Rest days?

[IronMaidenNutter]

Do you guys ever have rest days? Im sorta aiming this question at the guys taking guitar seriously who are training to become/or already are professional musicians.

I mean i very rarely have rest days and i dunno if that has anything to do with me getting fustraited with my own playing, or me seeming to get worse which gets to me.

I hear storys though about people like yingwie malmsteen (or however you spell his name) practicing guitar for like 8 hours a day n shit like that. Kinda feels a bit... daunting? (if thats the right word). At the moment i practice around 2-3 hours a day at home. College days ill be playing guitar up to 5/6 hours a day sometimes. Band practice normaly goes on for about 4/5 hours and thats a weekly, sometimes twice a week thing. Do i need to step up my game? Im prepared to if it means thats what will need to be done to become a professional because thats what i want more than anything.

going back to the title of this thread, how often do you guys rest if you do? If i go a day without playing guitar or going shorter than 2 hours im paranoid as fuck man.

Cheers guys

 

[Marshall Mann]

Hey IMB!

I purposely take days off, especially when I am uninspired or just off / in a funk. I find that when I come back, I usually play better.

 

[CaptainZero]

I assume it's a lot like exercise. You need time for the muscles in you hand to heal. That said, practice like crazy when you're young! There is no way I can squeeze in even an hour a day (everyday) now.

 

[IronMaidenNutter]

Im 17 lol I sacrifice a chunk of my social life playing fucking guitar >_<.

I do have one though, by that i mean i dont go out every night and get drunk and whatever lol.

And yeah man i feel its like that sometimes aswell, with the playing like excersizing and needing to rest. At the same time i do a lot of my warmup work on my old yamaha acoustic which strings are like fecking metal bars lol. Though when i took a days rest last sunday and i came back to it on monday i felt thats one of the best days i have ever played guitar. And i had a gig in the evening aswell so the playing well in the day helped my confidence during the gig...

 

[diesect20022000]

absolutely! I was forcing 8 hour days 7 days a week for a stint and i slowly got to a point where not only was i uninspired to pick it up but, i got nothing done anyway. so now, if i feel good i go for it and if i need a few hours or a few days i take them and i've IMMEDIATELY improved by doing this. there's no "formula" to how you personaly need to approach it other than what works for YOU. noone else knows what works best for you so don't feel bad taking a day or a week. do what keeps you playing and inspired and eff the rest of the world telling you 4,6,12hr blah effing blahs and so many scales etc.... yes learn that stuff WHEN AND HOW works for you and only that way and you'll be happier and a better player. Just my opinion though not a "formula" either.

 

[IronMaidenNutter]

Cheers man I practice daily pretty much always and tbh i cant go more than one day without playing. Not because i feel guilty, but because i get that huge ass craving again. And its painful when you get it in the middle of the night! >_<

 

[Adwex]

I'm not serious at all about my playing, so I'm currently on a 3 month rest.

 

[Sepp]

It is like exercise...

I'll work at it very hard, for 2 days, hours at a time.
And then take a day off. Don't even think about the guitar, go outside, or work on a different hobby. Get your brain away from it.

When the 4th day comes, I'll pick up the guitar, but not think of what I'm playing, just kind of having fun...letting the fingers act for themselves.
Playing along with the radio, or just making up different chords.


and repeat.

if you get to the point of frustration, put the guitar down for a whole 24 hours.

I'm always surprised on how much my fingers have memorized difficult pieces I was struggling through a week before.

 

[CaptainZero]

It is like exercise...

I'll work at it very hard, for 2 days, hours at a time.
And then take a day off. Don't even think about the guitar, go outside, or work on a different hobby. Get your brain away from it.

When the 4th day comes, I'll pick up the guitar, but not think of what I'm playing, just kind of having fun...letting the fingers act for themselves.
Playing along with the radio, or just making up different chords.


and repeat.

if you get to the point of frustration, put the guitar down for a whole 24 hours.

I'm always surprised on how much my fingers have memorized difficult pieces I was struggling through a week before.

I'm always surprised how, if I'm working on something that I struggle with, the next day it is always easier. I guess that's call practice!

 

[JayCM800]

I don't have a specific practice regime. I do play guitar every day, trying to come up with that song that's gonna change the world and make me rich and famous. LOL

 

[Sepp]

Muscle memory, kinda like Karate, or driving a manual transmission automobile.
The repetition of a task, until it's second nature.

But there's a point of where rest is as important as the task itself, so one doesn't over stimulate.

fascinating stuff.

Ever go through Steve Vai's 10 hour work out? Remember the first time trying to play that stuff?



Yep.

 

[carnada]

well I play for about an hour everyday on my classical. But I practice for like 30 minutes everyday, and I play stuff I like for the other 30 lol. But I do practice xylophone an hour everyday no matter what. Timpani about 2 hours a week by diving every single day into like 20 minute bits. And I just practice snare during the weekend. I can go like 2 weeks without even turning on my amps. And now I got a violin so I have to start dedicating atleast 30 minutes a day on that. I play quite a few instruments so taking a rest from guitar means I want to play something else. I JUST CANNOT EXIST WITHOUT PLAYING SOMETHING!

 

[captcoolaid]

I play every day some days for practice and on days when the inspiration hits I write. This breaks things up a lot for me. I try and get in a couple hours each day at least.

 

[rustyrat]

i learn songs i need to for my band. This requires more listening time than actual playing. I am at a point in my playing, that i'm not trying to learn anything new. I'll spend 2 to 3 hours listening to 1 song until its embedded in my brain. then I'll play it usually in 2 takes... done. I practice 3 times a week for about an hour just to work in the solos close enough. I will not spend days trying to get solo's record perfect. Close enough is good enough for the bars i play in. No one comes up to me and says wow you played that (insert your fav guitar players name) perfect. no body cares except other guitar players.
Now when i was a serious trumpet player, I worked on my lessons for 1 hour a day. Thats it. any more time was useless on a lesson. Practicing songs for the concert orchestra or the pit band or the jazz band generally followed for another hour.
i just cant see playing fro 8 hours a day. Even as a music major in college, more time was spent on theory then actual practicing.
when I'm teaching guitar, I have my students practice for 1 hour a day. You may play more than an hour but spend 1 hour on the lesson.
When I have fri/sat gigs. I'm always better on fri. I tend to have a bit of hand fatigue on sat or I'm just burnt from getting home at 4am and have to do it all over again.
RR

 

[IbanezMark]

I have significantly more "rest days" than "practice days"

 

[poeman33]

If you are forcing it...I don't think it's doing any good. When I was young...(why do so many of my thoughts begin like that? haha)...and I had made up my mind I wanted to do music as a living, I practiced constantly, pretty well 8 hours a day. I was working afternoon shift, so I would get up in the morning and start practicing. Have a quick lunch...practice some more, get ready quickly for work and go. I did that everyday. I wasn't forcing myself, I wanted to do it. It was almost an obsession. And it really paid off. I could always figure out how to play things just by hearing them, but it started to become much more natural. I could hear or think of something and picture how to do it. Plus it strengthened my hands and my voice. Plus I played standing up, so when it came time to audition, I was ready. And I could handle learning 4 sets worth of songs in a week as I was so used to playing that much.

I don't do anything like that now, but I think that initial cram that I did for probably a year never left me. It had a purpose then to get me up to professional gigging level. Now I just play and gig for fun. Some days I practice for hours and some weeks I barely touch the guitar. It's not the number one priority anymore.

 

[chuckharmonjr]

Generally I work with Wayne, the other guitarist once a week for like 3 hours, full band rehearsal is 6-8 hours once a week...the rest of the time I practice 2-3 hours a day every day. At least one day a week I take off and do nothing, wont even listen to music.

 

[thetragichero]

I have significantly more "rest days" than "practice days"

that's me these days
when i was unemployed, i would play for 3-4 hours daily
i stopped when i got tendonitus (i think it may be tendonosis since it comes back often) in my picking hand and couldn't hold a pick at a gig (i must've looked like a... special child.... bashing my hand into the strings)
at this point i usually only play for about 3-4 hours a week at band practice