Supercharge Your Guitar Practice Time

Lesson 1: Keep It Short

This is one of the most powerful superchargers I know. It seems very simple. Too simple to be true, maybe. But take it from me, it works. Here it is:

When you’re learning something new, use several very short practice sessions each day instead of one longer one. In other words, Keep It Short.

That’s it. Simple, huh? Here’s an example of how to put this into practice:

Let’s say you’re a beginner, and you’re learning to make the change between the C chord and the G chord.

One approach would be to bust your hand and your brain by spending 10 or 15 minutes working on this. This might be somewhat effective, but you would also likely end up with sore fingers, and after a couple of days of this, you wouldn’t be looking forward to your practice time.

Another approach would be to just spend a minute or so each day working on this new skill. This might be the only thing you practice each day, or it might be part of a longer practice session where you also work on other stuff . . . like speeding up some chord changes you already know, say, or maybe playing a song you like. This might work, too, but it would take some time to really get that new chord change under your fingers.

The supercharge method is this: work on the chord change for a minute or two. Now put the guitar down and do something else for, say, half an hour or longer. Pick up the guitar again and work on the chord change for a minute or two. Repeat until you have done five or six short practice sessions. Do the same thing the next day.

Just a couple of fine points: The time between practice sessions can be as little as half an hour or as much as several hours. The important thing is to keep each session short, and to get in several (say 4 to 6) sessions in a day.

If you do this, you’ll master the chord change much more easily and in much less time than using the other methods I describe above.

You’re not a beginner? No problem. The same thing works for just about any new thing you’re learning. It might be a scale pattern, a melody, a fingerpicking pattern, or a series of up-the-neck chord changes. The point is, whenever you’re learning something new, you can master it quicker by practicing it in small chunks.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this lesson. Go use the Keep It Short technique it on something new that you want to learn, and see for yourself how effective it is. I’ll be back with Lesson 2 in a few days.