From January 21, 2008 to February 19, 2008 I conducted an experiment. What motivated me to try this experiment was a compelling article that stated that practicing your instrument every day may not be the most beneficial way of practicing. I decided to test this out for myself, so I went on a 30 day trial. The original article has a fitting summary of the criteria so I won't go into excruciating detail as to the how and why.

My instrument is the guitar, which I've been playing for 8 years. In recent times I've been wondering how I could maximize the use of my practice time to get better results. Of course, that's what everybody wants, and I'm not going to lie; it still takes a lot of hard work to improve consistently. Nevertheless, I feel that my experience with this experiment was a positive one, and I would like to share my results with you.

Between January 21 and February 19 I took 2 days of rest for every week of practice. The following table illustrates my practice schedule in more detail.

Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednesday	Thursday	Friday	Saturday
	21	22	23	24	25	26
27	28	29	30	31	1	2
3	4	5	6	7	8	9
10	11	12	13	14	15	16
17	18	19

Total Practice Days: 20
Total Rest Days: 10

If you've been following along then you already know that I thought I had a cold for about a week, but it actually turned out to be tonsillitis. Fortunately, I'm on antibiotics right now and I'm starting to recover from it. I also had 2 migraines (on consecutive days), but the second time I managed to ease the pain in a very significant way, so that's a personal victory.

In any case, here are some of the benefits I experienced from rest days:

• I came up with new riffs/licks/songwriting ideas to explore
• I found new songs and exercises to work on
• I came back refreshed and ready to practice
• I felt more motivated and enthusiastic about practice days
• My practice time was more focused
• I came up with new ideas that made my practice time more efficient
• I had more clarity about what I wanted to accomplish

I cannot confirm or deny that my muscles recuperated during the rest days, but maybe that's because when I'm not playing guitar I'm often typing or playing keyboard. In theory, however, this should be another benefit of taking adequate rest time.

One of the ideas that kept my practice time on track was keeping a practice log. Here are some of the benefits I experienced:

• It kept my practice time more focused
• Each task was given my full attention until it was completed to my satisfaction
• I accomplished more in a shorter period of time
• I became an active participant in deciding what I wanted to practice
• I spent less time "noodling"
• I became aware of where my practice time was being spent

Keeping track of your practice time is something I would like to talk about in more detail in the future. For now, this should be enough data to help you decide whether you should keep a practice log or not. If you take a look through the archive at the bottom of this page, you can take note of how I keep a practice log and what I was practicing.

In Conclusion...
This experiment has sufficiently proved the benefits of practicing 5 days a week (instead of 7) to me, and I intend to keep a similar practice schedule in the coming months. In retrospect I should have kept more detailed data, but if I conduct a similar experiment in the future, I intend to. Ultimately, I hope that this experiment has shed some light on your own practice efficiency, and that you'll find ways of optimizing your own practice time.

The Archive:
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 30
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 29
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 28
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 27
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 26
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 25
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 24
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 23
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 22
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 19
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 18
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 17
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 16
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 15
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 12
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 11
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 10
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 5
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 4
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 3
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 2
Experiment: Practicing 5 Days a Week - Day 1 This article was written by David Andrew Wiebe, web designer, graphic designer, guitarist, bassist, keyboardist, songwriter, guitar instructor, and music expert. Interested in winning a free CD? Click here for more info! Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Recommendations? Email me.

Published on February 20, 2008