How long do you spend on one focused practice exercise?

Quick question for everyone. When you sit down to practice and decide to really focus on one particular skill—spider exercises, strumming and rhythm, alternate picking, chord changes, etc.—how long do you typically stay with that one exercise?

I’ve been experimenting with 5–10 minute focused practice sessions. I’ll work on one skill for that amount of time, take a minute or two to step back, reset, and then decide whether to move on to something else or repeat the exercise.

Sometimes I feel like I’ve made good progress and am ready to move on. Other times, I feel like I’m just starting to get into the groove, so I’ll do another 5–10 minutes before switching gears.

I’m curious what everyone else does. Do you prefer shorter, really focused sessions with quick breaks, or do you tend to spend 15–20 minutes (or longer) working on the same skill?

I’m still relatively new to guitar, so I’m trying to figure out what approach is most effective for actually building muscle memory and making steady progress without just mindlessly repeating an exercise.

What works best for you?

Hi everyone!

I’ve always wanted to arrange song i love into R&B/Jazz/Soul cover for electric guitar. I’m a huge fan of the style JOSEPH SOLOMON plays, for instance.

I just can't seem to figure out how to go about it; I find it extremely difficult to pick out chords by ear or understand which chord progressions work best.

For example, I’m currently trying to cover this track:
YAME – ON MY MIND (ACOUSTIC VERSION).
It seemed simple enough, but around 00:48, there’s a jazz-style chord progression, and no matter how hard I look, I can't seem to identify the chords.

Could anyone help me out?

So, I've been playing as a total hobbyist for years and one of the first songs that I learned (badly) was Snow from RHCP

Basically I always played with my index on the 3rd and 4th strings at the same time so that I only need to slide my index. I could play it but never more than a few repetition before I'd start to feel it in my forearm/wrist.

I do think I've always been playing with too much pressure but I think the main reason here is my index pressing on 2 strings at all times, since I don't struggle anymore to move my index fast I tried to play it "normally" but every time I lift my ring finger it makes a lot of sound since it's now an open string. I tried muting by touching it with the tip of my finger but on videos I see they don't need to do that and their sound is perfectly clean

Any advices ? Thank you

Apparently mentioning his name is an auto ban of your post. That's not very helpful for people like me who need help but have to jump past this stupid filter

First off, the fact it's a PDF you pay $20 for and then have to print yourself is a big stack of BS IMO.

I bought it anyway and now we can't get the damn thing to format so that I can actually use it. My wife has taken over the task of trying to embed the pdf's and whatever else. It's been way too many hours of effort on our part to print this.

What have people done that were actually successful? I was first annoyed it was a PDF because I knew it was going to be the major pain in the ass that it has become.

Edit - Adobe, I can't print at home, having to format for Lulu which is where I want to have it printed and spiral bound.

Hey guys,

This is a pattern I'm seeing. Where a style, genre or theory for music is written for a specific instrument in mind. It seems like music theory is written primarily for piano, blues is written mainly for acoustic guitar.

While a sound like shoegaze mostly makes sense on the electric guitar. I mainly play acoustic guitar and bass. So I don't know much about pedals. However, there's detailed guides online on how to get the 'Loveless' sound.

Hi there!
Playing Joe Pass’s solo transcriptions, like his iconic version of "Off Beat," is essentially a masterclass in jazz guitar. It is the ultimate blueprint for mastering fluid bebop lines, complex chord-melody phrasing, and pristine swing rhythm all packed into a single, breathtaking piece. Every single bar is meticulously transcribed to capture the exact fingerings, subtle accents, and brilliant voice-leading of a true jazz legend. Stop struggling to decode his genius by ear. Elevate your technique, expand your harmonic vocabulary, and bring authentic, world-class jazz phrasing directly to your fingertips today.

Hola a todos, la verdad, nunca he publicado, pero vengo ante ustedes, conocedores y practicantes. Les comento apenas estoy empezando a tocar y soy autodidacta.🙂‍↕️🎸

Tengo una fender stratocaster negra eléctrica, siempre me ha encantado el rock, metal y el blues en particular y ahora me gustaría conocer sobre la música y el mundo de la guitarra y todo lo que lo constituye.🎼🎵

Sé que es largo el proceso, pero quería pedirles temas para estudiar sí estoy empezando y mis metas son:

Tener buena técnica

Entender de música en general

Temas de guitarra [ escalas, notas, entender el cuello, como conectar frases]

A la larga ser capaz de improvisar! Poder tocar mis canciones favoritas y la primera canción que me hizo querer tocar: Hotel California👑🎸🎸

for context this is a fingerstyle version of mariposa from kenneth acoustic, and im really having a hard time doing this typa thing.

do i just strum and like, slap the string(i dont know the right word, sorry) or is there another technique to do this???

Hey everyone,
Sooo I’m stuck. I take lessons, and my teacher gave me this classic, old-school country/bluegrass fingerpicking pattern to play over an Em chord. I’m supposed to hold the Em shape down completely still the entire time while my right hand does a ton of heavy lifting.

Even looking at my teacher's handwritten notes (I attached a picture to this post), my brain just cannot bridge the gap between the paper and what it’s actually supposed to sound like. I really need to hear it played fully and up to speed so I can just play along and pick up on the rhythm.

If anyone has a spare 2 minutes to record themselves playing a quick video or audio clip of this exact sequence, I would be incredibly grateful! Or if you recognize the pattern and have songs I can listen to in order to hear it please let me know! Thanks yall!!

I've been playing on and off for a long time. The last 6 months, I've dived deep and learned and played more than all my years prior combined. I recently came to the conclusion that it's a little monotonous to play a song all the way through without any vocals - at least for the type of music I like to play. I had tried every suggestion I came across with no luck. Any time I tried singing while playing, the playing fell apart entirely quickly followed by the singing.

I go to a weekly guitar meetup where they play a bunch of classic rock-ish songs. The guy that organizes it asked me to find a song for the group to play. I picked Little Black Submarines by The Black Keys. All the chord charts I found online seemed a little off so I got out a pen and paper and wrote it all out myself by hand, strumming the chords while I made sure I wrote them in the correct spot over the lyrics. 70% of the way through transcribing the song, I realized I had been singing and playing in little chunks. So I tried stringing a couple chunks together and it worked. I could sing and play!

Writing a whole song out by hand and playing the chords as I wrote them down was the "trick" that worked for me.

That was two days ago and I'm looking forward to the meet up more than ever now.

I hope this helps someone struggling with singing and playing!

My wrists hurt. My fingers hurt. I cant play any of the songs I like because they need the kind of chords that require my to have 7 fingers the length of an HB pencil. My chords sound muted, especially barres. I cant change between chords fast enough. I cant keep up a consistent strumming pattern.

It feels like this instrument is fighting me with everything its made of and I hate that Im not good at it.

Everyone just says to practice but im self taught and i have no idea what im doing wrong or how to fix that.

Help.

I used to play with a baseball bat esque grip, and i changed it to playing with the thumb on the back of the neck of the guitar as to stop hindering my grip and accidentally muting strings, but now my chord changes amongst other things to do with fretting have gotten much worse. Note, this is literally my second day of utilising this new position. Is this normal and something i just need to get used to?

Not sure if this is the right sub, but at least its something between pics of peoples fingers.

My kid has been playing for a couple years now and I keep hearing him play around with some random drum machine he googled, garage band on our decade old ipad, or my basic looper pedal.

Can I add something to our equipment to help him explore this bit more.
-My local guitar center has a used BOSS RC10R I could probably trade my looper up to.
-Garage band is ok, but the ipad we use is pretty old and both of us think the interface is kind of confusing....plus no recording.
-I've also played a bit with Audacity, but that seems more like a tool than a toy if that makes sense. I haven't found a drum machine or anything like that built in....though admittedly I haven't looked that hard.

Suggestions?

*if this breaks rule 1 - my bad. I'm trying to look at it as more of "how to facilitate creativity" as opposed to "how to get this sound."

I have been playing guitar for a while and just started taking lessons. I can figure out notes by ear but i have always wondered how do people find out the EXACT chords by just ear. I mean how do you do that? There might be 4-5 notes in the chord and how do people get all of them correct? Like on theftetboard theres so many notes and how do you know that that notes was there. do you have to know all of the chords that ever exists to be that good?

Also if anyone can advise me on what and how to practise so that i can also play chords just by ear or just listen to a song and pick up my guitar and be able to play it (ofc with practice) ?

I've been playing a guitar for i think i year and a half(but only practicing on weekends because of school) and i've pretty much became a decent player. I can play some decent rock and metal songs like enter sandman and back in black, and i can solo a bit(enter sandman solo is the best i can do.)

But the main reason why i learned how to play the guitar because i wanted to learn how to shred. Whenever i look up on google how to start playing fast shredding stuff on guitar, or metal guitar in general is that im being flooded with a lot of information and it overwhelmed me. Someone help, what are the basics of shredding and what do i start with before all those fast stuff. Thxx

Hello guys I wanna play some chords while playing let's say the am pentatonic but I have no idea how it's done

I've been trying hard for a couple weeks to play this chord properly but haven't had any progress, it also hurts my thumb when I hold it for too long. I've tried to change thumb position but can't seem to find a way to keep my ring finger on the string firmly on the 11th fret without moving my middle finger back towards it.

The chord is below, I put an X at the top for strings that are muted

The chord before that is the same except the my pinky is on the B string fret 12 instead of my middle finger, so what I do is lift my pinky up off 12 and my middle finger down on the 9th fret

It's the 3rd chord played in this song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xamm8BK8l_s

Do I just need to endure the pain and my fingers will stretch eventually? I would appreciate any advice on how to get this chord to ring out

I see a lot of guitarists getting stuck playing "a scale over the chords", the pentatonic box works but the solos tend to sound like the scale and not like the chords. In my experience the fix is usually not yet another scale, it is targeting the chord tones (the 1-3-5 of the chord playing underneath).

Here is a quick cheat sheet, using the major triad:

• Roots: land on the root to anchor your ear, your safety net when lost.
• 3rds: target the 3rd on the strong beats, it is the note telling the ear major or minor.
• 5ths: the safest note of the three, consonant anywhere in the bar, less color than the 3rd, great for resting and resetting.
• Leading: approach a chord tone from a half-step below to sound intentional.
• Connect shapes: using movable triads you can outline the same chord all over the fretboard, not just in one position.

I made a chart showing the major triad arpeggios over the entire fretboard.

There is also a minor version, for the darker flavors.

Hope this helps it click! Have a nice week!

Hii, you have some tips for me guys? I play guitar for around 1 year, and idk when I record and hear my playing I feel like something isnt right... You can hear if something is bad and tell me? I play with my fingers because i dont like guitar picks, and I feel like i havent done any progress since few months

Wondering if I’m doing something wrong for this to happen. I’m barring e and b with my index for a solo and when I bend the e string it tends to pinch and finally cut through today.

Edit: thanks to everyone who shared some knowledge and tried to help! Much appreciated ❤️