Dave Wirth
Many guitar instructors tell their students to practice an hour a day. That's common advice, but that's also quite a lot of commitment. I'd rather go swimming than practice an hour a day, especially now with all this hot weather. Anyway, readers of this blog are aware that I have a different approach to practicing.
When I was in Americorps, doing trail work with ECorps (the hardest job I've ever had), there was a crew leader named Walt. He was awesome and everyone liked how he worked. One of his favorite things to do was to slowly pulverize a rock that was in the way, with a sledgehammer. "There's something nice about seeing a problem right here and just slowly breaking it with the sledgehammer. Feels good to see it give way eventually." Very apt. I think that the 75-Five idea is way to do this with guitar.
I am under the assumption that many people, when they play guitar, have this view that they must put in a lot of time every day in order to "master" it, and I think that idea is bollocks. The 75-Five idea is like this: If there is some problem that needs to be solved, one that requires a small but constant effort, if you spend only five minutes a day on it for 75 days in a row it will solve itself. Seem like a lot? Not really. That's only two and a half months of five minutes of work each day to grab a skill.
If you don't take practicing too seriously then it's not a big deal to find five minutes. Imagine where that five minutes could be. Just before you go to bed perhaps? When you wake up maybe? Perhaps even in the office at work during lunch? And 75 days later, poof! The solution presents itself. What I love about guitar is how the skills of playing it can be had if a person just put in just the smallest amount of time everyday. If you can have the will to put in five minutes a day, then any technical problem will eventually disappear. It's like hitting a huge rock with a sledgehammer.
