Guitar Practice Blueprint

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Struggling to make real progress on guitar despite hours of practice? You might be approaching your practice routine all wrong. 

The secret to effective guitar practice lies in understanding the three essential tiers of musical development. Most players jump straight to execution without realizing that mastery begins in the mind. Everything we play—every note, chord, and phrase—starts as a thought before it becomes sound. This episode breaks down exactly how to structure your practice for maximum growth by balancing understanding, execution, and creativity.

Level one focuses on visualization and comprehension—the mental work that can often be done away from your instrument. Whether you're memorizing scale patterns, understanding chord theory, or mentally mapping the fretboard, this cognitive foundation creates the blueprint for everything you'll physically play. The beauty of this level? You can practice it during lunch breaks, commutes, or anytime your guitar isn't within reach.

The execution level is where your technical abilities are forged through consistent, dedicated practice. Like physical fitness, these skills require daily maintenance—alternate picking, finger strength, synchronization between hands—all these fundamental abilities deteriorate without regular attention. This is the engine of your playing that needs frequent fine-tuning to perform at its best.

Finally, the creative level is where you apply everything you've learned through improvisation, songwriting, and personal expression. Depending on your goals as a guitarist, this level might be your primary focus or simply an occasional playground for experimentation.

The most powerful insight? Becoming aware of which level needs your attention at any given time. By strategically prioritizing practice elements based on your short-term needs and long-term vision, you'll transform random practice sessions into structured progress toward becoming the guitarist you've always wanted to be.

Ready to revolutionize your practice routine? Listen now, then share which level you'll be focusing on this week!

Links:

Check out the GuitarZoom Academy:
https://academy.guitarzoom.com/

• Steve’s Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/stinemus...
• GuitarZoom Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/guitarz0...
• Songs Channel → https://www.youtube.com/user/GuitarSo... .

Episode Transcript

Steve (00:00):
When you're trying to create a practice routine for
yourself.
What I want you to think aboutare three different primary
elements.
Okay, three different levels,if you will.
The first level is going to beunderstanding, visualization
that sort of thing.
Okay, stuff that doesn'tnecessarily require physical
playing, but it requires visualelements, memorization, that

(00:24):
sort of thing, but it requiresvisual elements, memorization,
that sort of thing.
What's great about the firstlevel is that oftentimes you can
do this when you're not aroundyour guitar.
Okay, so maybe you're studying ascale on your fretboard or you
know a cage system or some sortof you know a triad concept or
whatever it might be.
Maybe it's a single position ofa scale or multiple positions,

(00:45):
or you know you're trying it's asingle position of a scale or
multiple positions, or you knowyou're trying to get a bigger
picture of how they all connecttogether, or whatever it might
be.
Maybe it's some theory, but thepoint is, is that level one?
What it?
Everything starts with ourthought process.
As guitar players, we oftenforget that we're actually
having to analyze what'shappening in our brains before

(01:05):
we actually start playing theguitar.
Now, at some point we developautomation and that's exactly
what we're looking for, but itstill starts with a thought.
So always begin byunderstanding that part of your
daily or weekly practice routineis going to be something that
you need to think about, youneed to comprehend, you need to

(01:25):
memorize, you need to visualizewhatever that means to you.
So, as you're havingexperiences throughout your
guitar playing world, you knowyou might come across a song and
now you need to study how thatsong structure goes or how the
parts go together or whatever itmight be.
Or maybe you're going toimprovise over something and so

(01:46):
now you're thinking about thesong and the key and what scale
option you have and what you cansee in your head.
All of that starts on level one.
Level two is the executionlevel, so this is where your
skill sets are determined.
Okay, so level two we're dealingwith our ability to be able to

(02:07):
play something mimic, somethingright.
Maybe you're learning a song ora riff, or you know a lick or
something like that, so you'retrying to replicate something on
some level and you're trying towork on the techniques that are
needed to be able to do so.
Maybe you're working on somefundamental exercises, something
for finger strength ordexterity, or you know stamina

(02:29):
or speed, or maybe it's a righthand thing, a fretting thing or,
excuse me, a picking thing.
So you've got your one hand,which is your fretting hand, the
strength of those individualfingers, the speed of those
fingers, that sort of thing.
And then you've got yourpicking hand, your down picking,
your alternate picking, yourstrumming.
You know natural strumming,organic strumming, I call it.

(02:50):
All of those kinds of toolscome from the strumming hand or
the picking hand.
And then you've gotsynchronicity between the two
hands, learning how to get themto relate to each other and
follow each other around thefretboard Again, be it in one
position, multiple positions,whatever it might be.
And then you've got specifictechniques.
Maybe it's down picking, oralternate picking, or hammer-ons

(03:13):
or bending, or you know again,God knows what it would be.
There's a million other things.
But that's the execution level.
And so your daily or weekly andfor me this kind of thing is
that there are many elements ofthe execution level that need to
be done on a daily basis,Because this is like your

(03:34):
strength, right, If you go outand you run three miles a day
every day to maintain the healththat you're at currently, If
you run less than that, yourhealth is going to be altered
relative to the decrease in theamount of exercise that you're
getting.
If you did more, your healthwould increase in theory,

(04:01):
because you're doing more,You're exercising more.
So what you have to understandabout the execution level, the
skills, the fundamental stuff,the rudimentary stuff is these
things need to be nurtured on adaily basis.
If you're developing your downpicking or your alternate
picking or you're, you knowyou're doing legato exercises to
maintain strength in your, inyour fingers and that sort of

(04:23):
thing.
You can't just do those once aweek.
Those things need to be doneevery day, where maybe the study
of the cage system, level one,is something that could be done
two or three times a week.
Okay, this is, I mean, there.
There's no perfect plan to this.
You just have to think aboutthis what stuff does your engine
need to run optimally everysingle day?

(04:47):
And then, what other things doyou have going on in your life
that could be done two or threetimes a week, or four times a
week, or whatever you see asvalue, right?
So the third level is what Ilike to always refer to as the
creative level, and this iswhere you start putting things
into play in a creative way,like you're strumming when you

(05:09):
play a song, right?
So in this creative space youmight be looking at new songs to
learn how to play, not justfrom a fundamental perspective,
but a creative level, Like maybeyou're improvising to the song
or maybe you're making up yourown strum or whatever it might
be, and obviously improvisationis a big part of this creative

(05:30):
level, songwriting, all of thesekinds of things.
So for some players, thecreative level, the third level,
is not the be-all, end-all.
It's actually less importantthan the first two.
Maybe you play in a cover bandwhere what you do primarily and
this isn't good or bad or plusor minus, it's just being honest
Maybe you play in a cover bandwhere 90% of what you do is play

(05:52):
songs and those songs haveelements that we're learning,
that are already pre-constructed, and sure, you might do a
little bit of your own thingwith the way you strum or a solo
here and there or somethinglike that, but primarily your
job is to learn these songs asaccurately as possible.
So your band sounds good, right?
So it's again, it's not thatyou'll never do creative stuff

(06:14):
or you're not good because youdon't do creative.
That is not what I'm saying atall.
What I'm saying is what's yourrole?
What is it that you're doing?
That's what you need to bethinking about.
So the creative level issomething that for some players,
is a very, very, very importantelement of their playing, and
for some players, it just isn'twhen the visualization of the

(06:36):
fretboard in some capacity hasto be.
Maybe it's bar chords on yourfretboard you know what I mean
Learning to play those all overthe guitar, or maybe it's
visualizing a particular song.
I mean, there's all kinds ofdifferent reasons why we would
do that.
Level two that's where the realwork is, and this is what every
guitar player has to deal withis you know what do I struggle

(06:56):
with?
And you want to become moreaware of that with your practice
.
When you think about it, youknow, not just somebody else
telling you what you'restruggling with, but you need to
become hyper aware.
Look, I try to play this thingand obviously this is very hard
for me.
The question is why, and once Iget the why, then that becomes
an element that I have to decide.

(07:17):
Well, maybe that needs tobecome part of my practice
routine to develop this thing soI can play this other thing
right, If you want to play in aband and you're playing a
particular song and you'restruggling with a particular
part of that song, you're eithergoing to have to find a way to
band-aid around it or you'regoing to have to learn it, and
either way you're going to haveto practice this thing.

(07:43):
So it's that stuff that feedsyour daily, slash, weekly
practice routine.
So you want to become aware.
Sure, ask for help.
For sure, you know I needstructure, I need some
accountability, I need to figureout what my plan needs to be
here with a practice routine.
But you also need to becomeaware of yourself and what is
needed to be able to set up thisthree-tier practice mechanism
for yourself.
When you come across somethingthat you see as valuable and you

(08:07):
struggle with the execution ofit, that should become part of
either a daily or, in somecapacity, a weekly practice
element.
This doesn't mean every singlething that you ever come across.
You have to be smart about it.
What do I need short term?
What are the things I need todevelop to be able to become the
player I want to become, andwhat is either a short term or

(08:29):
absolutely crucial?
That's the second partabsolutely crucial to the
development of my playing, andif it's absolutely crucial,
you've deemed it as thatimportant, then of course that
needs to become part of yourpractice routine.
You can't just say every singlething you ever, you know, try
and play and you can't do.
It has to become part of yourpractice routine.

(08:50):
You'd be practicing for 10hours a day on a lot of stuff
that you may or may not need.
You have to become aware ofpriority.
What are the things that I needshort-term, what are the things
that I've deemed important,very important long-term?
And these are the things thatfeed your practice.
You see,