If you're not sure what this experiment is all about, then you may want to refer to the original article. The essence of this experiment is to see whether practicing guitar for 5 days a week rather than practicing every day will benefit me more or less.

Even though I wasn't feeling my best yesterday, I think viewing my practice time as a scarce resource tightened my focus as anticipated. I managed to get about 3 hours of prioritized practice before lunch, and I was able to work on a number of current projects. During this time I also came up with some new exercises which I will be posting. Even between 1:00 PM and 3:00PM (which is usually lost time) I was able to fold my laundry, get some additional practice on guitar, and practice keyboard for about half an hour. I also managed to get a little bit of practice in at the studio during my breaks. This practice time wasn't nearly as focused, but it was still productive as I wrote some new riffs. Then I capped off the day with about 30 minutes of jamming with a friend.

The only drawback was that I wasn't able to spend any time on recording or pre-production. I may need to operate on a modified schedule if any recording is going to happen. Other than that, the results have been positive.

Of course the real test is still going to be the days off. I've picked Thursday and Friday as my days off for this week. I would prefer to take Saturday and Sunday off because of the natural flow of events, but I will be playing a show on the 27th so I will probably require the practice time on Saturday and Sunday. Gigs play a big part in deciding what and how I practice.

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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 January 22, 2008