Practice is defined as doing or performing something repeatedly in order to acquire or polish a skill. This is the simplest way to look at practicing, yet many students lump everything they do on the guitar into practicing. Just playing your guitar isn't practicing; it's more akin to reinforcing old habits. Many students believe that they practice a lot and are very efficient, when in reality they end up spinning their wheels more than they are actually learning.

The truth is that practicing—true practicing—is very hard work and shouldn't last for long periods of time. When you hear of friends gloating about their eight-hour marathon practice sessions, you have every right to be suspicious. Most guitar players don't really understand what practice really involves, and most seem to equate time spent playing the guitar with practice time. Practicing involves working on one thing at a time—one specific weakness—and working on it until you get it right. True practicing is focused, organized work, and it shouldn't be measured in hours or minutes. The amount of time spent cannot quantify your improvement.

Get Organized

Time management is the most crucial aspect to improving. It doesn't matter how much time you have every day; what matters is how you spend that time. Ten minutes of focused daily practice beats four hours of marathon practice once a week. So, first things first, you need to develop a schedule.

If you tend to make up for lost time with long sessions, you need to rethink your approach. You can compare practicing to training for the Olympics. You wouldn't expect an Olympic athlete to train only one day a week, would you? Playing every day, even for only a few minutes, is more beneficial in the long run than inconsistent long practice.

Routine is the key. You want guitar practice to be part of your daily routine, just like brushing your teeth. It's part of your daily routine, and you get used to doing it. Even though it's a bad idea to quantify practice in minutes, a good one-hour slot is a nice place to start. What are you going to practice for one hour? The answer is, many small things, because you need to keep your practice sessions interesting and lively to help break up the monotony.

Know Thyself

Part of this game is understanding what to practice. Some of us are lucky enough to see our weaknesses, but others have no idea where to start. Here are the categories that everyone should practice on a regular basis, along with some of the possibilities for practice in each category:

• Scales—including major, minor, modes, and pentatonic

• Arpeggios—either learning fingerings or applying them to musical situations

• Technique—practicing anything is a technique exercise

• Chords—learning a new voicing, working on progressions, or songwriting

• Ear training—including interval identification and chord identification

• Musicianship—including sight-reading, fingerboard knowledge, and anything else you can think of!

John Petrucci of Dream Theater is one of the most disciplined guitar players around. His approach to practicing is very logical and organized. He uses a filing cabinet filled with folders for various musical subjects, with musical examples to practice for each. When it comes time to do a practice session, he just selects music from each folder and works on those for that session. Doing the same will ensure you get a well-rounded education.