The 15 Minute Practice Routine! The 15 Minute Quick Workout!
Here’s a breakdown if we’ve got 15 minutes to focus on guitar. And as always, these are just suggestions. If we feel there is something else we could substitute please add it to your practice or message me and we can talk it out! This is simply a guideline to help give direction so you can move forward with your guitar goals!
The 15 Minute Practice Routine
5 Minute Warm Up
5 Minutes Learning a new song or perfecting a song
5 Minutes Learning a new guitar skill/technique
5 Minute Warm Up
This is the perfect time to break out the metronome and practice your scales to the beat! I’m with you, scales are pretty boring. So spending only 5 minutes here allows us to work on the skill without burning ourselves out. If you know a few scales this is a great time to perfect them. If not, you can use this time to sync up your fret hand with your strum hand and make sure they’re both working together to hit those notes. (sometimes one hand likes to jump ahead of the other.)
Don’t put too much pressure on yourself here, the idea is also just to get your fingers moving. If I practice first thing in the morning, it takes me a few minutes to get going!
5 Minutes Learning a Song or Perfecting a Song
Spend the next 5 minutes focusing on learning a new song or maybe a favorite guitar line. I make a big push to learn songs by artists you enjoy. Simply because they’re the reason we picked up the guitar anyway right? Or at least they fuel a bit of inspiration for us. Pick a song you like and dive into it! Don’t worry if it’s too hard or not, just start chipping away. And the next time you sit down to practice you can spend another 5 minutes working on it. It’s not a race, but this is to keep our minds interested. Better to learn a song you like than play a song we don’t care about.
5 Minutes Learning a New Skill
And for the final 5 minutes, pick a new skill to learn! Now we’ve got momentum, only 5 minutes left. Use this time to learn a new technique. Maybe you’ve been wanting to try a few of these skills. Do some research and give it a try! It’s important to always be adding new skills to your guitar palate. That way we’re always moving forward!
Fingerpicking
Unison Bends
Hammer-ons and Pull-offs
Trills
Double Stop Bends
Gallop Strumming
Hybrid Picking
Sweep Picking
Palm Muting
Tapping
Come back to this page if you’re looking for guidelines in the future! In the next lesson, we’ll discuss another guitar skill that is often forgotten about.
As always, if you have questions please reach out!
-Sydney
“What’s money? A man is a success if he gets up in the morning and goes to bed at night and in between does what he wants to do.”
Instructor: Sydney Ellen
Sydney is a guitarist, songwriter, and performer from Southern California. Graduating summa cum laude from Berklee College of Music and with over 20 years of experience in music, Sydney is passionate about helping fellow guitar players reach their goals and enjoy learning music. Sydney loves writing music and listening to Classic Rock/Metal hits.
