Everything Bianca

Now that I have a teacher, when I practice on my guitar, I follow this procedure:

I perform the lesson given to me. Presently, this amounts to reviewing chords and scales. I play them, go over them, and what not.

Then I do my other stuff. I'll go over a song I've learned. Review chords that I've taught myself. Look up some of the exercises I've found on the internet. 

Here are some others things I've found myself doing lately. 

I *think about* what I'm doing. Sometimes, the guitar doesn't even have to be in hand. I had been given the A and E form barre chords of the C major scale to practice. I took a look at them and realized something my teacher did not point out. All the A form barre chords have their root note on the A string, are strummed from that string only, and the form corresponds to C scale. (D minor barre uses an A minor form, G major barre uses A major form.) The only thing I really need to know is where the notes are on the A string. After that, I can deduce the rest. Same for the E barres on the low E string, all strummed from the 6th string.

There's a reason my teacher would not have said any of this, and a reason why reading it isn't that much better. You have to see the pattern, figure it out. Don't just "Play Exercise #1 for 10 minutes." That's boring. That's not practicing. That's being a machine. Yes, get in the physical workout, but think about what you're doing for a second. Figure out how it relates.

The other thing - I play on my guitar. Play. Have fun. P L A Y. That's why I'm teaching myself to do this, right?

So, with something like a scale. Playing it up and down, up and down, up and down, back and forth. *yawn* Yes, you're supposed to do that, but that's not it. You don't stop there. So you've got it memorized, or nearly. I start making up rhythms using those notes. I try to make up a little song using the chords I've learned or the scales I'm working on. 

It's actually pretty funny, especially when my aspiration outreaches my skill. 

I am fairly sure that's exactly what you want to do. Try to do something you can't do. Why? Because you've created a goal. You may even create the beginnings of a cute song. 

Anyway, I've heard that people hate practicing. 

Try playing with the practice. It might help.