How long do you spend on an exercise or learning material?

[CoreyW]

Say we travel back to the late 80s and early 90s to the hay day of the VHS hot licks videos... or the Guitar World exercise articles, or even the modern day Truefire, Lick library lesson video...

How long do you spend on the material, is a lot of it just get to where you can play what is in that material and move on? Do you watch the video and play through it over and over again?

When you build an a practice routine, how long will you keep an exercise in your routine?

I am really curious how others approach this.

 

[S̷͖͑m̵͎͂á̵̺s̸͚̈́h̴̬̑]

I usually only practice something for a bit then move on. I come back to it a week later and usually can nail it. I work better by not grinding something out. If i try over and over, it is usually diminishing returns

 

[Techdeth]

I just found which was hardest and did that . So that getting was easier . Then I’d play it for days until mastered it . Like playing a Richie Kotzen vhs going to getter you rather than say most work books . Ones with hard concepts that’d look challenging
That’s been my way of thinking since day one . It makes going to say Randy Rhodes solos way easier . Sometimes I don’t finish shit if I find something even harder .
But mastering ONE super hard luck perfecting will do more for your playing than 10 licks kinda half way learned .

 

[DanTravis62]

Unsurprisingly a fellow guitar teacher (tech) is on the correct path here

People learn faster and progress more by mastering something difficult, as long as it teaches something that they aren't used to or is new to them

I do metronome work with a few exercises that i've developed over the years or stole from my teacher that i find valuable

But the answer is it depends - some people need to get it under their fingers and its there forever, some people need to keep brushing up on it. Depends on both the player and the technique.

I don't need to practice 3nps shredding at all and i'm fine, but I need to warm up with 2nps pentatonics and shit like that because I find the motion unintuitive. It's gonna be something like that for everyone.

 

[stephen sawall]

There is so many techniques and styles of playing you can never be good at any of them for very long if your always learning new material and techniques.

As for material I do not use any more time than what it takes to learn it.

As for techniques a few days to years of obsession to master it.

About 2007 because of a hand injury I only played slide a few years. I could play slide a lot better then than I can now.

About 2012 I worked on finger picking for five years.

Just a few examples of dozens over the decades.