Creating the Ultimate 15-minute Practice Session
When it comes to practice, we often find ourselves aimlessly noodling without any real overarching goals, both short and long-term, set in place. Whilst simply noodling is always fun, doing so all the time without any direction can quickly lead us into areas of problems, possibly leaving us feeling so deflated and dejected with the instrument that we don’t want to practice. Obviously, this is the opposite effect you want your practice to have on your guitar playing motivation and overall progress, so it’s essential to implement positive practice protocols to combat such a thing from occurring. The good news is that we can do so by creating short practice structures and schedules without worrying too much about those looming long-term shredding dreams stripping us of our confidence. Though it might not seem it, 15 minutes is a very effective amount of time to plan your practice positively and create daily short-term goals that will have you build confidence periodically, rewarding yourself for those little wins. Consistently achieving those little wins is the perfect way to travel towards our long-term destination. However, it’s important to remember that the goal may always seem to move further away, reminding us that there’s always room for improvement, and we must always put the miles in. Ultimately, it’s all about creating a schedule that works toward you finding your direction and never running out of gas along the way. Here are some valuable tips to help you plan the ultimate 15-minute practice session that works for you and your goals.
1. Pre-Practice
Something we all often forget to do when picking up the guitar is to warm up. Warming up is crucial because it flicks the switch on our physical and mental responsiveness, turning them on and letting us get ready for what’s ahead and where our attention will be focused, as well as; avoiding any injury. We can take advantage of this time by changing our approach to warming up, thinking of it more pre-practice, and creating super short methods to work on areas of our playing that may be falling short compared to others.
The best way to do this is to form 30-second and 2-minute time blocks for our pre-practice. These are part of our overall practice schedule, contributing to developing those little wins and rewards of confidence. For instance, within our 15-minute itinerary, we start with 30-second short bursts of focused practice whilst, without realising it, warming up. The best way to plan these is to start with something that is attainable within the dedicated time: theory exercises, fretboard knowledge, scale workouts, sweep picking runs, alternate picking exercises, testing bend intonation etc. We can work on these things within our dedicated 30-second short practice bursts, and after completing, say, 4-8 of them; we should be well on our way to being warmed up physically and mentally. Be honest with yourself about what would most benefit from using these 30-second blocks to feel productive within the first 2-4 minutes of practising your guitar.
2. Super-Focus
Following this, we can take a 2-minute time block and expand the weakest of the previous 30-second “short-burst” time blocks, creating a “super-focus” time block to put the work where needed. By doing this, we are creating a map to focus on our needed areas of improvement, monitor our progress, and focus dedicated to them. The important thing about 2 minutes is that it leaves little room for distraction, ensuring that we are committed to what we are working on and creating super-focused, short-form practice habits.
Try taking 2-4 of these blocks (depending on how many 30-second “short-burst” blocks you have dedicated) and super-focus your attention to detail and error. This is not time for lazy practice but taking an honest and conscientious decision to improve the things you know need work and attention. By keeping these short, you’re rotating through and improving your weak areas daily, keeping you engaged and motivated.
3. Expression Session
Now that we’ve spent the time putting in the hard work, it’s time to reward ourselves with some creative expression and turn our practice into an application. It’s always important to aim to inject our playing with our new knowledge and inspiration, transforming it into confidence as quickly as possible. This can come in many forms, and each has advantages in helping us progress as a guitar player, getting the most out of our practice and becoming fluent and expressive improvisers.
Love playing over backing tracks? Great! Reward your hard work by playing over a track that allows you to play freely and encourages you to inject the new techniques or styles you’ve been striving to perfect. However, balancing positive, conscientious practices against having fun is important. An essential thing to remember is not to let overconfidence flip your practice from positive to negative by choosing a track that might be a little too far out of your comfort zone, with the potential to diminish your confidence.
Contrasting this, it’s also worthwhile remembering that if we’re perhaps simply ‘having one of those days,’ we can always choose to regain some confidence by playing over a backing track that we know will bring the best out of our playing. Or, a song you love to play and know well would also help bolster our morale and restore our determination. Be regimented but heck!
Be kind to yourself when you need to be.
Expressing yourself can be a fantastic way to wrap up a practice session by giving it some musical context. Try to block out 3-5 minutes after you get the graft done to see just how far you can take your newfound knowledge and technical tactics. By forming this good routine at the end of a session and doing so daily, we also have a great way to monitor our practice. Try recording your “expression sessions” to take this even further!
4. Inspiration Causation
Depending on how we have structured our sessions, if we have some time left, another great way to end a practice schedule is to learn something new that inspires us. Doing so forces us to reset our focus back to learning but in a way that strokes our ego, keeping us excited with our interaction with the instrument.
If you do have a couple of minutes left, use them to quickly take a look at how to play that new riff you love or the chord progression that caught your ear. Causing ourselves to stay inspired plays a massive part in maintaining our progress. Though, it’s once again important to remember to do so responsibly, not over-stretching your ability levels and hindering your progress and confidence.
Employ this kind of system, and these methods will absolutely help in your quest to better your guitar playing and practice. When putting together your ultimate 15-minute practice schedule, always remember to form your goals and reveal your weaknesses using “short-burst” pre-practices before putting them under the microscope in concentrated “super-focus” sessions, but also; to reward yourself for your hard work. Creating a visual representation of your practice time blocking and changing it daily will help you form the habit of better, more consistent, motivated and varied practice. Here’s my recommended template to get you started:
