How much practice should you be doing each day?
This is something I get asked a lot by students and my answer is always the same; “well, how good do you want to get and how quickly do you want to get there?”
First of all, let me say practice volume isn’t the be all and end all. When it comes to practice – quality is a lot more important than quantity.
What good is 8 hours of practice if you’re using poor technique the whole time?
That being said, if you’re doing a lot of quality practice consistently – you’re going to see some really great results, FAST!
Let me be perfectly honest – if you’re serious about your guitar playing and you’d like to get good, I believe you should be practicing a minimum of 1 hour a day 5 days a week.
If that makes you feel like you’re going to have a heart attack, let me reasure you by saying it’s fine to practice less than that – but you need to match your input with your goals.
If all you want to do is play to relax after work – 15 minutes is fine. If you want to be able to play like Zakk Wylde – 15 minutes is only enough to warm up and 30 minutes is only going to scratch the service.
I once had someone contact me and tell me they want to play like Zakk Wylde but only have 10 minutes each day to practice. I told them unless they can make more time for practice, they should be more realistic about their goals.