Time off guitar and practice

atyourlasthourrr

atyourlasthourrr

Inspired
Just want to get a quick consensus here..

What is the longest amount of time you can go without playing your instrument while not suffering any loss in playing abilities?

Also, what is the LEAST amount of time you need to practice consistently to maintain a solid level of playing?

For me its, two weeks off max, and about 20 minutes a day minimum to maintain speed, technique and general abilities.
 
a month, maybe two or three. I'm 49. I've only got one way to go......down..lol.

Seriously, though. After playing this long it comes back in an hour and the layoff usually gives me new inspiration and fresh ideas. My muscles do go to crap with a layoff. I'll find that my hands are fatigued when I come back to it.
 
Bman said:
a month, maybe two or three. I'm 49. I've only got one way to go......down..lol.

Seriously, though. After playing this long it comes back in an hour and the layoff usually gives me new inspiration and fresh ideas. My muscles do go to crap with a layoff. I'll find that my hands are fatigued when I come back to it.
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Can't say I've ever taking that much of a hiatus, but I concur with the fresh ideas reset notion.

Also agree with the hands cramping up after taking a break, back when I would gig regularly I had no issue playing for 1-2 hours at a time, now that I'm a 'working man' I have to put the instrument down every 15 minutes or so to relieve hand cramps.. and I'm in my late 20's!

On a side note, noticed you are from Houston. I'm actually in Victoria at the moment and will be moving to Beaumont in a few months as I've accepted a new job over there. Nice to run into local-ish forum members!
 
Howdy....there's a few of us here. I'm planning on going to watch Bishop play in his Ozzy Tribute band in January. That will be first time I'll have met a fellow Fractal member, assuming I meet him.
 
"If I go one day without practicing I can tell. If I go two days without practicing the public can tell."

- Jascha Heifetz
 
I try to do my practice routine every day. I recently moved and hardly touched a guitar for almost two months. My fingers were no longer part of my body. It was an out of the finger experience. After much searching we have been reunited.
 
One day I can tell. After three days it’s a problem. But it only takes me a single three hour practice session to get it back. But if I take five days off it takes me two or three days to get back.
 
I’ve never exactly been the type of player who feels I ever had speed, technique, etc to start with, so I don’t have much to lose lol.

I’ve gone periods without really picking up a guitar for weeks or even months at a time. When I grab one again, I feel it’s like riding a bicycle, all comes right back.

I’m sure if I was a technical player, a “shredder” or whatever, then yeah, there is some degree of conditioning to keep up.

I only grab a guitar becasue I want to play it these days, not because I feel I should practice etc, so I’m lucky in that regard.

I will say that after a while away, I do feel it in my fingers vs periods where I’m playing hours a day, day after day.
 
Generally, I can just pick it up and play fine. But my soloing / improv takes a hit if I go more than a few days, I can tell I'm not quite as sharp (except for times when I'm just in the flow because the vibe is right... ;-)

One time I stopped playing for 9-10 months - I just didn't want to pick it up, and when I did I wasn't into it. It was weird. My gf at the time was like "I don't know why you call yourself a guitar player, you never do." In her mind I was just one of those guys who had a guitar on a stand in his living room. I finally happened to be invited to play w/ a friend's band and after a week of practicing the songs to get ready, it was like I never had calluses to begin with. Barely could make it thru the session, my fingertips were SO sore.
 
Week or two is the longest I want to go without picking up a guitar. But ideally I like to practice a few times a week. But sometimes if I have a month or more between shows and life gets busy I can forget to pickup a guitar for a week or two.
 
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The quote Rex posted is well known and has essentially been echoed by other high level musicians as well. Henry's post is nearly verbatim to that of other high-level musicians, both in awareness and time required to regain previous level of facility.

Your constantly swimming upstream...stop swimming and your position in the stream will change. How perceptible that change is to you is relative to how far up the stream you were to begin with. Streams with stronger currents require more effort from the swimmer to merely maintain position. Whereas, weaker currents requires less to maintain position. And both require greater effort than current output to advance further upstream.

There's been a number of advances in our understanding of neural networks in our brain and how it responds to various challenges... now we know that consistent re-enforcement (in the correct manner) of a given neural circuit can in turn lead to greater efficiency of said circuit through physical change (Neuro-genesis, myelin thickening). This is why you can find symphonic players in their 80's and 90's who despite other deficiencies, haven't lost any playing ability. Ben Hogan also makes for an interesting case study in another discipline. Beck, Vai, Satriani, Yngwie, EJ, EVH (clean) haven't lost a step... but I'm confident that if asked, they would all say that they can notice if they take even a small amount of time off...OK I doubt Yngwie would admit it, but that's Yngwie being Yngwie. I wonder what the longest time Les Paul went without playing was out of curiosity?
 
I somehow have a feeling, based at least on my own experience with other musicians I've played with, that those more creative ones practice less. Those who struggle with writing their own stuff practice substantially more. Maybe it's a coincidence but I've seen this phenomenon very often.
 
Project Mayhem said:
"How" you practice a has larger role than how much you practice. Maintenance level practice requires little time if done efficiently
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Kind of. But it depends on what your style is and what you're trying to achieve and how far along you are. Music is an ever-increasing learning process. There's ALWAYS more to learn. I broke down to a basic maintenance daily routine and I couldn't get it much under 2-3 hours. LOL.
 
don_joe said:
I somehow have a feeling, based at least on my own experience with other musicians I've played with, that those more creative ones practice less. Those who struggle with writing their own stuff practice substantially more. Maybe it's a coincidence but I've seen this phenomenon very often.
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But you can't apply that to everybody. In jazz improv I tell students that I don't think when I play, or that Charlie Parker said, "Learn everything you can then forget it all." Then students figure they just won't think or won't learn it to begin with. It doesn't work that way! LOL. You have to learn it first. There's no shortcut. So many who no longer practice and spend their creative endeavours being creative put in their time already.
 
henryrobinett said:
But you can't apply that to everybody. In jazz improv I tell students that I don't think when I play, or that Charlie Parker said, "Learn everything you can then forget it all." Then students figure they just won't think or won't learn it to begin with. It doesn't work that way! LOL. You have to learn it first. There's no shortcut. So many who no longer practice and spend their creative endeavours being creative put in their time already.
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Sure, it would be impossible not to practice at all. I didn't mean that :) My observation is that there are probably and roughly two types of players: a) those who naturally focus firstly on melodies and harmonies and then they learn techiques on the way and b) those who first learn techniques and make eventually something of it then. I see the second group putting generally a lot more effort into practicing to compensate for creativity. This is maybe just my perception, I'm not a pro as you. :)
 
I take a 2 week vacation ( to travel) every year - and take probably another week or 2 off for other random travels. I find that when I'm gone for 2 weeks - it takes about 2 weeks to get back to where I left off.
Now if you play any kind of very fast music as your main type - Metallica for example, or any other very fast music - it goes much faster I have found - and takes much longer to get back to "normal". Creeping Death sounds great today - but if I didn't play of 2 weeks, my right hand would be useless for that song..
 
henryrobinett said:
Kind of. But it depends on what your style is and what you're trying to achieve and how far along you are. Music is an ever-increasing learning process. There's ALWAYS more to learn. I broke down to a basic maintenance daily routine and I couldn't get it much under 2-3 hours. LOL.
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Completely Agree. There is always more to learn, and in my opinion, a day that you don't learn something new is a day wasted.
It's not necessarily even the content of what you are learning, rather the act of learning that needs to be maintained. It becomes rather obsessive after a certain point...but in a good way.

For me, the process of learning is different than that of maintaining. Not surprising at all that a player of your caliber would require that much time to maintain, given the sheer amount of different techniques and nuances involved in your style.
 
henryrobinett said:
But you can't apply that to everybody. In jazz improv I tell students that I don't think when I play, or that Charlie Parker said, "Learn everything you can then forget it all." Then students figure they just won't think or won't learn it to begin with. It doesn't work that way! LOL. You have to learn it first. There's no shortcut. So many who no longer practice and spend their creative endeavours being creative put in their time already.
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This!

Learn how you Learn first...then everything opens up to you. Ever notice how all your best learned skill performances be it musical, athletic or otherwise...come from a lack of consciousness state? Program it correctly, maintain as necessary, then get out of your own way and it will happen on it's own.
 
Project Mayhem said:
Completely Agree. There is always more to learn, and in my opinion, a day that you don't learn something new is a day wasted.
It's not necessarily even the content of what you are learning, rather the act of learning that needs to be maintained. It becomes rather obsessive after a certain point...but in a good way.

For me, the process of learning is different than that of maintaining. Not surprising at all that a player of your caliber would require that much time to maintain, given the sheer amount of different techniques and nuances involved in your style.
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How kind of you to say. Thank you!
 
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