I may take this practicing routine idea farther than other people. Someone else's routine may be, “I play for half an hour after dinner,” and that's fine. Your routine has to fit into your life, and it has to work for you.
But I have a lot of music I want to play. For years I tried just winging it, and that didn't work for me. So I made lists and plans and used notebooks and timers, and it turns out that that stuff does work for me.
Everyone who wants to play better can use a practicing routine. It doesn't have to be spelled out to the extent mine is. But the routine – the habits – the doing the same basic thing every day – that's what makes the whole thing work. People think of music being driven by passion, and that's a good way to look at it. But the ability to play music is driven by routine.
Here's my new routine:
Structure: Do this as close to every day as I can
Guitar: 45 minutes
Vocal: 45 minutes
Listening without doing anything else: 30 minutes
Extra: Play for fun
Extra: Sing in the car
Raw material: Repertoire
I'm focusing on repertoire for a while. I have five “songbooks” to become comfortable with, and I cycle through them, one per day. The songbooks are:
Songs I play in an acoustic duo.
Original songs that I want to play and/or record solo.
A list of 30 or so standards from the '20s, '30s and '40s.
Covers, tunes to jam on, and songs to learn from.
Duets to sing at home, for fun.
One more thing: Touch
Be as conscious of touch as possible, regardless of what song I'm playing or singing.
Why this routine?
It's the long answer (these days) to the question, “How am I going to get where I want to go as a musician?” (The short answer: sing more, listen more, get more organized, have more fun.)
I need more singing practice. For the music I play and listen to, most audiences connect to vocals more than guitar playing. I’ve always spent more time on playing. But there are plenty of basic vocal improvements I can make that aren't too hard, and should make a big difference. It's low-hanging fruit. Also: the more I sing, the more I enjoy singing.
I may have been playing guitar too much lately, leading to pain in my thumb, which fortunately is getting better. So I'm reducing the time I spend on guitar.
I'm also reducing the overall amount of time I spend working and adding some passive listening. By “passive” I mean not trying to analyze what I hear, and not deciding whether or not I like it, and not doing something else like cleaning the house while I listen. Just sitting and listening. (Matt Glaser's comments about listening on Beyond Mastery have inspired me.)
Along with the fresh perspective of new music, I also want the fresh perspective of playing just to have fun. It's enough already with the scales!
I can't develop or maintain my hoped-for repertoire without focusing on it. I have chosen close to 200 songs. Too many? I have no idea. I already know many of them fairly well; I just want to keep them fresh or learn the last 10%. And there's some overlap between songbooks. So maybe it's a manageable number.
I'm playing out more and recording more. I want the songs to be as close to 100% as I can get them. No one wants to hear me play songs that are almost right.
What's your routine like? Let us know in the comments.