BUILDING AN EFFECTIVE

PRACTICE ROUTINE

By Shane Theriot
 With the huge amounts of educational materials
available these days (YouTube, Books, Schools etc.)
it can certainly be overwhelming when trying to
design a practice schedule not to mention even
knowing what to practice.

The following method that I offer has worked

wonders, not only for me but for others as well.

It is also a simple and effective concept.

Let’s get started!

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WHY PRACTICE?
First off, let’s define practicing.

PRACTICE- “The repeated performance or systematic exercise for

the purpose of acquiring skill or proficiency”

To make it less technical it’s the idea that you are consistently
working on things you don’t currently know but would like to, in
some organized, consistent fashion.

Basically it’s the idea that you have set small musical and
performance goals for yourself to accomplish.

This doesn't have to be a big deal, but practicing does not mean
playing the same licks and jamming for hours.

Practicing effectively involves working on things you don't already

know and applying the information in order to reach another level.

“Noodling” or “jamming”, on the other hand, are certainly fun and

they have a place, but let’s be clear: this is not the same as focused
practicing.

If you want to improve, you need to make the distinction between

the two and commit yourself to dedicating small chunks of focused
time on working on things that

You don’t currently know and would like to be able to play,

and/or
Things you are vaguely familiar with but can not play up to a
desired level.

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SCHEDULE YOUR TIME
The first step is to make some kind of schedule for yourself. You
don't have to make it really elaborate and complicated, just a
general idea of the material/music you want to cover. A little pre
planning will go a long way and keep you focused, making the most
of your time.

THINGS TO PRACTICE
As mentioned before- there is certainly no shortage of material out
there (You Tube, websites, local teachers, books, videos etc..) from
which to pull from. This can be overwhelming and cause us to feel
“stuck”. Beware of trying to take on too many things at once- rather
it’s far better to concentrate on a few things that you would like to
learn and master them before moving on.

Focus on “chunks” of material- bite size pieces of

material/information that is just out of your ability but not too
daunting of a thing to eventually master with practice. Less will
probably be more as you begin to learn how to effectively build a
schedule that works for your level.

You should try and cover the basics - These are what I would
consider to be a good “well rounded meal” CHORDS and
RHYTHM,FRETBOARD THEORY,SCALES/TRIADS/ARPEGGIOS , TECHNIQUE,
and EAR TRAINING. Now, keep in mind that what qualifies as Chords
and Rhythm for one person may be different for you. As long as it
falls roughly into the category- it will work.

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Don’t overthink it. Here are a few examples of the categories and
ideas that you could “plug in” that would relate to each one.

Chords and Rhythm (this might be a few new voicings,

funk chord move, jazz bass line or a Curtis Mayfield tune)

Technique (can be something as easy as simple

alternate picking exercises, legato exercises or more
adventurous like Bach Cello Etudes etc.....)

Scales and Arpeggios (lots of books and videos on

these) Triads would also fall into this category.

Ear training (traditional ear training exercises like relative

pitch etc... or just transcribing solos would qualify here).

If you get really ambitious you might add

Sight- Reading to this list. Learning the
Notes on the Neck is something that
everyone should be able to do. I have a few
videos of this on my You Tube Channel.

These would be a good start. As you can

see, lots of material can fall into these
categories.

Don't forget improvising and composing.

You should try to do a little of both each day.

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HOW MUCH TIME?
Here is where things get interesting. When I attended GIT, we were
told to use a timer set for 15-20 minute segments while practicing.
The reason behind this concept is that the average attention span
of a person is about 20 minutes. (It may be more for some and less
for others...) It is during this period of time when your peak learning
period takes place. You are apt to remember and retain more
material learned during the first 15-20 minutes than the later
segments. How do we apply this to practicing? We divide each of
our subjects into 20 minute segments (or less). The important thing
here is that when we apply a focus of un-interrupted attention on a
subject and use the timer, even 5 min of focused time can be highly
effective.

Therefore, some topics can be a little as 5 min (notes on neck),

(learning part of a scale) etc...but FOCUS is the magic word here.

(You will probably want to plan more time for transcribing and
sight-reading, if you choose to.)

BUT ...THAT DOESN'T SEEM LIKE ENOUGH TIME

I realize you may think that, but you will be amazed at how much
you can learn using this method. Let's say you want to learn 3
positions of the melodic minor scale. The traditional way would be
to hammer them all out at once, repeating all three patterns again
and again. With this method, you are likely to confuse and mix up
the scales. (They are weird patterns anyway).

Using the 20 minute method, we work on one position, or even three

strings at a time.

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By focusing on "bite size" portions of material for smaller
increments of time, we can dramatically improve our retention. You
can go back later in the day and hit them again if you like, but be
sure to move on to another subject when the 20 minutes are up. For
Chords and rhythm, you might work on a new group of voicings or a
jazz standard. Again, try to break the material up into bite size
pieces.
Maybe only tackle the first 2 lines of the tune, then move on until
later. This is effective practicing.

USE A TIMER!
I cannot stress this enough. I recommend
you get an old school timer (kitchen
timer) or something like that. The timer
on your smart phone will work fine for
this, but it also likely to cause more
distractions if you are constantly getting
texts and calls while you are in the
middle of your practice time.

The timer will keep you focused and make sure you are making the
most efficient use of your time. This is double your effectiveness.
There is concept called the “Pomodoro technique” that is literally
named after a timer shaped like a tomato in Italian. This is the
concept of using a timer to keep focused while performing tasks. I
first learned this concept during my time as a young 19 year old
student at Musicians Institute in Hollywood, CA. We had to have a
timer to practice with and it has stayed with me since....Trust me on
this. It works. Set the timer for the amount allotted, FOCUS ONLY on
the material for that section. Don’t stop until the timer goes off. At
this point- STOP and move on. You can come back to it later.

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EXAMPLE PRACTICE ROUTINE #1 (30 min)
5 Min Warm up (TECHNIQUE)

5 Min Notes on the Neck exercise (FRETBOARD/THEORY)

5 Min CAGED Forms- Learn Shape #2 (SCALES)

Funk Example from Shane Theriot Video (CHORDS AND

10 Min
RHYTHM)

5 Min New Blues Lick -practice over chord vamp (SOLOING)

EXAMPLE PRACTICE ROUTINE #2 (1 hour)

5 Min Warm up (TECHNIQUE)

10 Min Notes on the Neck exercise (FRETBOARD/THEORY)

CAGED Form- Stay in one position and this week work on key of
10 Min
A, D, Bb (SCALES)

TRIADS F to Bbmin going up neck 2,3,4 string

10 Min
groupings(TRIADS/CHORDS)

15 Min KENNY BURRELL SOLO -TRANSCRIBE 2nd HALF OF SOLO (SOLOING)

10 Min Melodic Minor Scale Learn Pattern #2

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EXAMPLE PRACTICE ROUTINE #3 (2 hours)
Can be Divided Up Into Smaller Daily Chunks

5 Min Warm up (TECHNIQUE)

John Scofield solo from You Tube video (learn 3 lines)

20 Min
(TRANSCRIBING/EAR TRAINING)

20 Min Learn 2 Major 9 arpeggios (SCALES/ARPEGGIOS)

3 new voicings from Eric Johnson book, compose tune with

20 Min
them (CHORDS AND RHYTHM)

Tape min7 progression and solo over it using Scott

20 Min Henderson's applications for pentatonic scales (from video)
(IMPROVISATION)

5 Min Short break

Holdsworth legato exercise - 4 note per string scales

15 Min
(TECHNIQUE)

Chet Atkins finger picking example (TECHNIQUE/CHORDS AND

20 Min
RHYTHM)

30 Min Sight reading examples from Berklee textbook (SIGHT READING)

So now, in a little over 2 hours, you have built a schedule that will greatly
enhance your practice time.

This isn't dabbling; it's focusing. Try it for a few weeks and see how
effective this can be!

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KEEP A DAILY PRACTICE JOURNAL
Pearson’s Law states that “When performance is measured,
performance improves. When performance is measured and
reported back, the rate of improvement accelerates.”

Therefore, get into the habit of tracking your daily practice- (this
could be something simple like checking off when you completed
an exercise for 10 min, noting improvement or metronome setting,
adding up the times completed at the end of a session etc)...these
will go a long way in your efforts to improve.

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DON’T MAKE IT COMPLICATED
This should be something simple- a basic notebook with some easy
system of tracking progress each day is sufficient and will keep you
on the path to progress. Don’t get too bogged down with
complicated Excel docs or fancy practice schedules. Just log in the
subjects you want to touch on, hit each one with the timer and then
write down what you did (and didn’t) complete.

You will be amazed at how this simple act of writing things down will
cause you to be more focused and make your practice time more
effective.

CONSISTENCY IS KEY
As any physical trainer will tell you- 4 days of 20-30 min of focused
practice over 7 days is better than one day of a 3 hour marathon
session once a week.

You will find that the more you stay consistent the faster your
improvement will happen and gaps and blind spots in your playing
will start to dissapear. Good luck with these concepts and try to
keep an open mind; I have found this method to be very helpful in
my playing career and I’m sure you will find the same!

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