How many hours should I practice a day if I want to become a good player? And how much of that time should I spend on songs and technique or other? I know everyone learns on different levels and has different goals, but I just don't want to look back in a few years and think if only I had of played extra hour a day I would be able to play songs that I could not. I think the hours add up if you look what an extra 30 minutes a day could total over 12 months or so. I just need to know if I want to be able to play well, jam with others and eventually have a good understanding of theory, what is a realistic amount of daily practice that would get me there.

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Fender Highway One HSS Stratocaster '09
Modified Fender Champ600
Honer Special20 Harmonica

I practice about two-four hours a day. Sometimes I can't get to my guitar to practice at all, thought thankfully that doesn't happen that much.

Here are eight categories of things to work on, pick four every day and practice each for a quarter of whatever practice time you have. My guitar teacher showed me this, and it's helped.

-Ear Training (Try to figure out songs)
-Recorded Improv (You wouldn't believe how much listening to yourself play can help you improve)
-Theory (Whatever you need to work on)
-Composition (Try writing songs, or even just riffs at first)
-New Chords and Scales
-Technique
-Repertoire (Learn songs all the way through so that you can play them in a band)
-Reading (My worst enemy when it comes to guitar playing, but I've got to learn to read sheet music)

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The old rule of thumb when I took violin in school and later guitar lessons was an hour a day. But I think that pre-supposed that you were fitting practice in with a bunch of other things (chores, homework, after school job, etc.). I'm not sure if anyone ever did a study to see if an hour was somehow optimal though.

But it's a good place to start. Too short a time won't cement skills and if you go too long at first, you might go in circles. In band days, I was probably practicing 4+ hours a day, every day, but it was highly targeted. Scales and other core skills, songs the band was working on and tunes we already did where I thought I could improve on my playing. Like that, I think it's more important that you set goals and checkpoints and meet them than that you worry about some exact time.

Beyond that, texasguitarslinger has a terrific list of what to do and I surely can't improve on it!

Good luck!

One other thing that comes up in the forums -- try to play with others as often as the opportunity comes up. That's one of the best ways going to improve on skills. And what I always add to that thread: try to play in as many different genres as possible. The more styles you know, the more you have to apply to your own.

Texas and Philip have given excellent advice especially about playing with others. I would practice about 5 hours a day with the first hour using warm up exercises like 1234-124-134 up and down the neck and trilling and running scale sequences usualy while watching TV.lol as these are terribly boring but so important for developing dexterity. Also when practicing scales use backing tracks this way you learn to make them sound like music instead of a scale. Then the fun stuff of playing tunes or improvising over backing tracks.And as Tex stated spend an hour or half an hour learning some theory as it is so helpful to know why things work.

In my particular situation, I don't have to practice guitar as I have already perfected it. And if you believe this, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I'd love to sell you.

On a tangent, why do we pay doctors megabucks to, "practice" medicine if they haven't gotten it down yet.

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You dig?

Ha! I'm way ahead of you: I don't have to practice either, and to prove it, here's the old London Bridge which I sold in 1967 and which now stands in Lake Havasu, Arizona. I have many more bridges for sale, if anyone's interested...:



Cheers - C