Downtime

[wakeUPdead]

Rest comes with everything in life - nobody can be in a constant state of anything without growing tired or burned out. So when it comes to guitar playing, what are your habits?

Me you ask? I typically go through many stages - sometimes a month of constant jamming for hours which are the least productive technically but seem to increase my sense of rythyms.

But for majority of the time I will go 2 weeks at a time practicing for well over 5 hours a day jamming to tracks and working on the technical aspects. Then I'll ease off for a while but still keep the fingers moving on some chromatics.

This evening I didn't even feel like doing that, kind of got frustrated I suppose - but not in the sense most of you are thinking.

I feel I am dedicated to the art of guitar and learning, patience is part of it. And I have came such a long way in such a short time. But I do believe sometimes distance is best as it is instructed by others - the most I've taken off from guitar would have to be a near 4 months and that was over last summer during a move.

So whats your downtime habits? Does it frustrate you as well sometimes or do you embrace it more?

[Leo Chang]

My downtime from music = martial art practice time

My downtime from martial arts = music practice time


This way, I am never frustrated with the guitar for too long. But for those times that I feel frustration set in, or that I have been playing the same things for too long, then I learn bits of new songs, learn new scales, or focus on modes that I often neglect from the scales I already know.

But sometimes a complete break is the best thing to do. It allows the muscles and brain time to fully absorb the results of previous practice. And for dedicated guitarists (as most of us here probably are), a few short breaks here and there will not negatively affect our abilities.

I've had to take a complete break from both martial arts and guitar for about a year due to injuries... and I am now just starting to get back into both. There is some re-learning to do for sure, but it's not as bad as I imagined it to be, and for guitar especially, I actually haven't lost much. And the year-long downtime just re-affirmed my dedication to the art.