My Top 5 Jazz Guitar Practice Tips
We all know we’re supposed to practice if we want to get better at playing jazz guitar. That part is obvious. On the surface it’s pretty simple:
If you want to get good at jazz guitar, you need to spend time… practicing jazz guitar.
But sometimes we run into a problem.
There is a ton of information about what to practice, but we rarely get told anything about how to practice.
Now, practicing guitar isn’t rocket science. But it’s easy to get sucked into wondering if there’s a right way to do it.
Or if there is some routine that you should be doing… so you can magically play like Joe Pass by tomorrow.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but there’s no secret practice routine out there. No silver bullet to make you a great player overnight.
But there are some things you can do to get more out of the time you put in… and have more fun playing jazz guitar.
5 Tips for Better Jazz Guitar Practice
Make It Easy
You need to make it easy for yourself to pick up the guitar and practice. If you don’t see it, you won’t even think about picking it up to play!
So don’t keep your guitar in the case… put it on a stand. Whether that stand is on the floor or the wall, it doesn’t matter. What matters is that it’s out of the case and ready to be played.
If possible, keep it somewhere you will see it all the time.
I used to keep a guitar right by our TV in our living room. At the time, I taught lessons upstairs in our little townhouse – and almost never practiced unless I was up in the teaching room.
But we spent most of our time downstairs. Not a lot of practicing going on.
So I brought one of my guitars downstairs so I’d see it throughout the day. And guess what…
… My practice time went WAY up!
It wasn’t rocket science… It was just way easier to practice when I didn’t have to think about it, go upstairs, and get to work.
I could just grab my guitar and play. It was so easy to do, I started playing all the time!
Know What You Want to Do
If you just pick up your guitar and hope for the best… you’re not going to get very far. I don’t love having every detail of a practice session planned out for me, if I can avoid it.
The more regimented I try to make my practice sessions… the more likely I am to put it off until I don’t have time to practice at all.
But… having a plan – even a hazy one will help you get a lot more out of your practice time.
Now most of the time, my plans are pretty loose.
I know what scale and finger pattern I’m going to work on. And I know what I want to be better at by the end.
But I don’t necessarily plan out every aspect of the exercises I’m about to do – I might improvise through chord changes, play melodies, or run technical patterns using the scale, depending on what I’m feeling like that day.
There’s still a loose plan though – getting better at X scale in Y pattern. It’s a loose plan with options, but I still know where I want to be headed.
You might do better with more details planned out, or less. Do some experimenting to see what works for you.
Organize Your Time
We all deal with limited time to practice jazz guitar. It’s just how it goes.
So it’s important to organize your practice time so you know what you’re planning on doing. In my post on the Morning Coffee Practice Routine, my organization was pretty simple:
- 20 minutes working on a scale/chord/arpeggio for technical practice
- 20 minutes working on a song (not songs… a song)
This works really well for me and my needs. You might have more you want or need to get done, depending on your circumstances.
The important thing is that you have a system to make sure you get to the most important things you need to practice.
The Sticky Note Method
One of my favorite tricks to use in college was the sticky note system. I got this idea from my classical guitar teacher, and it helped a lot when I had tons of work on my plate.
There is only so much space on a sticky note, so it’s hard to put too many things into your practice session – it makes you prioritize what to spend your time on.
Here’s how it works:
- Take the big things you need to work on, and write them on your sticky note
- Take the time you have available for that practice session, and divide it by the number of things on your list
- That’s how many minutes you have for each thing in your practice session
If you have an hour, and 4 things to practice, you’ve got about 15 minutes per topic – less if you want to take a break in between (recommended).
I might do 13 minutes per topic, with a 2 minute stretch/stand up session in between.
Practice Charts/Journals
Another good tool for the long term is a practice journal, or practice charts.
A spiral notebook is fine – I used to use music notation notebooks when I was in school, too. You just need something you can use to keep track of what you’re working on over time.
Write down what you did, for how long, where you left off, etc.
It just needs to be helpful for you when you pick it up the next day – there’s not a right or wrong way to keep track of this stuff.
Set Limits
You can’t do everything, so pick one or 2 things to focus on. I generally like to split my own practice sessions into 2 things:
- 1 technical topic (scales, chords, arpeggios)
- 1 song I’m working on
Good places to start for technical work are jazz guitar chords, scale patterns, and major 7 arpeggios.
Depending on your situation, that might be plenty, or you might need to fit a lot more into your sessions.
In any case, you want to focus on the most important thing first.
Try to filter your topics down into the 2 (maybe 3 tops) things that are the most important to work on.
Remember – the fewer things you do, the more progress you’ll make on the things you actually work on.
Do The Hard Stuff
It’s easy to get a little too comfortable in your practice sessions. You can get stuck trying to make something you’re already fine at “just a little better” instead of moving on to something that is actually a challenge for you.
This is a little dangerous – because it feels like you’re making progress, but you’re really just spinning your wheels.
A general rule of mine for my students is this:
If you can do something at about 80%, move on.
You’re not moving on forever… because you’re never actually done. But as you take on new challenges, all of your old “80% good” skills get better too.
It’s just how it works.
How do you know what’s going to be a challenge?
The thing you’re avoiding is probably the thing you need to do.
Whatever you’re going to get to after you’ve done xyz… is the thing you should probably do right now, instead.
Don’t worry – I’m super guilty of this, too. I write this partly for my own reminder.
Here’s what’s worked for me:
Find the simplest thing you can’t do, but feel like you “should” be able to do it.
That’s where you start. It’s humbling, I know from experience.
But once you start looking at it this way, you’ll start making real progress in your jazz guitar practice. You just gotta do the hard stuff for a little while.
Conclusion
Your jazz guitar practice is going to work the best if you build it around your own skills, weaknesses, and interests.
Don’t fall for any “secret practice routines” that will magically make you better overnight… they don’t really exist.
In general, your jazz guitar practice can be pretty simple. Remember:
- Make it easy to pick up the guitar and play
- Know what you want to work on ahead of time
- Stay organized in your practice
- Limit yourself to the minimum you really need to do
- Do the hard stuff (that you’re probably avoiding
Most of all though, practice. The more time you spend on your guitar, the better you’re going to get.
Push yourself a little bit, try new skills, and watch yourself improve over time. That’s all there is to it.
If you’re looking for material to practice that puts all of the most important jazz guitar concepts in one place, check out Jazz Guitar Survival Guide.
This ebook is simple, straightforward, and easy to use… and it shows you exactly how to play jazz guitar chords, scales, and arpeggios so you can get straight to playing tunes… not boring exercises. Check it out today.