By TabTunix · Published
A good guitar practice routine gives every minute a job: a short warm-up, one technique, the chord changes or the scale you are working on, and a song to finish. In 30 minutes that is six blocks of five, each with a goal you can check. Play the same routine for a week before you change it.
Pick the routine that fits the time you have each day and play it as it stands; every block says when it is done, so you know when to move on. Take the two chords from a song you are learning or from the guitar chord chart, a progression from the common chord progressions, and the scale from the guitar scales. Start with the minor pentatonic, the scale most guitarists learn first. Printed, all three routines fit on one sheet.
For a beginner, or a day with little time.
| Minutes | What to play, and when it is done |
|---|---|
| 3 min | Warm-up: a finger exerciseDone when: Every note even, at a tempo you can hold |
| 4 min | Chord changes between two chordsDone when: Four clean changes in a row, each on the beat |
| 4 min | One scale in one positionDone when: Up and down to a click without a stop |
| 4 min | A song or a riffDone when: Through once without stopping |
For most days, once you know a few chords.
| Minutes | What to play, and when it is done |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Warm-up: a finger exerciseDone when: Every note even, at a tempo you can hold |
| 5 min | Technique: pickingDone when: Clean at your last best tempo, then a few BPM up |
| 5 min | Chord changesDone when: Four clean changes in a row, each on the beat |
| 5 min | A scale in two positionsDone when: From one position into the next without a gap |
| 5 min | The hard bars of a song, loopedDone when: Three clean loops in a row |
| 5 min | The song, played throughDone when: Through once, mistakes and all |
For an intermediate player moving up a level, in one session or two.
| Minutes | What to play, and when it is done |
|---|---|
| 5 min | Warm-up: a finger exerciseDone when: Every note even, at a tempo you can hold |
| 10 min | Technique one, such as alternate pickingDone when: Your best clean tempo, written down |
| 10 min | Technique two, such as legato or bendsDone when: Your best clean tempo, written down |
| 10 min | Chord changes or a progressionDone when: Four clean changes in a row, each on the beat |
| 10 min | A scale across the whole neckDone when: From its lowest note to its highest without stopping |
| 10 min | The hard bars of a song, loopedDone when: Three clean loops, then a few BPM up |
| 5 min | Play for funDone when: Nothing to count |
Your own routine works when it keeps four rules:
To choose what you practice every day, take four things: one for the fretting hand, such as a finger exercise; one for the picking hand, such as alternate picking; one for the neck, a scale or the chords of a key; and one piece of a song you want to play. Those are your blocks, and the routines above show how many minutes each gets.
A tempo is the one honest measure of an exercise: you play it clean at that speed, or you don't. Start at the tempo where you play it clean, wherever that is, and set a target above it, such as the tempo of the song it comes from. Raise the tempo in small steps, a few BPM at a time, and only after a clean run. A metronome with a speed trainer does the raising for you.
At the end of each day write down your best clean tempo. That number rising is progress you can see, and it is how you keep track of your practice.
In the app
Put your exercises in TabTunix in the order you play them, give each its minutes, and the routine keeps time while you keep playing.
No exercises of your own yet? TabTunix's marketplace has free exercise packs to fill your routine with. Each exercise is a short tab with a target tempo, and you can hear it played before you choose. For the 15-minute routine, take your warm-up from First Steps and your two chords from Open Chords, then add a scale and the bars of a song you are learning.
First Steps
Five warm-ups for clean, even playing
For your warm-up
Open Chords
Nine chord pairs for your first eight chords
For your chord changes
Building Blocks
Five steps from clean notes to music
For your technique
Strumming
Four progressions that don't sit still
For your chord changes
Moving Up
Five exercises where two things happen at once
For your technique
Start with the 15-minute routine, run it for a week, and see your tempos climb.
Time shows that you showed up; tempo shows that you improved. For each exercise, write down four things: the date, the exercise, the tempo you played it at, and how it went: clean, shaky or bad. The fastest tempo you marked clean is your best, and it is the number that counts: your minutes can rise while it stands still. A notebook will do, or print this page for the log with empty rows.
TabTunix keeps that log for you: every minute you play along to it, and your rating of each take at its tempo. By week, month or year you see how much you played, your days in a row, which exercises got faster, as from 96 to 104 BPM, and which reached their target. It keeps what you rate; it does not judge your playing.
| Date | Exercise | Tempo | How it went |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mon | G to C changes | 72 BPM | Clean |
| Tue | G to C changes | 76 BPM | Shaky |
| Wed | G to C changes | 76 BPM | Clean |
Play the same routine all week rather than a new one each day: only then does the tempo you wrote down mean something. Practice five or six days and take one off. At the end of the week, change one block, the one you have outgrown, and keep the rest.
As a beginner, 15 to 30 minutes a day is enough to improve; once you know a few chords, 30 minutes on most days keeps you moving, and an hour is for moving up a level. Practicing often beats practicing long: five days of 20 minutes do more than one afternoon of two hours. Past an hour, split it in two with a break. And a planned 15 minutes does more than an hour of playing whatever comes to mind. If your hand or wrist hurts, stop.
Run your routine to the minute and see each exercise get faster. Free, for Mac and Windows.