your practice sessions, as this can be a really useful way to spot any errors.
I always encourage students to record short videos from their mobile phones - you’d be surprised how good the quality is in terms of both video and audio. Many details will be revealed, musically and sonically such as dynamics of your playing, guitar technique with the position of your hand and fingers, tone coming out of your amp compared with the original track etc.
What they do with the videos is entirely up to them. Some may choose to show their friends and families, while others prefer to upload them onto social media. In fact, it is one of the ways to not only reward your brain by ‘showing off’ or sharing what you’ve achieved with the world, but also to build a library of material so you can look back and see how far you’ve come!
In my own teaching circle, students have access to an exclusive cloud folder online where they can see the progress of themselves and their peers. Often it is useful to compare your playing abilities with someone at a similar stage in a progressive and healthy manner (mindset not overly cynical or competitive, although a bit of competition is always good in my opinion and from my experience has benefitted me hugely).
Mindset
Try not to focus on 'practising' guitar. Instead, just think of it as playing guitar. There's no single moment where a beginner becomes intermediate, or where an intermediate player becomes advanced. The professionals are at the top of a spectrum of skills and, by playing consistently, you will slide up that spectrum without even noticing.
Learning to play guitar should be fun and enjoyable - and there's no embarrassment with not knowing how to do it. Everybody has to learn to play guitar from the same starting point.
Whether you have hours every day to practise, or you're limited to a professional guitar lesson weekly and just a few minutes of your own time here and there in between, you'll make better progress overall by being kind to yourself and rewarding yourself for reaching your guitar playing goals.
My views from experience
If I were to give a definitive answer to the question of how long to practise guitar, I would say:
Half an hour a day.
An alternative way of organising practice time would be:
An hour every other day.
And to break it down, I would recommend thinking about it like this:
Assuming you do not practise on Sundays (though why wouldn’t you?!), you would still be racking up 3 hours of practice a week. That is the minimum spend in order to make what I deem to be good progress.
Then do the calculations: 3 hours x 4 weeks = 12 hours a month. 12 hours per month x 12 months = 144 hours a year. It will take you just short of 70 years to reach 10,000 hours.
Double your practice time to an hour each day and it would take 35 years to reach mastery, apparently.
Skip the maths and jump to conclusions: 2 hours a day will still take you around 20 years.
But bear this in mind - not everyone wants to become a master. Maybe being half as good as a master will be good enough! In which case a solid 2 hours a day for 10 years…
Anyway, let’s move on to the topic of exponential growth.
Exponential Growth
Things is, the above mathematical calculation is simply nowhere near a good enough prediction since you get good at practising and playing guitar exponentially, not in a linear fashion. It is a pretty steep curve, not a straight line!
From my experience, I felt the most progress during the time when I attended music school. It was both quality and quantity: I was taught the correct way to practise which I have been using in my teaching ever since (scroll back up to the section on quality for the link to my teaching method). And to add to that, I was spending between 2-4 hours every single day, only ever skipping some Sundays during term time and having consecutive days off during holidays like Christmas.
I believe that 2-4 hours a day is sufficient enough if sustained over a period of months to really take your playing to the next level. Anything above 4 hours I have found to be significantly less focused, but that’s just me. This leads to another topic of taking short breaks during long practice sessions.
Taking breaks
There is the Pomodoro technique of setting a timer for 25 minutes of focus then resting for 5 minutes. Although I have tried this and found it to be somewhat useful, I prefer doubling this up to 50 minutes of focus and 10 minutes of rest. In fact, I like this because I can plan ahead and start on the dot of each hour, finishing at 10 minutes to the next hour.
Once you set alarms and stick to following a routine habit of taking breaks, you will most likely feel a sensation of calm while productivity increases. You will also start to appreciate that time flies in that period of focus!
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