Improve Your Guitar Playing By Practicing Less

Getting into a rhythm of regularly picking up your guitar for a quick practice session is a great habit to get into – the more your guitar is in your hands, the more you’ll get used to playing guitar.

So if you don’t have enough time for a full practice session, and you have 10-15 minutes to spare, here’s some ideas for what you should practice:

Practice a chord change.
Perhaps switching from an F barre chord to a D open is causing you difficulty. Focus your attention on improving this specific aspect of your guitar technique.

If you spend just ten minutes going over and over a chord change like this, you will increase your ability to do it at the level you require – and you’ll start finding it easier and easier, until it’s simply second nature.

The key is to focus, and hone in on one specific skill – so that you can improve in a short period of time, without hours of practice.

Work on a song you want to memorize.
This will give you a chance to actually play some music! You need to have fun in your practice to keep your playing fresh and focused. It may seem like you’ll improve quicker if you’re practicing chords and scale drills all the time.

To some degree you will. But if guitar playing starts to get a little boring or stale, it’s important to do something fun. You can’t improve if you later decide to quit altogether because you’re sick of playing guitar, or stuck in a rut.

Listen to a song on a CD and play along.
This is a great way to improve your playing, and it’s particularly suitable for short practice sessions.

An important part of learning guitar is to train your ear, and jamming along to a CD is the perfect way to do it. Make sure you know the chords used in the song, so you learn to hear when chords change and how to add your own style to the music.

Work on a lick you want to learn.
You'd be surprised how many times you can work through a lick in just a few short minutes. You can also combine this practice technique with practicing chord changes.

This will improve your skills in a short period of time.

Work up and down a scale.
In ten minutes you can play through a scale around 50-100 times.

This will improve your stamina and also help you build speed.

Remember to use a metronome when you’re trying to build speed though. Because you want a smooth rhythmic sound to your speed picking, not a struggling, hurried sound. You want to build up speed comfortably.

Be Creative!
Play some chords in combinations that sound good to you. Play some melodies. Create some riffs. Again, this improves your ear and you could maybe work out some parts to a song of your own.

Also, remember keep your guitar ready and set-up at all times.

Sure, it’s well protected all hidden away in your case, but if it’s ready for you to have a short practice session, then you’re more likely to pick it up and practice, even if it is just for a short time.

So keep that guitar out and ready to practice!
You may not think these short practice sessions help much, but doing this builds up your skills fast – and you’ll surprise yourself by how much you improve just be having the guitar in your hands regularly.

However, you don’t want to solely rely on these quick practice sessions. Like most things, you need to strike a balance. A good way of finding that balance is to set a routine.

When you have a routine, you will find it gets easier to find the time for practice. Once you’re in a habit of practicing regularly, you’ll find it harder to break out of, and that’s a good habit to have.