Say you’re learning a musical instrument, or some other similar skill.
It’s a given that an hour of practise a day is better than 7 hours once a week.
But what about smaller chunking? Is it better to do half an hour twice a day? Fifteen minutes four times? I’m guessing that 5 minutes 12 times is probably geting ridiculous…
IMHO or GQ answers welcome. I’m not sure if this has ever been researched seriously.
Moving from IMHO to Cafe Society.
Play when you can. Period.
Beyond that, divide your time between warmup (move through chords and scales), new stuff you’re trying to learn (songs, new chords or passages) and fun stuff.
Whatever keeps you playing. Whether you chunk down into units of time is typically based on time available. Heck when I had 5 minutes before I had to walk to school, I would sit and play random stuff - when you’re addicted, you grab the time you can.
I really doubt there’s any data on the ideal – it all depends on you [/strother martin].
I never practiced much every day when I was a young teenager taking classical – but things had a way of making sense subconsciously and I actually made some real breakthroughs by, really, doing very little consciously.
I don’t know if this advice is appropriate for a beginner – the above is probably better, just be on or with your instrument as often as you can, even just screwing around, getting to be comfortable with it. But I have a pretty regimented schedule I usually stick to – half is ear-training (transcribing solos and tunes) and playing through tunes I’m on the verge of forgetting and mastering new ones in a few keys, and half is a combination of fucking around with arrangement ideas, working on some technical things that need practice, and if there’s any time left over, trying to get some “straight by the sheet music” things I always wanted locked down “The Minute Waltz” a la James Booker’s arrangement, "Rhapsody in Blue,’ “Por Una Cabeza,” and maybe some stride/ragtime pieces. But I do this every day – I shoot for a full six hour regimen, but with starting school again, some days I just screw around a little for fun on a few things.
I think if you get bored by “practicing”/playing for an hour or two, then you should break it up a little bit. For me it takes time to get into it, and so it’s more productive to power through a longer session (varying what you do for interest’s sake). I’d only wonder if being too fragmented would make you feel a bit frustrated or confused after a while.
Name your axe by a woman’s name and sleep with it next to you. Also, that.
This article suggests that two intense and focused practice sessions per day is much more effective than spreading it out further.