What To Practice When You Don’t Feel Like Practicing
We’ve all been there – looking down at our poor, neglected instrument and knowing that we should put in our daily allotted time but are somehow unable to muster the motivation to put in a good practice session. Or maybe you’re feeling stale and everything you play feels uninspired or sounds wrong. All musicians are bound to go through this at some point and here is a list of tips and techniques that have helped me shake loose from these periods of creative drought.
- Practice in front of the TV. Although it’s not something to make a habit of, practicing in front of the tv will at least help you keep up the dexterity in your fingers. You can noodle around or practice chord shapes even if your attention is devoted to who’s wearing the cutest dress at the Oscars.
- Play along to recordings. This is actually a great way to work on developing your ears. Even if you don’t know the chords, just trying to find a few notes that sound ‘right’ will go a long way towards helping you develop your ear training skills.
- Sing what you’re playing and/or play what you’re singing. An exercise that, while challenging, can help bring new perspective to a musical passage you’re struggling to master. It will tell you if you’re really hearing the notes accurately.
- Solo only on one or two strings.
- Play a song you’re already familiar with in a different key.
- Indulge in musical guilty pleasures. Remember that music shouldn’t be difficult and serious all the time. Take a break from the challenging practice you’ve been doing. Play through a fun pop song you just heard on the radio or other similar guilty pleasure.
- Improvise along to the film score of the movie you’re watching.
- Sleep with your guitar. Keith Richards is known for doing this regularly and writing hit songs. Just make sure your partner doesn’t get too jealous!
- Play around on another instrument.
- Play with other musicians. You are practically guaranteed to learn something while playing with other people. It will help show you if your practicing is paying off and highlight some areas that need work. And jamming is fun, man!
- Take a break. If playing feels stale it might be good to spend some time away from the instrument. I’d recommend any amount of time up to 7 days. Your technique won’t be adversely impacted in a week. Your sub-conscious mind will continue working out all the things you’ve been practicing and when you come back to the guitar you might be surprised at how much better everything feels/sounds.
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