Guitar Practice Tips For Picking Up Guitar After A Break From Playing
Technique Much Faster
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Guitar players often ask me:
“What’s the best way to practice when returning to guitar after a break?
That is what this guitar practice article is all about.
You’re about to learn 5 awesome guitar practice tips for returning to guitar after a break that help you to:
- quickly get your guitar playing chops back to the level they were before the break
- and continue getting better, building your technique (and other guitar playing skills) as if you’ve never taken a break in the first place.
Best of all...
You don’t need to practice guitar for hours per day to benefit from these guitar practice tips.
And I mean it.
(Most of my guitar students reach the pro level of playing guitar despite practicing less than 1 hour per day.)
Technique Much Faster
EMAIL TO GET ACCESS
By submitting your info, you agree to send it to Tom Hess Music Corporation who will process and use it according to their privacy policy.
To begin...
Watch this video outlining the key guitar practice principles for returning to guitar after a break:
Now that you understand the basics, let’s go deeper.
Here are 5 simple (but very effective) guitar practice strategies every guitarist should know about picking up guitar after a break:
Guitar Practice Tip #1 For Picking Up Guitar After A Break: Build Consistency
You may already know that ‘how much’ you practice guitar is far from the most factor in your guitar-playing success.
What you may ‘not’ know...
... Is that ‘how well’ you practice guitar is NOT the most important factor either. “How well” you practice is only in 2nd place on the importance scale... especially when it comes to returning to guitar after a break.
What ‘is’ the secret to success that makes or breaks your results as you practice guitar?
Answer: consistency.
As in: picking up your guitar every day (or at least, most days of the week) over a long period of time.
Without consistency, nothing else matters. Even the best guitar practice know-how won’t help if you don’t practice guitar consistently.
And (counterintuitively)...
This is also why it’s important not to rush into marathon sessions of practicing guitar for hours per day when you are picking up guitar after a break.
Why not?
For one thing, your hands are weaker than normal after a break.
Your calluses are gone (more on this below), and you don’t quite have the endurance to handle long sessions of practicing guitar.
(If you rush to practice guitar before properly easing into it, you could even risk an injury to your hands, which can derail your attempts at picking up guitar after a break.)
But beyond that...
Your ability to focus as you practice guitar also becomes detrained when you take a long break from playing. If you’re not careful, you can develop bad guitar technique habits during your guitar practice (that you’ll need to spend weeks or months undoing).
So, my advice is:
Do shorter mini practice sessions early on in the process of returning to guitar after a break... and increase the amount of time you practice guitar as you go forward.
Question: “Tom Hess, how do I know when I’m practicing guitar with “enough” consistency?”
Answer: Set a goal to practice guitar at least 4 times per week (20-30 minutes each) for 4-8 weeks. 5+ times per week would be better, but 4 times per week is a good starting point. When you’ve hit it, you can say that you’re practicing guitar with consistency and can build from there.
Guitar Practice Tip #2 For Picking Up Guitar After A Break: Practice Away From The Guitar
You likely know you could do some things away from the guitar to make your playing better.
Problem is: practicing guitar ‘away’ from the guitar happens at random for a lot of people (if it happens at all).
But what if... it wasn’t random?
What if you planned out your practice sessions away from your guitar the same exact way you plan your practice sessions with your guitar?
Answer: You could then build your guitar practice momentum and stick with your goal of returning to guitar after a break much faster.
Here is one way you can practice guitar way from your instrument:
Every Sunday (or whenever), think about your upcoming week.
Go through each day in your head and make a list of all the moments you expect to have some time.
For example: any time when you’re commuting, eating meals by yourself, cooking or cleaning, standing in line at the grocery store, taking a shower, falling asleep, or heck – even sitting on the toilet...
... is all potential guitar practice time.
All you have to do is plan the exact things you’ll do to make your playing better during that “guitar practice” time.
Some of the things you could do while practicing guitar in this way might include:
Practicing aural skills (i.e., training your musical ear), studying music theory, learning the fretboard, visualizing your upcoming practice session at home, thinking through a songwriting challenge, coming up with riffs and solos in your head...
... the possibilities are endless.
Don’t be hard on yourself if you miss one of those sessions.
All of this is optional practice time anyway.
But if you can bring even a little bit of structure into how you practice away from the guitar, it’s stunning how much more you get done... and how much this approach helps with returning to guitar after a break.
Question: “Tom Hess, how is it possible to practice fretboard memorization away from the guitar?”
Answer: You can do everything from: quizzing yourself on note names on the fretboard to visualizing scale patterns (or arpeggio patterns) using your forearm as a fretboard. (Simply move your fretting hand fingers on it as if you are playing an actual guitar – visualizing the frets in your mind’s eye.)
Watch this video to see my best advice on how to learn the fretboard quickly:
Guitar Practice Tip #3 For Picking Up Guitar After A Break: Work On Your Phrasing
Let me tell you a story:
A few years ago, I injured my fretting hand elbow so badly – I couldn’t play guitar (at all) for 14 months.
(It got so bad, I had to have my students demonstrate guitar examples at my live events during that time.)
So, I was up for the challenge of my life when it came to picking up guitar after a break.
But when the elbow finally healed, I got my chops (and about 90% of my old guitar speed) back within just a few short weeks by doing something most guitar players never focus enough on.
Instead of practicing scales, arpeggios, or exercises...
... I spent 3 weeks just getting my calluses in shape and practicing vibrato, string bends, slides, and double stops for 20-45 minutes per day.
Believe it or not...
Your calluses (or lack thereof) can hold your speed back more than you realize. The tougher your fingertips are, the less pressure it takes to play a note. And the less pressure you use, the more relaxed your entire body becomes... which boosts your speed.
But beyond helping to get your skills back...
Practicing guitar with the focus on your calluses also helps with another KEY element of great guitar playing most guitarists don’t practice enough:
Your lead guitar phrasing.
What is phrasing? And what does it have to do with picking up guitar after a break?
Answer: phrasing refers to ‘how’ you play the notes you play.
For example: you can play a 3-note guitar lick by picking every note. Or, you can play the same lick using hammer-ons and pull-offs, slides, double stops, pre-bends, vibrato, string bending variations... or any combination of these techniques. Any of these phrasing ‘ornaments’ affect how the guitar lick sounds.
Watch this video to see a demo of how to practice lead guitar phrasing (and how quickly better phrasing can help you make any ordinary guitar lick sound awesome):
Bonus reason why practicing guitar with focus on phrasing is important when returning to guitar after a break: it makes you sound good (and pro) even when you are playing guitar slowly.
So, even if your guitar speed takes a while to return, you can still have fun sounding good in the meantime.
Guitar Practice Tip #4 For Picking Up Guitar After A Break: Practice Guitar Using Only Your Picking Hand
I once trained a student who wanted to speed up an intricate string-skipping jazz lick.
After watching him play it for a few seconds, I ask:
“Have you ever tried playing it with just your picking hand, without fretting any notes?”
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He shook his head.
“So, try it”, I said – knowing exactly what will happen next.
Sure enough – after just a couple of notes, he stumbled and started peeking awkwardly at his fretting hand.
Finally, he gave up:
“I... I can’t do it.”
“Aha”, I said – lifting my finger, “Let’s think about this. You want your picking hand to play faster, but it doesn't even know what motions you want it to speed up. Are you seeing the problem? What do you think would happen if you took the time to practice the picking motions on their own and learn them just a bit better?”
Predictably – after a few minutes of practicing this way, he was able to play the lick faster than ever before.
And on top of that being a good bit of all-around advice to keep in mind as you practice guitar...
This is a particularly useful tip for practicing guitar when picking up guitar after a break.
Here is why:
1. Your picking hand’s motions are the most nuanced (because they are smaller), so they need more of your focused attention.
2. Working on calluses and polishing your phrasing is already likely to take care of your fretting hand. Practicing guitar with your picking hand only is the equivalent of “training your calluses” for your picking.
Watch this video to see what to focus on as you practice your picking hand motions:
Guitar Practice Tip #5 For Picking Up Guitar After A Break: Work On Your Synchronization
If you want to rebuild your guitar speed quickly when returning to guitar after a break, there are 2 types of guitar speed to worry about:
The top speed at which you can move your hands... and the top speed at which you want anybody to hear you play guitar.
The latter is the top speed of your 2-hand synchronization.
And it is the top speed you need to focus on rebuilding as soon as possible when picking up guitar after a break.
Some of my favorite ways of doing so when practicing guitar include:
- double picking: just like it sounds, you play the guitar licks you’re practicing by picking every note 2 times. This temporarily makes it harder to keep your hands in sync, but makes the lick much easier to play when you go back to picking each note only once.
- playing unplugged: this challenges your pick attack and forces your hands to play in total sync due to picking the notes harder. (It’s impossible to play out of sync when picking the strings with an aggressive attack.)
- single string picking: playing on one string is very unforgiving to any 2-hand sync flaws (compared to playing across strings, where you can reset and get your hands ‘back’ in sync when switching to a new string).
Here are a few more ideas for getting your hands in sync:
Now that you know how to practice guitar after a break, I want to show you how to relax excess muscle tension in your guitar technique and make your guitar playing feel nearly effortless, even when you are playing fast and challenging guitar licks. I show you how in my free video masterclass Total Tension Control. Watch it now and discover the guitar-playing secrets most guitarists will never know.
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