Fitting practicing into my daily schedule

[beasleybubba]

I was hoping that some of you wiser, more experinced jazz guitarists could give me a little insight on the issue of fitting practicing into a balanced daily routine.

I'm 28. Been playing guitar since I was 12. I've been trying to play jazz for almost 10 years - didn't start practicing seriously until about 5 or 6 years ago, though. I moved away from my girlfriend in VA to go to grad school for Geology three years ago. I got spoiled: while in school I found a great teacher and was able to practice 6-plus hours a day. I made huge headway during grad school, but unfortunately now I'm done.

I moved back to VA to live with my girlfriend and now I have a full-time job. I still practice every day, but it's NEVER enough. I'm still making progress, but not near as much as I made while in school. I've accepted the fact that I won't get 6 hours of practice in but one day (or two if I'm lucky) each week.

My lady is very supportive and understands that I require as much music time as possible every day... BUT I still find myself practicing less while at home than I would if I lived alone. I can only imagine how bad it'll get if we get married and have kids. But I must emphasize that she is very supportive of my obsession, even if she does get a little jealous of my guitar from time to time.

I have decided to start logging some practice time during my work day. There's a guitar shop a couple blocks from my office and they are cool with me walking in and picking around on their instruments.

How do you guys recommend I approach trying to squeeze 45 minutes of practice in during my lunch break? Also, any advice on prioritizing practice topics during my evening practice sessions? Is it possible to lose skills that you worked your butt off to attain if you only put in an hour or two of practice a day? How much time should I devote to transcribing? Learning tunes? Drilling scales? Learning new chord voicings?

There's still so much material to absorb!

I really want to keep getting better - in fact I have no choice. I'm going for the dual career: Geologist by day, Jazz and Swing Guitarist by night!

[matt.guitarteacher]

This is a popular question you'll find pretty regularly on the forum. Do a search, and you'll find a lot of discussion. Jazz study can be particularly frustrating if you're in a time crunch just because there are so many things you feel you need to work on every day.

One piece of good advice I've seen posted often is to concentrate on one thing at a time. If you don't have much time that can at least keep you focused. Also, decide what you want your practice time to look like if you only have X minutes to practice. Finally, try to find practice elements that are good for particular situations.

For example, a lot of transcription work can be done on a commute by listening to the tune. If you're working some muscle-memory pattern or scale that doesn't require getting "into the zone", it might be good to tape it up in a place where you'll be reminded to play through it once or twice at different points during the day while doing other activities. What types of practice can only be done with peace and quiet? Don't waste your valuable "quiet time" practicing scales or arps that could be done while watching tv or something.

Lastly, (and this is kind of related) when you don't have a lot of time on your hands work on things that you know will stick even if you lay off the instrument for a while. Of course, if you're really focused on one or two areas of study/tunes pretty deliberately, it will all stick, even if you lay off for a while. I've never practiced arps and scales every day, and I still remember them and can refresh.

I have a lot more time in the summer, and there are times when I hardly get to practice at all. I think that if I practiced all of the many things that I sometimes think I should, I wouldn't retain anything.

[Greg Brouelette]

I have regular practice sessions as well, but I also found that I can get a lot out of a little 5 minute session early in the morning before I go to work. It's early (I get up at 4:30) it's dark, it's quiet. I play my Telecaster unplugged for about 5 minutes just to clear my head before I head out and start my commute.

This morning I tried to think of Blue Bossa entirely as chord intervals:

i iv ii Valt i
then ii V I one half step up
then back to ii Valt i
with a ii V turnaround.

Then I though that if I think of the tune that way I can easily move it from Bb to E. Let's see if I can do that.

That was a quick 5 minute session that got my mind off of the early morning, work, the commute etc. Try setting aside 5 or 10 minutes in the morning like that and see if it helps.