A Way To Combat "Guitar Boredom". What Are Your Thoughts?

[Jak Angelescu]

I LOVE this community because every time I have something to express, I have a place to go.
Now that I’ve surrendered some tasks (thanks to those who are undertaking them!) I was able to focus on my stuff today and boy, wow. It was a hot mess. If you all remember that solo of my original I posted up, it was absolutely awful tonight. I practiced it for about an hour and grew very bored and unmotivated very quickly.
I usually am one of those people where I practice something diligently for hours for weeks (or months) until I feel sufficient enough with it and then I move on. However, it has rendered me with this practice regimen…
1. Lesson 24 exercises and theory with the two solos for 1 hour
2. Hail To The King for 1 hour
3. Original Song 1 hour
3. Improvisation out of d major for 1 hour
This has pretty much been my regimen for FAR too long (I mean about 3 months) and I feel I’m getting rather bored with it. However I don’t move on because I felt I wasn’t sufficient enough with these things.
So here was my thought that I may help with those who may experience the same “boredom” situation. I personally feel that it’s repetition that makes you improve and not just the hours invested. I mean, I feel like if I ran over Hail To The King at least once or twice everyday, I would STILL improve in a few weeks. I mean, let’s be real. If you don’t really know something or are having SERIOUS issues with a part, you should focus on it. But I think I’m spending TOO much time on things and I’m really wanting to do other stuff. I feel like I crutch myself so much to this regimen that I’ll not be able to add in the stuff my singer and I want to do for a little Christmas show.
I’m going to try to allow myself to just run through these things a few times a day and then move on to keep myself feeling like I’m being more productive. I feel that it’s much better to practice something a few times every single day than it is to invest 2 hours into it only a few times a week. What do you guys think? I know I’ve been a culprit of saying “Stop moving on until you actually have something down.”
But when do you guys think “enough is enough” and it’s time to move on?

 

[Rad Synner]

For to be honest, I just dont follow any pattern. I practice what I want to practice and thats about it. I really go with the vibe. I dont hesitate to put down my guitar if the vibe isnt there. For me, the worse thing would be to force myslef to play and progress. Then again im practicing multiple thing at the same time. What I mean by that is that I practice drum, bass, guitar and vocal. So if I get bored at one, I would switch to the other. They also allow me to gain many different point of views in term of songwriting and help me develop different technique. For exemple, there are days where I basically play vocals and guitar at the same (Syncing my singing with my playing) which makes me work in a certain way. Then other days I just play Guitar in a very technical way, with the syn lesson or with solos I want to work on. Other day its more hard guitar rythm like keeping my downstroke technique up to date. I dont know, thats my 2 cent.

 

[Jak Angelescu]

your response was…so…freaking…refreshing. I actually have a bass guitar and a drum kit. And all those other things you mentioned, wow. There’s so much I could do for so many different reasons. Thank you!

 

[Rad Synner]

My pleasure! Im so happy my answer helped you! Keep on rocking! \m/

 

[Dominik Gräber]

So I am supposed to record my HTTK progress for the improvement project now but instead I’m spending time on the school, damn!
I think it can already help to set certain goals, eg. your project. Your goal is to get as good as possible in a certain amount of time, then setting a new goal. Also I think it is exciting to have other stuff in mind that comes AFTER you succeeded with this. For me, it is that I really want to get into Bullet for my Valentine songs again, but they are in Drop C and I will only go to another tuning with my Epiphone in Drop C# after I mastered HTTK. That kinda stuff gets me motivated.
Okay, now to recording…..

 

[idssdi]

For me. I always do just one thing at a time. Setimes that a song and sometimes that’s a lesson or an original or something. I’ll practice that untill I get bored and than I’ll just jam some songs I already know.

 

[Nadim Captan]

Like Dominik said, maybe the reason you’re getting bored is because you’ve already reached the goals you set in the different part of the routine (but in terms of the improvisation maybe you actually did get bored of pracricing over the same backing track/ chords every time). And maybe this routine has nothing to offer that interests you anymore. Especially if you have other commitments. You can always practice them every once in a while to give yourself a refresher, but if you have other priorities at the moment then you should definitely follow those first.

 

[Filip Tomiša]

It’s 100% true that repetition is what makes you improve rather than the hours invested in it. I’ve been doing my own progress video for the last 30 days and I came to the same conclusion. It’s gonna take a while to edit but I will post it here eventually.

 

[Matt Wildman]

That’s a great idea, I should start doing that

 

[Rod Azeite]

I suffered from the same because I went from only picking up my guitar once a week for my lessons to playing the Buried Alive intro OVER AND OVER AND OVER EVERY SINGLE DAY. Needless to say, that got old real quick. But then, something different began to happen:
I started watching all the livestreams and taking in a lot more knowledge, I started playing some other songs either that I knew already or that were easy for me to learn quickly, and also jamming with my mom and voilá! Boredom gone. So I guess the moral of the story is break routone as much as possible. Don’t stop your practicing of what you need to get down but start doing some other stuff in the middle and you’ll find it’s also an opportunity to let all the knowledge and technique from your practice settle. Hope this helps!

 

[Jak Angelescu]

You guys helped so much!
I took all of your advice today and came up with this repertoire…
1. Learned a bebop jazz lick, a country lick and a blues lick in D major and applied them in various ways (it was a fucking CHALLENGE)
2. Ran over (not PRACTICE) lesson 24 exercises
3. Syn Etude 1 for alternate picking transcribed to D major and original key
4. Hail to the King a few times through at full speed and the sweeps for 45 minutes
5. Run through all of my originals at least once
6. Practiced two original solos at only my trouble spots.
7. Simplified Asturias exercise for classical guitar.
I changed up my regimen to keep it more focused on what I actually needed to do and added new things. I really felt today was a great practice!! Most productive in a long time!!!
Thank you guys!

 

[Gabriel Corso]

thanks for creating this post, Jak!
I struggle with this kinds of stuff myself. And it is sad sometimes haha.
Guys, thanks for the answers!! I will try some of your techniques !!

 

[Ed Seith]

I wish I had the TIME and DESIRE to practice that much. I do envy people who can be that obsessive. While I was with guitar in my late teens, those days are long gone. I wish I’d had more focus and discipline when I had the time and desire.

 

[Rod Azeite]

Ed, I feel ya. I lose so much time by not being focused on guitar and it makes me so jealous to see Jak do so much with a single day! I’ll definitely try to work on getting a bit of a regime going for that.

 

[Ed Seith]

I have a 30 minute or so warmup routine that is my daily practice and skill-builder, and then if I still have time I learn songs or play for fun, now that I’m unencumbered by a band for the moment. That’s all I got.