Routine For Home Practice

Kevin Fix · From: Michigan, USA

What is your normal routine for home practice without the band? In my 65th year now I have to work at my chops a little more now. When I practice at home I practice with rhythm tracks for a hour on C6 and practice about a hour on E9th along with YouTube of songs that we play in our group. I practice two days in row and take a break a day or two. Keeps it fun.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

I am in my second year of playing pedal steel. I do at least a half hour of no-tempo exercising on basic technique - right hand picking n blocking, bar control exercises, chord grips, position playing and shifting, etc.

At least 15 minutes of Winnie Bible study.

I also do a thing with a single chord backing track on infinite repeat. Chord could be major or minor. I play single note and harmonized diatonic scales over it. Pentatonics. Vertical and horizontal playing. Upper register, lower register. Play other chords over it. Play notes that donâ€™t sound right at first. Try new licks. Try old licks. Change tempo, change the groove to blues shuffle or country rock or swing or 6/8. This is my noodle-doodle time.

Then work on songs with backing tracks. Play chords in the groove. Work out melody & maybe a solo. Go back to no-tempo or slow tempo if I mess up in the same places.

I try to get at least one thing perfect every practice. Even if itâ€™s major scale with no pedals, strings 9-5, quarter notes at 80 bpm. Gitter done.

I really want to get to that point where practice is just... flip on the backing tracks and play along.

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Never had a "routine" and never encouraged it with my students. "Chops" practice isn't "music" IMO - it's repetitive physical labor with no particular point other than speed - and I don't worry about speed. It's WAY overused to try to impress other guitarists IMO, but not many really care. Non-players usually don't even notice.

The only "practice" I do (after playing for quite a few years) is jamming with background tracks for whatever I'm working on at the time, mostly to play different variations spontaneously. I haven't practiced "exact" solos and such for decades - I "practice" being able to play several different things that sound close - but I detest "copying" solos, learning tab *exactly* etc.

Somebody already played it. If a "known" song I'll work up something recognizable. If it's not I'll head whatever direction feels right.
_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional

Kevin Fix · From: Michigan, USA

Jim, I am a do your own thing guy also. I will do intro's or a solo piece like the original but other than that I always do my own thing. I stayed away from the tab way also. I do like following rhythm tracks and YouTube video's.

Dan Robinson · From: Colorado, USA

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Iâ€™m a do your own thing guy too. Everyone has their own way of learning new skills and maintaining old ones.

I remember a Hot Licks instructional video by a famous guitarist who said the main thing was to put on a record and play along with it. Play what? I certainly didnâ€™t sound like him when I tried it. The search was on, and I eventually found what worked for me.

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Fred, that was an Albert Lee video! I have it. Early on - in his Heads Hands & Feet days - he'd play electric along with bluegrass records. That was back when he started to set the "speed picker" standard among Tele players. Back when fast playing was the "big thing".

I went through it by doing the same thing, but not copying anyone. I did copy Clarence White's and Bob Warford's b-bender "feel" and sound, but not specific licks. Never saw the point in being a "copyist, except for playing very specific "hooks".

(most obvious examples - Day Tripper, Satisfaction, Sunshine of your Love, Smoke on Water...except I liked using them all on the same song...) Laughing

_________________
No chops, but great tone
1930's/40's Rickenbacher/Rickenbacker 6&8 string lap steels
1921 Weissenborn Style 2; Hilo&Schireson hollownecks
Appalachian, Regal & Dobro squarenecks
1959 Fender 400 9+2 B6;1960's Fender 800 3+3+2; 1948 Fender Dual-8 Professional

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

It was indeed, Jim. I still have it too, along with every record I could find with Albert playing guitar. Including his solo albums, which I thought were quite good.Youâ€™d think that after a lifetime of listening to and studying the guy, I might sound just a little like him once in a while.....Nope!

Nowadays itâ€™s Joe Wright, Lloyd Green, and Paul Franklin. I know Iâ€™ll never play quite like that either, but practicing toward a high standard has served me well so far.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

while of course we can all do our own thing but that doesn't mean we are getting the most out of a practice session.

What is the goal ? IF we have no goal then we really are not practicing but rather playing. Sure we may be improving but we should have a goal even if it's a very small one.

This is what separates the "worlds best" players from really good players , pretty good players and on and on.

For a long time I would listen to Larry Carlton records with the great Terry Trotter on keyboards. Terry would play these incredible octave lines, right and left hand. I read where Terry would practice right and left hand scales at meter over and over, probably for years, probably still does. Boring as all get get, sure, but it placed him in a different category. He had a goal.

Practice everyday is great but practice everyday with a specific goal, even if its' 5 min a day ,is even better. Reece used to call this "perfect practice" .

Practicing songs each day, which I also do, increases our proficiency, our smoothness,( hopefully) but it does't add to our vocabulary. IF we are practicing inside the box everyday when do we step outside the box ?

Way way back when I first stared playing and also playing gigs, a very good player and good friend in the area was pretty direct with me, he told me that I should take ONE thing, practice it everyday for 5 or 10 min a day for 30 days. At the end of the 30 days I would be EXCELLENT at that one thing . He laughed and said I would still be lousy at everything else but the good news is I can change goals every 30 days. He was right and I still do this today, 40 years later. I place something I am trying to improve on or learn in my practice sessions for a month or even longer. It works.
_________________
Emmons L-II , Fender Telecasters, B-Benders
Pro Tools 12 on WIN 7 !
jobless- but not homeless- now retired 9 years

CURRENT MUSIC TRACKS AT > https://tprior2241.wixsite.com/website

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Tony, your comment reminds me of a how-to-practice method book I have that teaches a concept called â€œBeginnerâ€™s Mindâ€. It is about sitting down at your instrument every day and realizing there is always going to be something that can be learned on it or improved upon. Knowing how to practice is the key, and a skill that had not been taught to me until I found that book.

Getting something down â€œperfectâ€ is an illusion, but excellence is always achievable with correct practice.

I have nothing against flipping on the backing tracks or a record and having some fun playing along. I might even call that the ultimate goal.

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

James Kerr · From: Scotland, UK

Odd one out here too, at 77 years old, the time I have left for practice is limited to rehearsing the next Video. I have no Band to be without, I'm a one-man-band so what they might expect does not come into it. The only guide I have of whether this is right or wrong comes from the listener on YouTube where I have over 2 point 7 Million views.

James.

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

James, you are a master. I am in boot camp.

J Fletcher · From: London,Ont,Canada

Wake up , get out of bed , make coffee , sit down at the steel for an hour or so. Bit of warm up , and then work on three or four different things for forty minutes or so. Trying to clean up the things that I know for the most part.

David Mason · From: Cambridge, MD, USA

Well, I attempt to follow the guidelines I give to my guitar students - funny, how hard that can be. That is:
1) What do you WANT?
2) What do you need to do to get it?

I have a compounding "ICK Factor", most everything I do these days is in some way affected, influenced, <strike>screwed</strike> by my spinal discs having munched some on my neck, arm and twinkie nerves; so I try NOT to "work on speed" or other abstractions, but much of what I want to play is harder than how I can play. It's seemingly mostly now hearing and/or unearthing positional sequences (non-pedal) and NOT speed, but for me that's still time-on-seat. I know people who achieve marvels with the mental aspect or non-instrument practice, unfortunately I don't have "the steel", the MAP of 10-string C6th, A6th-y string & interval relations NEARLY mapped well enough to be able to do much with it. Reece A. wrote some insights about "the matrix" and six-stringy Pat Martino ate and breathed that stuff. But I ALSO know that the therapy aspect is hugely important for me, so getting MAD over it is exactly heading uphill backwards too... I KNOW I've played every single note on it, I KNOW I've played most all of the sequences one way or another, so WHY WON'T THE DAMN THING JUST JUMP UP AND FETCH THE DAMN NOTES WHEN I SAY "FETCH?!?" Devil

ahem... reset.... Rolling Eyes

Jim Sliff · From: Lawndale California, USA

Fred Treece · From: California, USA

Jim, itâ€™s like the old prejudicial saying about guitar players â€”-
How do you get a rock guitar player to stop playing? Put sheet music in front of him.

How do you get a classical guitarist to stop playing? Take the sheet music away from him.

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