Are you experiencing a lot of frustration after returning to guitar practice from a long break from playing? No matter if you haven’t been playing for a few weeks, several months or longer – you were probably shocked to see how your playing skills have diminished over time.
I can totally relate... a few years ago I completed a world tour, then chose to take a small break from guitar playing. Although I only planned to take this break for a little while, I ended up not practicing at all until many months later when I needed to record a new album. Needless to say, I was not too pleased with the way my playing sounded once I began practice again.
If you have ever stopped playing guitar for a long duration of time (or you haven’t held a serious practice session in many months), you will get your skills back again by using these 5 approaches:
1. Start Crawling Before You Walk
In your first week back after a long break, you won’t be able to play everything you played before in a flawless manner. At this point, you do not possess the same level of control over the movements in your fingers. If you quickly rush into playing with high speed or working on complex guitar licks, it will be very unclean and you might even hurt yourself by using unnecessary tension (that comes from inefficient movement). This is like attempting to run a marathon when you having exercised in a year... Everything that is needed to make your body finish the race (muscle stability, cardiovascular endurance, etc.) has been unused for a lengthy amount of time, and thus is highly underdeveloped for the task at hand. Running under these conditions will prove to be impossible, and you will likely injure yourself in the process.
To get your playing back to where it was before without harming yourself or becoming frustrated, focus mostly on improving the basics of your technique during the first 2 weeks of practice. While you are practicing, make sure to observe the excess tension in your body and reduce it down to a minimum. Don’t let yourself play complicated guitar licks during this time. By working slowly to regain your coordination in hands, you will develop a good foundation for playing with speed and articulation.
The efficient guitar practicing schedule that I suggest you use for getting your guitar skills back after taking a break from playing is based upon this principle.
2. Don’t Overcompensate
Tons of guitarists track to make up for a long period of non-practice by practicing way too much hours every day. This almost always achieves the opposite effect they were going for because they end up practicing ineffectively (and in an unorganized manner). Plus, it becomes much easier for them to experience frustration and/or injury their hands/arms. Most guitar players think that practicing more leads to results. WRONG! This is a perfect example of how quantity does not overcome quality. Truth is, you can make infinitely more progress in your guitar playing by practicing in smaller intervals throughout the day. By doing this, your practice is much more focused, keeping your mind from wandering due to playing for many hours at a time. So instead of working on playing sweep picking arpeggios (for example) for several hours on end, you’d practice them for fifteen minutes a session, several times throughout the day. It’s a lot less difficult to practice for 15 minute periods than for many hours.
Utilize this efficient guitar practicing schedule to regain your guitar skills in less than 3 weeks.
3. Rebuild Your Foundation Of Technique First
After not playing guitar for a long while, you lose your playing skills at varying degrees. Your guitar technique is often the first skill to leave you. That said, after an extended break, you need to place guitar technique practice as your first priority for the first couple of weeks. That’s right: you’ll regain your skills faster by focusing the majority of your guitar practice time on technique only for the first couple of weeks.
Notice: I’m not telling you that you should “always” work on technique during your guitar practice. I'm merely saying that the first couple of weeks of practice “after a long break” should be mostly spent on technique. Incidentally, even during the times when you aren’t physically practicing guitar, you can and SHOULD be practicing many things away from guitar to not allow your other musical skills to falter to begin with.
4. Practice Using Your BRAIN 1st And Your Fingers 2nd
Do NOT waste time practicing guitar with poor focus! Of course, this should be your approach any time you practice – However, this is even more important for practicing guitar after coming back from a long off period. Here’s why: After a break, it’s much more likely that bad habits have crept back into your guitar playing. If you use poor focus during your guitar practice, you’ll probably develop poor playing habits (even in places where you didn’t have them before!). The following are the most effective ways to prevent this from happening by making sure you remain focused:
-Utilize a efficient guitar practicing schedule to gain your playing skills back in no time.
-Utilize “focus rotation” so that your mind is always switched on during your practice. I discuss this in greater detail in this guide about how to double your guitar playing speed.
-Work on guitar exercises that have the biggest amount of guitar practice transferability. This will prevent you from becoming bored and help you get your skills back faster.
5. Control Your Frustration And Take Advantage Of Your Mistakes
It’s hard not to get frustrated when you know you used to play guitar at a much higher level than where you are at now. However, don’t let this destroy your motivation for practicing guitar! If you do, it will be very difficult to get your playing back to where it used to be.
No matter who you are, you will make countless mistakes in order to become a better guitarist. With that being said, most of your practice time will consist of correcting your guitar playing mistakes. So if you really enjoy playing guitar, there’s no point in getting frustrated by mistakes. A better approach is to focus on turning mistakes into tools for improvement. Once you take away the negative emotions you associate with mistakes, you enable yourself to directly address any issues in your playing – making much faster progress.
After reading this article, you now know how to quickly regain your guitar skills after not playing for a long while. Now you just need to take action to implement these ideas.
After you’ve gained your playing skills back, keep your playing on track using an effective guitar practice routine made from your musical goals.
About The Author:
Tom Hess is a professional musician, composer, and highly successful guitar instructor who trains and mentors guitarists with online guitar tuition. Visit tomhess.net to get free guitar playing resources, guitar playing tips, mini courses and more guitar playing articles. Follow Tom Hess on his guitar instruction Facebook page for free musician advice and check out his guitar videos on YouTube.
