Tim Venerosa is a guitar performance instructor at Guitar Craft Academy.
One of the biggest things I took away from being a student at MI, to becoming a full-time musician, to now being an instructor at the Nashville campus, is how important it is to set aside a realistic amount of time per day to practice your instrument.
Here is a quick example of my personal routine I try to work through during the week. Between playing shows, rehearsals, writing and learning material, I have found that one hour per day is a realistic goal for me. I find it is best to set a timer on your phone for each thing you are working on, and you should immediately stop and move on to the next task at hand when it goes off.
10 minutes – sight reading
10 minutes – ear training
20 minutes – jazz guitar
20 minutes – slide guitar
Even though this isn’t a ton of time spent on each particular item, you will see great improvement by doing it daily, and you will be focusing on each area you are working to improve instead of noodling and wasting time — which is the whole point!