December 18, 2025 • 11 mins
Ever feel like your practice sessions are busy but not better? We dig into a simple, reliable way to turn scattered effort into musical progress by pairing long-term plays with short-term wins—and then slicing through both to make actual songs and solos. No fluff, just a clear path to move from shapes and theory to sound and feel.
We start by reframing what practice is for: long plays like clean picking, fretboard navigation, and music theory build deep capability, but they only pay off when you connect them to short wins such as a tight strum, a memorized riff, or a two-position solo that lands on chord tones. From there, we explore how expression lives beyond scales—timing, dynamics, vibrato, bends, and space—so your lines tell a story instead of tracing a diagram. You’ll hear practical ways to choose what to study now, how to avoid the “forever student” trap, and when to leave topics like the circle of fifths on the bench while you strengthen core skills.
We also share a layered practice structure you can run in under an hour: technical control with a metronome, visual mapping of chords and scales, bite-size theory or ear training on breaks, and focused musical play over a song or backing track. Short on time? Use constraints—two notes, one motif, or triads on top strings—to force phrasing and creativity. Whether your target is strumming songs, jamming with friends, or improvising blues and rock, this approach keeps you advancing today while building the foundation for tomorrow.
If this resonates, follow the show, share it with a friend who’s stuck in a rut, and leave a quick review telling us your one long play and two short wins for the 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... .
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Steve (01:11):
Hey, this is Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy here.
And today I want to talk to youabout two different kinds of
practice strategies (01:15):
a long-term play and a short-term focus.
And then we're actually goingto talk about some real world
things at the end of this aswell.
But let's just start off bytalking about the importance of
understanding the differencebetween long-term plays and
short-term focuses.
So, what happens a lot of timesis people lose sight when
they're practicing of whatthey're actually doing, and they
(01:37):
just start kind of randomlypracticing things, kind of
noodling around, and it doesn'tfeel like they're making any
progress.
Here's the other problem issometimes people will start
focusing on certain things,which is great, like learning
all the notes in your fretboardor connecting the scale
positions across the guitar,whatever it might be, these
long-term plays, so to speak.
(01:58):
But what happens is they getstuck in these ruts where all
they're thinking about is thatcurrent practice.
And what you need to do is youneed to span out and start
thinking about differentapproaches to get the most out
of your practice time.
For instance, develop somelong-term practice plays.
I'm going to, you know, learnhow to pick faster or pick
(02:21):
cleaner or, you know, whateverthat thing might be.
And we know that those thingsare going to take time.
It's not something that justevery week you're necessarily
going to see progress on.
You know, you're working withyour metronome, you're trying
different tactics to get uhfaster and cleaner, all those
kind of things.
And yeah, you might see somesmall progress, but it's going
to take time to get to where youwant to uh, you know, where you
(02:42):
want to get to with yourplaying.
The next thing might bedeveloping your fretboard so you
can see navigation on thefretboard.
Maybe you're seeing, you know,scale shapes connecting
together, you're seeing the cagesystem connecting together.
Uh, maybe you're learning whereyour triads are and you're
learning the names of yournotes, that sort of thing.
Again, great long-term play tobe able to do.
(03:03):
But you'll notice there'smultiple plays within that idea
that I just said.
It's not just one thing,there's lots of things going on
there.
Another long-term play might beI want to learn about music
theory.
I want to learn, you know, howmusic theory works and what
scales are and scale chordrelationships and all that kind
of stuff.
What notes are in my chords,whatever that stuff is.
(03:25):
Okay.
So many of these things thatwe're talking about, though,
have smaller focuses within themthat we can try and work on.
So many people that I talk toabout the academy and seeing
whether or not the Guitar ZoomAcademy is a fit for them, what
happens is they get stuck inthese sort of streams of
(03:46):
practice or these ruts, if youwill, and they forget that
there's multiple things thatthey should be working on at the
same time.
Um, and the reason for this isbecause between your long-term
and your short-term stuff, whatI want you to think about is the
fact that what you're reallytrying to do is kind of take a
slice out of all of these thingsand learn how to play in the
(04:07):
real world.
Maybe it's playing songs.
Maybe you're you're more of abeginner and you're trying to
learn how to play songs.
You need to memorize songsbetter, or your strumming needs
work, or your bar chords needwork, something like that.
These are all various plays.
But the bigger picture is youwant to learn how to play music.
You want to learn how to playsongs to make you feel better,
have some fun, you know, connectto your younger self, you know,
(04:30):
that used to love all thesedifferent songs, whatever it
might be.
Or maybe you want to eventuallyjam with some friends or play
in front of your family orwhatever it might be.
See, that's the that's thepillar, that's the slice between
all of these long andshort-term plays, if that makes
sense.
That's where we're trying togo.
We don't necessarily want towait until all of these things
(04:50):
are fully developed out beforewe start actually making the
music because it takes too long.
You're gonna get bored and itseems like you're never getting
anywhere, you don't really feelreal progress.
We've got to learn how tobalance these long-term plays
with these short-term focuses toactually get you experiencing
(05:10):
real music, playing stuff.
Now, let's say you've beenplaying for a while, and what
your goals are are more, I wantto learn how to improvise.
You know, I want to play bluesor rock or whatever it is that
I'm interested in, or play overmajor and minor situations, but
I want to be able to improvisein a creative and musical way.
I want to be able to expressmyself musically.
(05:30):
Well, that's a whole notherconversation to have.
The music doesn't necessarilyexist within the scale or the
theory or the visualization.
The music exists in yourability of being able to squeeze
music out of these variousthings that you're studying,
right?
Just because you're learningscales doesn't mean you're
(05:52):
making music.
It means you're learningscales.
And you're learning how to playthem up and down or back and
forth or whatever it is you'redoing.
But the scale itself and thestudy of that scale inherently
isn't where the music is.
You've got to get some sort ofcontrol over this visualization,
this memorization, thisexecution to get to a place
where you can start manipulatingit in a musical context.
(06:15):
So you can see where thatbecomes a problem if you're
waiting until you learn all yournotes on your fretboard and
you're waiting till you learnall the scale positions in
various keys and all thesethings before you actually start
getting to making the music.
That's the problem.
Yeah, we want to develop theselong-term plays for sure.
Okay, but we need short-termwins as well.
(06:36):
And we also need to figure outhow we can slice through all of
these various things that you'reworking on to get to a practice
where you're actuallydeveloping musicality,
creativity.
For me, that's the differencebetween the guitar player and
the musician, right?
The guitar player, the guitarplayer brain, I always call it,
(06:57):
is the one that's we're we'restudying this and we're learning
this and we're practicing this,and we need to do those things.
Don't get me wrong, that'simportant.
But if all we do is thosethings, we're not focusing on
the musicianship, the dynamics,the phrasing, the musicality of
things that we can do toexecute.
You know, we're learning how toconnect scales and chords
(07:19):
together.
And then we need to be able todo this in an expressive and
creative and musical way, yousee.
So it's very important that youuse your time wisely and you're
practicing the right things.
Oftentimes, when I'm havingconversations with students, we
recognize that there are certainthings that they're working on
that while they might be good,you know, tools inherently are
(07:42):
there's nothing wrong with withstudy tools, scales, and all
these different things.
The question comes, becomeswhen is the right time to do
this?
Right?
Circle of fifths.
I'm not saying circle of fifthsis good or bad.
What I'm saying is, does itpertain to you?
Is it something that couldbenefit you?
And if so, is it something weshould be looking at now, or is
(08:04):
it something that we should holdoff until we develop these
other things?
And we have to make realchoices between between all of
these different things becauseotherwise you get lost.
Like there's just a billionthings on the guitar you could
be studying.
And again, if you're happy andwhat you're doing is working for
you, God bless you, I thinkthat's great.
But if it's not, and you feellike you're lost because of all
(08:25):
of this stuff, and you justnever seem to get to where you
want to go, that's when you knowyou need some help, you need
some assistance, be it a friendor you know, a guitar lesson
from wherever, or if you'reinterested, you can always check
out the Guitar Zoom Academy,see if that's something that
fits you.
Okay, we can have aconversation and just you know,
explain how it works, all thatstuff, and and see if it's
(08:47):
something that fits both you andus.
Um, but the most importantthing today is I really want you
to be just thinking about whatam I doing, why am I doing it,
and how am I doing it.
Developing a couple oflong-term plays that you're
gonna work on, and thendeveloping some short-term
things, you know, things thatyou can feel that success, this
particular song or this riff orwhatever it might be.
(09:11):
Okay, everybody's different,but understanding the difference
between the two.
And then also developing layersof practice like technical
practice, visual practice,conceptual practice, uh,
theoretical practice, musicalpractice, all of these different
kinds of things that you shouldbe uh, you know, tapping into,
(09:32):
maybe at different times of theday.
Maybe you don't have threehours to sit down and practice,
you know, like most of us.
Maybe you've got a half an houra day or an hour a day at most.
Well, but maybe you could do 15or 20 minutes in the morning
and then 15 or 20 minutes atwork or at school or something
when you have a break, and then20 or 30 minutes at in the
evening or something like that.
(09:52):
And you could focus ondifferent things at different
times.
Hey, I'm at work or I'm atschool, I don't have my guitar.
That's fine.
There's other things we couldbe focusing on that we could be
memorizing, we could becomprehending, right?
Theory, fretboard, study, oralthings, ear training.
There's there's different kindsof things we could do when the
(10:13):
guitar's not around.
And then when we get home,that's when we're gonna do that
physical practice.
So, you know, you can we canhelp you, but you can organize
to a place where you're actuallyusing your time wisely
throughout the day.
So you're not always feelingoverwhelmed.
So, anyway, these are things Iwant you to think about a little
bit because it's very, veryimportant to organize yourself.
(10:35):
What are you trying to do andwhat is necessary to get you
from point A to point B and thenfrom point B to point C?
If you're just overwhelmingyourself with a ton of different
stuff, that's half the problem.
Okay.
Understanding what are mylong-term plays, what are my
short-term focuses, right?
And what is it that I need todo to get to a place where I can
actually start creating somethings that sound and feel
(10:59):
musical, not just concepts.
All right.
So, anyway, hopefully thathelps you a little bit.
Take care, stay positive.
Uh, if you're interested inchecking out the academy, you
can always click on the link andlearn more and get on a call
with myself or one of my otherinstructors, and we can talk
about it.
All right.
So, talk to you soon.
Hey, this is Steve Stine from Guitar Zoom Academy here.
And today I want to talk to youabout two different kinds of
practice strategies (01:15):
a long-term play and a short-term focus.
And then we're actually goingto talk about some real world
things at the end of this aswell.
But let's just start off bytalking about the importance of
understanding the differencebetween long-term plays and
short-term focuses.
So, what happens a lot of timesis people lose sight when
they're practicing of whatthey're actually doing, and they
(01:37):
just start kind of randomlypracticing things, kind of
noodling around, and it doesn'tfeel like they're making any
progress.
Here's the other problem issometimes people will start
focusing on certain things,which is great, like learning
all the notes in your fretboardor connecting the scale
positions across the guitar,whatever it might be, these
long-term plays, so to speak.
(01:58):
But what happens is they getstuck in these ruts where all
they're thinking about is thatcurrent practice.
And what you need to do is youneed to span out and start
thinking about differentapproaches to get the most out
of your practice time.
For instance, develop somelong-term practice plays.
I'm going to, you know, learnhow to pick faster or pick
(02:21):
cleaner or, you know, whateverthat thing might be.
And we know that those thingsare going to take time.
It's not something that justevery week you're necessarily
going to see progress on.
You know, you're working withyour metronome, you're trying
different tactics to get uhfaster and cleaner, all those
kind of things.
And yeah, you might see somesmall progress, but it's going
to take time to get to where youwant to uh, you know, where you
(02:42):
want to get to with yourplaying.
The next thing might bedeveloping your fretboard so you
can see navigation on thefretboard.
Maybe you're seeing, you know,scale shapes connecting
together, you're seeing the cagesystem connecting together.
Uh, maybe you're learning whereyour triads are and you're
learning the names of yournotes, that sort of thing.
Again, great long-term play tobe able to do.
(03:03):
But you'll notice there'smultiple plays within that idea
that I just said.
It's not just one thing,there's lots of things going on
there.
Another long-term play might beI want to learn about music
theory.
I want to learn, you know, howmusic theory works and what
scales are and scale chordrelationships and all that kind
of stuff.
What notes are in my chords,whatever that stuff is.
(03:25):
Okay.
So many of these things thatwe're talking about, though,
have smaller focuses within themthat we can try and work on.
So many people that I talk toabout the academy and seeing
whether or not the Guitar ZoomAcademy is a fit for them, what
happens is they get stuck inthese sort of streams of
(03:46):
practice or these ruts, if youwill, and they forget that
there's multiple things thatthey should be working on at the
same time.
Um, and the reason for this isbecause between your long-term
and your short-term stuff, whatI want you to think about is the
fact that what you're reallytrying to do is kind of take a
slice out of all of these thingsand learn how to play in the
(04:07):
real world.
Maybe it's playing songs.
Maybe you're you're more of abeginner and you're trying to
learn how to play songs.
You need to memorize songsbetter, or your strumming needs
work, or your bar chords needwork, something like that.
These are all various plays.
But the bigger picture is youwant to learn how to play music.
You want to learn how to playsongs to make you feel better,
have some fun, you know, connectto your younger self, you know,
(04:30):
that used to love all thesedifferent songs, whatever it
might be.
Or maybe you want to eventuallyjam with some friends or play
in front of your family orwhatever it might be.
See, that's the that's thepillar, that's the slice between
all of these long andshort-term plays, if that makes
sense.
That's where we're trying togo.
We don't necessarily want towait until all of these things
(04:50):
are fully developed out beforewe start actually making the
music because it takes too long.
You're gonna get bored and itseems like you're never getting
anywhere, you don't really feelreal progress.
We've got to learn how tobalance these long-term plays
with these short-term focuses toactually get you experiencing
(05:10):
real music, playing stuff.
Now, let's say you've beenplaying for a while, and what
your goals are are more, I wantto learn how to improvise.
You know, I want to play bluesor rock or whatever it is that
I'm interested in, or play overmajor and minor situations, but
I want to be able to improvisein a creative and musical way.
I want to be able to expressmyself musically.
(05:30):
Well, that's a whole notherconversation to have.
The music doesn't necessarilyexist within the scale or the
theory or the visualization.
The music exists in yourability of being able to squeeze
music out of these variousthings that you're studying,
right?
Just because you're learningscales doesn't mean you're
(05:52):
making music.
It means you're learningscales.
And you're learning how to playthem up and down or back and
forth or whatever it is you'redoing.
But the scale itself and thestudy of that scale inherently
isn't where the music is.
You've got to get some sort ofcontrol over this visualization,
this memorization, thisexecution to get to a place
where you can start manipulatingit in a musical context.
(06:15):
So you can see where thatbecomes a problem if you're
waiting until you learn all yournotes on your fretboard and
you're waiting till you learnall the scale positions in
various keys and all thesethings before you actually start
getting to making the music.
That's the problem.
Yeah, we want to develop theselong-term plays for sure.
Okay, but we need short-termwins as well.
(06:36):
And we also need to figure outhow we can slice through all of
these various things that you'reworking on to get to a practice
where you're actuallydeveloping musicality,
creativity.
For me, that's the differencebetween the guitar player and
the musician, right?
The guitar player, the guitarplayer brain, I always call it,
(06:57):
is the one that's we're we'restudying this and we're learning
this and we're practicing this,and we need to do those things.
Don't get me wrong, that'simportant.
But if all we do is thosethings, we're not focusing on
the musicianship, the dynamics,the phrasing, the musicality of
things that we can do toexecute.
You know, we're learning how toconnect scales and chords
(07:19):
together.
And then we need to be able todo this in an expressive and
creative and musical way, yousee.
So it's very important that youuse your time wisely and you're
practicing the right things.
Oftentimes, when I'm havingconversations with students, we
recognize that there are certainthings that they're working on
that while they might be good,you know, tools inherently are
(07:42):
there's nothing wrong with withstudy tools, scales, and all
these different things.
The question comes, becomeswhen is the right time to do
this?
Right?
Circle of fifths.
I'm not saying circle of fifthsis good or bad.
What I'm saying is, does itpertain to you?
Is it something that couldbenefit you?
And if so, is it something weshould be looking at now, or is
(08:04):
it something that we should holdoff until we develop these
other things?
And we have to make realchoices between between all of
these different things becauseotherwise you get lost.
Like there's just a billionthings on the guitar you could
be studying.
And again, if you're happy andwhat you're doing is working for
you, God bless you, I thinkthat's great.
But if it's not, and you feellike you're lost because of all
(08:25):
of this stuff, and you justnever seem to get to where you
want to go, that's when you knowyou need some help, you need
some assistance, be it a friendor you know, a guitar lesson
from wherever, or if you'reinterested, you can always check
out the Guitar Zoom Academy,see if that's something that
fits you.
Okay, we can have aconversation and just you know,
explain how it works, all thatstuff, and and see if it's
(08:47):
something that fits both you andus.
Um, but the most importantthing today is I really want you
to be just thinking about whatam I doing, why am I doing it,
and how am I doing it.
Developing a couple oflong-term plays that you're
gonna work on, and thendeveloping some short-term
things, you know, things thatyou can feel that success, this
particular song or this riff orwhatever it might be.
(09:11):
Okay, everybody's different,but understanding the difference
between the two.
And then also developing layersof practice like technical
practice, visual practice,conceptual practice, uh,
theoretical practice, musicalpractice, all of these different
kinds of things that you shouldbe uh, you know, tapping into,
(09:32):
maybe at different times of theday.
Maybe you don't have threehours to sit down and practice,
you know, like most of us.
Maybe you've got a half an houra day or an hour a day at most.
Well, but maybe you could do 15or 20 minutes in the morning
and then 15 or 20 minutes atwork or at school or something
when you have a break, and then20 or 30 minutes at in the
evening or something like that.
(09:52):
And you could focus ondifferent things at different
times.
Hey, I'm at work or I'm atschool, I don't have my guitar.
That's fine.
There's other things we couldbe focusing on that we could be
memorizing, we could becomprehending, right?
Theory, fretboard, study, oralthings, ear training.
There's there's different kindsof things we could do when the
(10:13):
guitar's not around.
And then when we get home,that's when we're gonna do that
physical practice.
So, you know, you can we canhelp you, but you can organize
to a place where you're actuallyusing your time wisely
throughout the day.
So you're not always feelingoverwhelmed.
So, anyway, these are things Iwant you to think about a little
bit because it's very, veryimportant to organize yourself.
(10:35):
What are you trying to do andwhat is necessary to get you
from point A to point B and thenfrom point B to point C?
If you're just overwhelmingyourself with a ton of different
stuff, that's half the problem.
Okay.
Understanding what are mylong-term plays, what are my
short-term focuses, right?
And what is it that I need todo to get to a place where I can
actually start creating somethings that sound and feel
(10:59):
musical, not just concepts.
All right.
So, anyway, hopefully thathelps you a little bit.
Take care, stay positive.
Uh, if you're interested inchecking out the academy, you
can always click on the link andlearn more and get on a call
with myself or one of my otherinstructors, and we can talk
about it.
All right.
So, talk to you soon.
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