Any advice on practice routines?

Ukuvic12

Member
Joined
May 31, 2012
Messages
19
Reaction score
0
Sorry if this is not a great question...chaulk it up to being a newbie...and yes, my question does seem to answer itself...but...I was wondering...does anyone out there have a particular practice routine they care to share? Is it worth going through a practice routine every day? I keep hearing about people going through scales, fingerpicking, strumming, chords every day to build up their skills?

Or is the best practice just playing...and playing often?
 
I am pretty undisciplined in my playing routine, in that it is not routine. I usually play something I feel like playing first, like a song I have just memorized, to start with. Then I jump to whatever I feel like doing, and if that is a new or semi-new song, I will play it through, and then work on the difficult parts. I save scales, and drilling on new strum styles for the end. It is sometimes nice to have several short practice sessions in a day instead of one long one. It is easy to get stale if you do the same thing every time, so I like to mix it up a bit.

–Lori
 
I devote some time to "play" and some time to "work". Work being tricky chord transitions, fingerpicking stuff, etc... the stuff that is ahead of my current comfort zone.
 
I usually find the chords and lyrics for a song I want to learn,
play it through a few times and if there are any chords that
are unusual or rarely used,THEN I consider it 'practice' to get
the song to sound the way it should.
Otherwise,I just play and enjoy!
 
I'm trying to work this out myself.
I have a few overarching goals: finger picking, improvisation, being able to put a song together that moves smoothly between strumming and solos
But I'm still a beginner, so right now my practicing involves working on chord transitions and learning some fingerpicking tunes.
I spend ten minutes working on one of Uncle Rod's chord sheets and at least twenty minutes on one of the Ken Middleton finger picking tunes I'm practicing. After that, I do what I want. I play/practice about an hour a day -- more if I have something else to do that I want to avoid.
 
Hi Luluwrites...your approach is similar to my own. I am very much a beginner and I have a lot to learn..so much so I don't often know where to begin. So I practice fingering the different chords and trying to make them sound "right", and chord transitions. I am working on the Travis Pick, and some arpeggio (I think that's what it is...), I have a couple of classical pieces I am working on. I try to learn a piece one line at a time...practicing until I get it right and then I move to the next line. I can't sing, so all of my playing is strictly instrumental. I tend to play along with Ukulele Mike on Youtube quite a bit. I have been playing about three months and I can actually see (hear) a difference in my playing and my general comfort with the instrument.

I'm trying to work this out myself.
I have a few overarching goals: finger picking, improvisation, being able to put a song together that moves smoothly between strumming and solos
But I'm still a beginner, so right now my practicing involves working on chord transitions and learning some fingerpicking tunes.
I spend ten minutes working on one of Uncle Rod's chord sheets and at least twenty minutes on one of the Ken Middleton finger picking tunes I'm practicing. After that, I do what I want. I play/practice about an hour a day -- more if I have something else to do that I want to avoid.
 
I'm just starting with the uke, but i intend to practise the same as i did for mando - exercises to warm up and then just working on learning songs. Not very diciplined but i have fun.
 
Uncle Rods Boot Camp is a great way to warm up. Then I suggest you pick a song that you like that will
test you a lilttle and line by line work on perfecting smooth chord transitions.
cheers
Gary
 
I have found I sometimes get bored just practising cords/transitions so I mix and match by trying to play a tune I like and practising chords.
 
You got it. Play everything and anything as often as you can, and you will surprise yourself with the progress you will make. I print off songs from Dr. Uke and Richard G's song books. I also watch as many uke tutorials as I can on youtube. I have accrued around 100 songs, and can play most of them through without stopping. I have been playing for 14 months, and I can count on one hand the days that I did not practice. It has now become fun and second nature. Something that relaxes me and something I look forward to every day. I met Jake Shimabukuro who is considered one of the best uke players on the planet and asked him how often he practices. He said "every day" Nuff said. Good luck.
 
Actually, I think it's an excellent question, especially for a beginners' thread.

I almost always start with Uncle Rod's Boot Camp, which as a couple people have mentioned is a great warm-up. I don't necessarily do the whole program but I do at least a couple keys. Any exercises (Uncle Rod's are my favorites) I like to get over with right away. I can't help but think that sounds like the wrong attitude, but I didn't buy a ukulele to exercise all the time. (Uncle Rod makes it fun, though, because having seen him here on UU it feels like having a teacher you really like.)

Another thing I do is extremely boring but I'm finding it extremely effective, and that's working a brief series of chord changes, over and over (and over... and over...), for as long as I can stand it or for as much times as I have, even if it's only three minutes. This works really well when there are a couple of chord changes in a song that I want to learn. I try to keep this to no more than one line of a song, and I repeat it over and over, sometimes watching TV, not necessarily making any sound. If it gets too boring but the chord changes are still not as smooth as I would like, I experiment with strumming patterns. I've found that even if I am working a chord transition for one particular song, the likelihood is good that that transition will come up again. Anyway, this is working well for me.

Finally, of course, I just play stuff. I try to be very careful to not play songs up to speed until the chord changes are smooth, and sometimes I am successful, because I don't want to practice anything "wrong" (meaning, I don't want to master anything that I'm not executing well). But sometimes I just get excited and forge ahead. And sometimes I noodle while I'm watching TV or something.

I agree with Lori that it's good to mix things up a bit. My chord-change thing I do for very short periods, partly because it's boring and partly because you can't rush muscle memory, but if I did nothing but that I would go berserk. When I sit down to actually play songs, I could go on for hours and not notice the time passing. It's not the ukulele if you're not having fun!

Thanks again for the great question. There are some really good tips here.
 
Difficult question because people learn differently. I subscribe to Uncle Rod's philosophy. For some, it's nearly impossible to learn fingering, remember chords, read words/tab, etc. all at the same time. You have to master at least some basic skills like chords, correct strumming an fingering techniques, timing, etc. Play songs that build on your newly mastered skills. Play it slowly until you master it. The speed will come. I made the mistake of trying to "get ahead" of myself, playing too fast, or hurring through a song when hadn't mastered the chords, learned the words, etc. There was a recent post here yesterday or the day before re: "practice does not make perfect....perfect practice makes perfect." Be patient grasshopper.
Play it an it will come.
 
In general, my practice sessions--no matter the instrument--tend to go like this:

1) I play something fun, that I know. This gets me warmed up physically and mentally/emotionally.

2) I move on to the "work" part. This might be scales or similar exercises. Or it might be a challenging new song I'm working on. Or an old song with a spot I've often struggled with. Maybe I'll work on a easier song, but try to play it "off the page".

3) Then I just play. Run through the repertoire. The songs here might still have rough spots, but they're serviceable. Throughout, I might focus on broad aspects of my playing that I'm working on, such as dynamics, tempo, articulation, reading, etc. But really it's more about just logging time in the driver's seat and getting lots of tunes under the fingers. And enjoying myself, because if I'm not enjoying it, why bother? (I'm certainly not doing it for the money!)



Of course, everyone learns/absorbs differently. I'm more of the philosophy that you learn chords by playing songs that have those chords in them. Same goes for strum patterns. Play tunes you like. The chords/strums will follow. But others have lots of luck with more of a "drill" approach (a la Uncle Rod), and more power to 'em.

The key to the whole operation is this: You have to be able to diagnose the parts of your playing that you need to work on. You then have to be able to prescribe how best to work on those parts. You usually also have to prioritize the things you work on, because you can't do it all at once. Bingo! There's your practice session.

If you're not good at the above process, well, that's where a good instructor comes in very handy.

JJ
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom