Guitar Practice Schedules

30 minute Sample Practice Schedules

If you only have 30 minutes a day to practice I would suggest focusing on just one to two things per day. Otherwise the quality of your practice is minimal. Here are some examples based on my goals. Remember your’s can differ, for example you may really want to focus on chord structure or voicings.

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
20 min	elements	interval / ear	rt hand technique	scale studies	arpeggio and composition	review and journal
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
20 min	weekly goals and theory	scales and rt hand technique	intervals and elements' relationship	elements and composition	arpeggio andear training	review and journal
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
20 min	free play with recording	elements	free play with recording	elements	free play with recording	review and journal
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

These are three examples of a 30 minute practice session. Now when you read my goals and practice schedules, you’ll notice that they seem theory intensive as opposed to technique. That may be the case but there are a couple of reasons for that:

The first reason is that I think that in order to become the best musician that you can become, you must understand how music works. You have to develop a relationship with it. My practice sessions are nothing more than me enhancing my relationship with music. That’s how I try to look at it.

The second reason is that based on what I want to accomplish, I need to understand theory. You notice that my goal wasn’t to play arpeggios as fast as I can, or to shred like Vai or Satch. It was to do something with the skills that I have, to say something through technique and to me applying theory to emotion is the most efficient way to accomplish the goal.

Lastly, I NEVER STUDY THEORY WITHOUT MY GUITAR IN HAND. I’m a teacher by trade but I try to keep guitar playing from being purely academic. So I always learn and practice the theory on the instrument.
Alright I’ve digressed, back to the schedule examples:

30 minute Sample Practice Schedules

A) the rotation (because you’re rotating study topics everyday)

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
20 min	relationship of elements	interval positions / ear training	scales and phrasing	rt hand technique dynamics	arpeggios and composition	review and journal
20 min	interval positions / ear training	scales and phrasing	rt hand technique dynamics	arpeggios and composition	relationship of elements	free play and song ideas
10 min	scales and phrasing	rt hand technique dynamics	arpeggios and composition	relationship of elements	interval positions / ear training	plan out next week
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

B) A creative approach: Topic a day for all you perfectionists

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
30 min	free play and song ideas	composition and song structure / decide message and driving elements	develop elements from ideas from Sunday	rt hand techniques and dynamics	phrasing and fretboard position: fingerings	try and put it all together
20 min	journal to tie in	journal to tie in	journal to tie in	journal to tie in	journal to tie in	review and journal
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

C) A technical approach: Topic a day yet again for you obsessive-compulsives

Time	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday
5 min	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up	warm up
30 min	rt hand arpeggios and dynamics	interval study and fretboard placement	left hand study: scales, phrasing and speed	chord structure and placement on fretboard	improv over vamps	free play and idea generation
20 min	journal to tie in	journal to critique	journal to critique	journal to critique	journal to critique	gauge improvement since Sunday
5 min	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down	warm down

Suggestions:

Focus on a specific aspect of playing at a time. Don’t try to cover all right hand techniques in one day.
Focus on one technique or area of study and do it right and learn it thoroughly. I can’t stress this enough.
Don’t practice shoddy technique.
Don’t practice halfheartedly. If you want to learn something, learn it inside and out until you’re just about sick of it.
These schedules are simply examples you can go by. But you should base them on your goals. Usually I alternate between the different schedules and sometimes I skip here and there, whatever. The point is, as musicians we change and so should our goals and practice regimens if need be. I usually take a day off during the week to clear my head, mine just happens to be Saturday.
In the next session we’ll start to focus on the importance of listening. And we’ll get into this especially in detail more in the lessons on intervals and the unit on creative composing.

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