Practice Schedule

Sounds great man!
The only thing you might add is about 1 or 2 hours for practicing phrasing.
Try to work in that hour or two your vibrato, bends and intonation
Good luck!!

Oh to be young and have that kind of time to developing your guitar skills :D. Fretdancer if I could give you a word of advice it would be this. You could easily combine some of those techniques to get some efficiency out of your routine. What I do for my routine…..since I’m 39 and am lucky if I get 2-3 hours a day to play 😀 …….is combine those techniques. Like for 1 hour I will practice sweeping and AP. Then for the next hour I will practice Tapping and Legato. I also think you should spend some time learning some songs. If you want to play like Vai learn a Vai tune. If you want to play like Rick learn one of his tunes. This is where you are gonna build up your lick vocabulary and get ideas for your own tunes. One thing I have noticed from watching youtube shredders is that there are a bunch of them that can shred like crazy but their phrasing is horrible. They haven’t learned any music they have just learned to play excercises……so that is what their playing sounds like…..excercises.:(

Another thing to think about is that when you practice a technique you really need to break it down and figure our what specific things need to be worked on in that technique. Like tapping for example. I have found that the biggest problem people have with tapping is tapping across the strings…..or changing strings. When you are descending in a lick and you change strings there are 2 ways to do it. You can change string by tapping the next note on a differnt string with your tapping hand or you can change strings by doing a left hand “hammer-on from nowhere” onto the next string. When ascending you can do the same thing. Make sure you have some licks in your routine that cover ALL these different facets of tapping.

Every technique can be broken down like this so make sure you do it for every technique. Shredding is nothing more than simple licks played extremely fast and accurate.

Good luck fretdancer……m/m/

2 hours a day is plenty and you can make really good progress if you are efficient with your time……..Good luck!!

Hey Fretdancer69,

Here are a few ideas I’d like to share:

1.) Try to work on weaknesses more than strengths! (Be honest with yourself here!) :rolleyes:

2.) If you compose/write original music, try to leave some time for that (although it’s tough to “schedule” when your going to be “creative!?!“ (LOL!) :rolleyes:

3.) Use a metronome to maximize your efficiency! :p

4.) Put yourself into musical situations! If you’re in a band, this can be going over your band’s material (originals or cover/copy-songs) If you’re NOT in a band GET INTO ONE! :p (LOL!) If you like blues, perhaps sit-in at an area open-mic/blues-jam. Whether you’re in a band or not, WORK ON YOUR IMPROVISATIONAL SKILLS WHILE USING JAM-TRACKS/BACKING-TRACKS! 😎

5.) Reserve enough time to woodshed your favorite Infinite Guitar lessons/tutorials – (LOL!) :p

6.) If you really aspire to be an excellent all-around player, you should practice/learn songs from genres that you’ve NEVER played before! IE: Say you’re a “metal-head,” then try learning some Funk, Ska or Reggae! 😎

7.) Record yourself periodically for accurate evaluations of strengths & weaknesses. 😉

*** BTW, I love the fact that you allocate 10 mins. to strech-out/wam-up! (Sean Conklin would highly approve of this decision! – LOL!)

Best of luck, and I hope I’ve helped!

~Bill Meehan~ 😀

Great advice all around. I’ll pitch in with one method which is really working for me. As Mosjem said, 2 hours a day is a lot. What I do is just think of the next 5 minutes. Believe me, you can achieve a lot if you practice/focus on a single phrase of an exercise continuously for 5 minutes (with 10 second breaks in between). This method is quite common and you should find plenty resources on the net I guess.

But then, take it to the extreme! As an example, I wanted to learn Through The Never by Metallica and its a crazy song with continuous downpicking with palm muting on the low E string. So I practice continuous downpicking for the entire 5 min slot. I can now play eighth notes at 190 bpm. Not all through of course. I play quarter notes when my hand feels tired and resume it back to eight notes. Check out Sean’s Speed and Stamina exercise which utilizes this method.

Have fun!
Rohan

I’m with Mandz here.

As I’m also focusing on Richard’s “Unlocking The Fretboard”-Tutorial, I do something similar to Mandz.
Besides the fretboard-tutorial, I also try to improve my economy of motion, because I want to improve my Alternate Picking aswell.
So what I do is, that I go through the various´exercises that Richard posted in that tutorial, but also trying to keep the movement of both, the left and the right hand, as small as possible and strictly keep Alternate Picking.
Sometimes I also try to say the names of the notes while doing the exercises or even try to sing them
(in pitch, or at least various octaves if the notes are too high).
Another thing you could do, is to say the interval.
Or you also could play everything in different timing/note values which would improve your rhythm skills

By doing all that stuff, an effecient motion of both hands (which relates and more efficient picking) and a good fretboard knowledge.

Just my 2 cents 😀

Not to sound like a tosser, but i’ve found that maybe improvisation is the best way to improvise?
Just download a load of backing tracks and practice your techniques over them!
It’s all i do these days. 8 finger stuff can fit over nearly anything! Like all of the techniques.
But then again i’d love to be able to sit there and practice a set regime 🙁