How Many Hours Should You Practice Guitar A Day?

Everyone knows the golden rule to improve your skills with a guitar is to practice, practice, practice. Practice makes perfect, after all. But if you’re new to playing an instrument, you may not know the best way to go about your practice.

How long should you practice your guitar a day so that you can get better?

The optimal amount of practice you should follow is for at least 15 minutes a day. This may not sound like much, but this will be more than enough time to work on perfecting your technique so that you can become a better musician. 

While it may be tempting to practice for long periods of time, it will be best to do this in short bursts. This is because your mind won’t be able to concentrate for hours at a time.

Typically, you will only remember the beginning and end of your practice session. So while you may think practicing for an hour will be more beneficial, chances are you’ll remember far more from smaller sessions.

It will be much better for your skills as a guitarist to do several small practice sessions throughout the week rather than a single long practice session.

If you did want to sit down and practice for an hour, it would be best to split this into 10 or 15 minute smaller sessions so that you can fully absorb what you’re trying to learn.

If you were to only do a single hour long session with no breaks in between, chances are you’ll forget what it is you were trying to learn by the next time you pick up your guitar the following week.

Another factor to consider is that “practice” typically refers to working on your technique and form, rather than just playing songs you already know.

So this will mean practicing strumming or picking exercises so that you can improve your skills, which you can then put into practice by learning new songs or riffs.

Is 2 Hours A Day Enough Guitar Practice?

Practicing for around 2 hours a day is more than enough guitar practice. However, this might be difficult to sustain on a day-to-day basis. This is because your brain can only concentrate for so long. 

So if you try and practice over a 2 hour period without giving your brain a break in between, you may find it difficult to absorb the information you’re trying to learn.

It will be much better for your practice if you split this time up into smaller sessions. This will give your brain time to properly take in the information you’re trying to teach it.

So you should be able to remember exactly how to do that particular technique the next time you pick up your guitar. 

Practicing these methods regularly will allow you to improve your skills better than a single 2 hour long practice session.

How Many Hours Of Guitar Practice Is Too Much?

So now that we know practicing for long hours isn’t the best way to improve your skills as a guitarist, how many hours of guitar practice is too much? Anything more than 4 hours of practice a day will be far too much.

There is even scientific evidence to show that this doesn’t actually improve your skills as a musician. You could also damage your hands by trying to play guitar for anything longer than this.

Some people even consider anything more than 2 hours’ worth of practice to be far too much. You will be much better off sticking to those shorter, more regular practices so that you can properly learn how to play guitar without injuring yourself.

How Long Should A Beginner Practice Guitar A Day?

A beginner should practice guitar for at least 15 minutes a day. This should give you more than enough time to practice and improve your technique. This will also allow your brain to properly absorb the information you are trying to get it to learn. 

If you were to only practice once a week, there is no way you will be able to improve your skills as a guitarist. By the time your next practice rolled around, you will have forgotten whichever technique you were trying to learn last week.

Shorter, more regular practices will be the best way for you to learn guitar.

How Long Does It Take To Become Good At Guitar?

Trying to work out how long it takes to become good at guitar is a tricky thing to quantify. This is because there are so many factors that come into improving your skills as a musician. Yes, regular practice will be essential.

However, it will also depend on what exactly you are practicing each day.

In terms of just practice, it is estimated that your skills will start to improve after around 6 months to a year. After 2 years you should find that your skills have vastly improved than when you first started. Anything more than this, and you should be fairly efficient at playing guitar.

However, don’t forget that you will need to adjust the things you practice. There’s no point in going over the same 3 techniques for a year.

You will be very good at these particular practices, but you won’t be pushing your skills as a musician if you’re not learning something new. It will be best to practice a variety of techniques and styles to improve your skills, and to make sure that you increase the difficulty of the things you are trying to learn.

In Summary

So there you have it! The best way to practice guitar will be to only do so for at least 15 minutes a day. You may think that longer practices are better, however, it has been scientifically proven that your brain will struggle to concentrate for long periods of time.

So you won’t actually absorb the techniques that you’re trying to learn. If you want to practice for an hour every day, you will find it more beneficial to split this into 10 or 15 minute sessions.

It will be far more beneficial to you as a guitarist to play for 15 minutes a day, every day, than doing a single hour long practice a week.