Tom Hess has an article on his website called, The 80/20 Rule for Guitar Players. He makes some very good points about practicing, and how we can make our practicing more effective. He begins by asking a probing question.
Have you ever noticed how some guitar players, who practice less, seem to make more progress than others who practice more? That can cause great frustration for guitar players in the second group! If you are like most guitarists, the following two statements are approximately true (whether you are aware of it or not):
80% of your practice time brings you only about 20% of your total progress.
20% of your practice time brings you only about 80% of your total progress.
I have definitely noticed this trend in my own practicing, especially when I am not practicing in effective ways. When I don’t practice effectively, I end up wasting time on areas of my playing that either do not need my attention or on areas that are not important. That is why 80% of my time only bring about 20% of my progress. He continues.
No, I didn’t just pull these numbers out of the air. These statements are based on Pareto’s Principle – (The 80/20 Rule). It would be too lengthy to go into detail about the origins and facts behind Pareto’s Principle here, but I’ll just tell you Pareto’s Principle has been proven true in many areas of human life, industries, economies, time management and many other areas of the human existence. It affects us all, not just in music, but in much of what we do and are involved in.
Many books have been written about the Pareto Principle. I do not know or understand why, but it’s true and does seem to take effect in almost all areas of life. I try to remember this: Do not try to violate the Pareto Principle.
The basic idea, as it applies to guitar playing, is how long you practice is not always as important as what you choose to focus your practice time on. This is not about efficiency or time management. This is about obtaining “maximum effectiveness” with whatever amount of time you can invest into practicing.
If I had understood this 19 years ago when I first picked up a guitar, I would have spent much less time practicing and become a much better guitarist in a much shorter amount of time. As a teacher, I pass along this information to my students as early as possible so that they have the advantages I did not have.
Let’s say there are two guitar players (we’ll call them John and David), the first player (John) practices 30 minutes a day is making good progress and the other guy (David) practices 90 minutes a day and makes less progress than John. What are the two things you might expect David to say about John?
“John must be practicing more than I am, so of course he is getting better results.”
“John must have more natural musical talent than I do.”In our example the first statement cannot be true. Although it is possible the second statement could be true in rare cases, it is not as likely as it would seem. David failed to see that John’s better results probably were due to what he focused on and how effective his practicing was.
David believes in natural talent. Of course, natural talent exists, but it is not the determining factor in how good or fast a person develops on their instrument (as you’ll see). Natural talent can help, but I’ve seen many “talented” people who throw away their talent because of poor practice habits.
To be effective you must have a clear idea of what you want to accomplish during each guitar practice session, then you must analyze your current skill level in each area you will be practicing. Then you are ready for the powerful practice of implementing the 80/20 rule to practicing which I state as this:
Do you know what your strengths and weaknesses are? If not, you need to do a careful self-assessment before you’ll start making serious progress.
Any weak area that is preventing your strengths from being used to the fullest potential, is a weakness you must overcome as soon as possible. These weaknesses are part of your important 20% that you should focus on, because overcoming these weaknesses will likely bring you 80% of the total progress you want.
This is good advice. This is taking the Pareto Principle and using it to your advantage instead of trying to violate it. Never try to violate the Pareto Principle.
Any weakness that does not interfere with the implementation of your strengths to the fullest potential is usually non-essential. These weak areas are part of your non-essential 80% of what you probably currently focus on (whether you are aware of it or not) that will likely bring you only 20% of the total progress you want.
For instance, if you’re a metal guitarist and you’re weak in the area of finger picking, you probably don’t need to work on finger picking at all because it does not interfere with the implementation of sweep picking.
If you are having a hard time following this, it probably is because you have not sufficiently researched Pareto’s Principle.
If you change this one approach to your practice time on a consistent basis, your results will massively improve. You can accomplish a lot of positive forward momentum in your playing even with limited guitar practice time. But please do not misunderstand me, I am not implying, in any way, that short practice sessions are as good as longer ones, nor that short practice sessions are a substitute for longer periods of serious practice time. What I am saying is “effective short practice sessions” can be very valuable when longer sessions are impossible.
In fact, for some people short practice sessions are the only way to practice simply due to time constraints and the normal obligations of every day life. Being busy does not mean you need to give up on guitar or put it off until another day.
If you already know that tomorrow, you will have only 20 minutes of practice time possible, you might be tempted to just say, “forget it, what can I accomplish in 20 minutes? I’ll wait for the next day when I know I will have an hour to practice. Don’t do this to yourself, because daily consistency is the best fuel for forward momentum. Use that 20 minutes and pack it with practicing on what really matters, don’t sit around and play a bunch of stuff you already know how to do well.
These are a common traps – not practicing because you don’t have a lot of time and practicing stuff you can already play well. Avoid them. If you do, you will make much faster progress than most guitarists.
If you need help learning how to practice effectively, click here now to apply