How To Practice: What Smart Guitar Practice Means

For guitar players, the word practice can carry a lot of baggage. We’ve all heard some version of “practice makes perfect,” and from an early age we’re taught that improvement comes from putting in the time.

That basic idea is true—but it leaves out an important question: What actually counts as practice?

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What Counts as Practice

Simply spending time with a guitar in your hands doesn’t necessarily mean you’re practicing effectively. You might play through songs you already know, noodle around with familiar licks, jam with friends, or improvise for an hour. All of those things can be enjoyable and musically valuable, but they aren’t necessarily the same as focused practice.

Jeff Scheetz has seen this distinction come up repeatedly during his years of teaching. “I’ve had a lot of students who really struggled to improve even though they said they were putting in the hours. A student might tell me, ‘I practiced for three hours last night.’ But when I asked exactly what they did for those three hours, it might turn out they had some friends over, jammed on some Black Sabbath, and ordered pizza. That might be putting in some hours, but it’s not really practicing.” The difference is intentionality.

Effective practice has a specific purpose. You’re trying to improve something, solve a problem, strengthen a weakness, develop a skill, or move a piece of music closer to where you want it to be. That requires more focus than simply playing whatever feels comfortable in the moment.

Playing Guitar and Practicing Guitar Are Different Activities

One reason guitarists struggle with practice is that playing the guitar is supposed to be fun. Most of us picked up the instrument because we wanted to play songs, improvise, jam with other musicians, or simply enjoy making music.

Focused practice can feel very different. As Jeff puts it, “Creatives and guitar players are wired to say, ‘Man, let’s just jam. Let’s grab our guitar and have fun.’ One of the big shifts we have to make is moving away from just noodling around or playing things aimlessly and toward a more organized practice approach.”

That doesn’t mean jamming or playing for fun is somehow less important. In fact, those activities are part of why we practice in the first place. The point is simply to recognize that playing for enjoyment and practicing for improvement serve different purposes. When you know which one you’re doing, it becomes much easier to use your time effectively.

Practice Requires Focus and Effort

Research into expertise and skill development has consistently distinguished deliberate practice from casual repetition. Focused improvement generally requires effort, attention, and work on things that are not yet easy.

That can be uncomfortable for guitarists because our natural tendency is to return to the things we already do well. Familiar riffs feel good. Favorite songs are fun to play. Comfortable tempos make us sound better.

But improvement usually happens when practice becomes more specific. Instead of playing a song from beginning to end three times, you might isolate the two measures that keep causing trouble. Instead of running a scale at your usual speed, you might slow it down and concentrate on clean articulation. Rather than improvising over a backing track for twenty minutes, you might spend five minutes working specifically on targeting chord tones.

The goal is not simply to accumulate minutes. The goal is to give those minutes a clear job. Jeff describes the challenge this way: “Most of us know that we need to practice. The problem is that many of us have never really been shown how to practice properly.”

That distinction matters whether your ambitions are large or modest. You may want to become an advanced player, perform professionally, or master difficult repertoire. Or you may simply want to play comfortably with friends, accompany yourself while singing, or enjoy playing songs for your family. Either way, an organized approach to practice can help you get more from the time you spend with the instrument.

A Better Definition of Guitar Practice

A useful way to think about practice is: Practice is focused, intentional work designed to improve a specific aspect of your playing. That definition immediately gives you a way to evaluate a practice session.

Before you begin, ask yourself: What am I trying to improve? What specific problem am I trying to solve, and how will I work on improving it? How will I know whether I’m getting better?

If you can answer those questions, you’re much more likely to be practicing rather than simply spending time with the guitar. And that doesn’t mean every minute with the instrument has to feel like work. There should still be time to play songs, improvise, experiment, jam, and enjoy yourself. The important thing is to understand the difference.

As Jeff says: “Whether you want to become a virtuoso or you just want to play guitar with some friends, both can benefit from having an organized practice system.” The first step toward practicing smarter, then, isn’t practicing longer. It’s learning to recognize what practice really is—and what it isn’t.

Continue Learning

Explore the rest of this series:

• How To Practice Smart for Guitar Players
• How To Practice Smart: The Three Ps
• How To Practice Smart: Smart Zone Practice
• How To Practice Smart: Five Smart Steps
• How To Practice Smart: The Four Rs