Why Guitar Players With Less Practice Time Don’t Make Much Progress

Why Guitar Players With Less Practice Time Don’t Make Much Progress

By Tom Hess

It’s just an excuse when guitarists say they aren’t getting better due to having limited time to practice guitar. These are the true reasons why these guitarists struggle:

1. Not Even Trying Due To Self-Sabotaging Beliefs

It’s common for guitarists to believe they can’t become good because they don’t have enough time to practice. They believe that having tons of time to practice is necessary for getting better and since they don’t have a lot of time... there’s no point in even practicing. This is one of the main reasons why so many players never get any better or ultimately quit guitar.

Fact: getting better on guitar is about quality over quantity. Great guitarists focus on getting the most from every second of their practice time, rather than practicing as much as possible. It’s true that some guitar players practice many hours every day with the goal of getting better. However, this doesn’t mean it works for them. When you focus on doing the best you can with the time you have, you quickly begin seeing results like never before.

2. Ineffective Guitar Practice

Regardless of how much time is available to practice, you become a better guitarist faster by practicing effectively. A lot of guitarists do not practice very effectively, and spend their practice time playing around in an unorganized way. Making your guitar practice highly efficient and effective gets the best results even if you only have a few minutes to work. A guitar player who only has 30 minutes a day, but practices as effectively as possible gets MASSIVE results compared to a guitarist who has many hours to practice per day, but does so in an ineffective manner.

Make your practice as effective as possible by finding and working with an experienced guitar teacher.

3. They Don’t Practice Away From Guitar

There are tons of things you can practice even when you don’t have your guitar with you. A lot of guitar players aren’t aware of this and totally overlook this opportunity to become better musicians. Not only does practicing away from your guitar give you more overall practice time, but it makes your practicing more efficient. This helps you improve as a guitarist and musician much faster. Just a few things you can work on away from your guitar include: songwriting, memorizing the fretboard, visualizing chords/scales/arpeggios on the fretboard or learning music theory.

Check out this column to learn how to practice guitar without much time.