I had fallen out of practice. I’ll just say it. I would only practice while composing a new track and then while recording it. But I doubt that’s not how practice is supposed to work!

I would in the past feel a bit guilty being in my studio, amongst my instruments, but not picking them up or sitting down and playing them.

In my mind, I’m supposed to practice regularly to get keep my “chops” up, so when it comes time to compose or record, I’m not super sloppy, and needing to record lots of takes of the same track or comp parts of takes together to make one good take.

The problem (and it’s not really a problem) is that I’m a multi-instrumentalist, meaning that I play more than one instrument. I play guitar (electric, acoustic, bass), ukulele, keyboards (piano, synthesizer, midi keyboard), Drums (e-drums), Drum Programming, and hand percussion (tambourine, shakers, cowbell, etc.)

During a 60 day challenge I’m at the tail end of, I devised a practice schedule. Having a paper calendar on my studio wall to make notes of what I play every day has been a great tool.

My goal during this challenge is to practice an instrument for one hour every day of the challenge to get my chops up before producing a new batch of instrumental tracks for Film, TV, and Advertising.

Good grief was I sloppy the first week. But guess what? By the end of the very first hour, I was feeling better about my playing. My strumming was syncing up with the rhythm of the songs, and the callouses started to grow. That happened for each instrument that first week. Sloppy at the start and feeling good by the end of the hour.

On each day of the challenge, I pick an instrument by referencing which instruments I played in the last several days, to make sure I’m rotating through them all. That way, I get practice time in on all of them every 3-5 days. Each additional hour on every instrument, I can feel and hear the improvement, especially in my timing, which is crucial when recording live instruments.

I am hoping that once this challenge is over, I’ll keep practicing daily during “Music Hour” which is what I started calling it. It’s actually time for Music Hour right now after I post this. Tonight, it’s acoustic guitar. Afterwards, treadmill, exercise bike, weights, shower, then watch part of a movie with a low-cal snack and hit the sack for the night and workday tomorrow.

I’ve grown fond of and look forward to these activities each evening. I wonder if you could benefit from a structured practice schedule like mine. By structured, I don’t mean rigid. I get to pick the time, the instrument, and what I play. Maybe I should have said “regular”.

What do I play during Music Hour? Lots of music! For ukulele, sometimes I’ll pull up the Ukulaliens YouTube channel, and go through a playlist or two. For guitar, bass, drums, and piano, I may play along with an album on Spotify by playing my ear or pull up a words and chords playlist on YouTube and play along. It’s fun to go through the same playlist on each instrument. One night, guitar, the next, piano, then next, bass, and finally drums.

I’m practicing site reading when practicing piano by pulling out big note piano music books from my wife’s stash. That’s where they have the treble clef with the large (easy to read notes) and above them, the chord names. I’ve played enough guitar and piano over the years that I can play most guitar or piano chords from the chord names unless they’re rarely used ones, I’d have to look up how to fret or finger them.

With all this practice, my back is acting up due to the weight of the instruments. I have been working to alleviate this by exercising. I use a treadmill and exercise bike, lift 25 pound dumbbells, and do pushups and planks while tightening up my stomach. All of this helps with my back.

In addition to the exercise, I am following the serving size on the food I eat. I bought a nice digital Body scale made by Withings (formerly Nokia Health) from Bed Bath & Beyond. It syncs with Health Mate app on my iPhone which syncs with the FitBit and Apple Health apps.

Please feel free to leave a comment with your ideas surrounding practicing your instruments.