Steve Vai's 30 hour workout!

[Cody_King]

Intresting article in the new gutiar world about steve vai's practice schedule, it seems like it would be good to adapt to your own practice session.

[basics]

So he practices guitar for 30 hours straight? I once did it for 9 pretty intensly and it resulted in carpel tunnel syndrom.

[Hammurabi]

Not everyone has forearm and wrist muscles like Vai. Seriously, that guy looks chistled out of granite there. Same with Michael Bateo, he could probably wrist curl more than I can squat.

[Leedogg]

Awesome, I love when they do articles on real guitarists in those guitar mags, not just what the flavor of the month is if you know what I mean. By the way, did you guys check out my Steve Vai poll? I bet you didn't as many people seem to only check out threads in "open discussion". I'll save ya some time and you can find my thread here. (http://www.guitartricks.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=9182)

So far only 8 people have voted, and I wanted a bigger concensus concerning what y'all think Vai's best song is.

[Tele Master]

No, No, its 3-10 hour practice days. also read it and have tried some stuff, not everything there interests me though.

[sambob]

I think if Steve Vai really practiced as much as he said he did..

He'd be a lot better than he is.

[The Ace]

I ended my subscription to guitar world awhile ago. What kind of stuff does it have in the work out?

[finger_cruncher]

Yeah man. I'd be interested in knowing too. What does his daily warm-up routine/excercises consist of?

[basics]

man, can you imagine any person seriously working any muscle for 10 hours straight? your hand is like any other body part. Even the strongest man in the world doesn't work anything close to 10 hours in one go (as i read in a buddy's maxim magazine), it'd be suicide. is he seriously pushing his technique for 10 hours?

[basics]

let alone on one specific body part.

[Hammurabi]

Have you seen that guy's forearms? His practice routine definitely shows.

Have you read his little black dot articles? A lot of his practice is discipline. One thing he actually suggests for practice in them is doing a vibrato on one unchanging note for an hour doing it every way you can imagine and without letting your mind wander to [i]anything[/] except how you are vibrating that one unchanging note. That doesn't take a whole lot of muscular effort compared to most of what he does, but you gotta admit that would give you some serious discipline.

Just in case you're thinking he's insane right now, he doesn't recommend people start out with an hour, he suggests starting with something smaller like a few minutes and working your way up.

That reminds me, I need to get some practice time in today. I haven't been practicing anywhere near enough the past couple months.

[Josh Redstone]

Originally posted by sambob
I think if Steve Vai really practiced as much as he said he did..

He'd be a lot better than he is.

If Steve Vai only played as good as he could, technically that is, his songs would be just guitar wanking.
You have to play tastfully, especially with the kind of music he plays, and besides, there is a lot more to a good guitarist that how many notes per second you can play.
Anywhooo, just out of curiosity, have you ever tried playing some of his songs? I think they're diceptively tricky.

[the fool]

are u sure its 30 hours? maybe its 30 min.

[TheDirt]

I've heard of Vai's famous 10 hour workout that he did while attending Berklee. It was a lot of chromatic, scalar, sweeps, playing by ear, chord voicings, etc. Just like any guitarist's workout, but way longer.

[Cody_King]

Thats what the 30 hour work out is, its 10 hours a day over 3 days, its broken up into

Exercises, Scales, Coords, Ear Training, Music Theroy, Jamming, Music Creation, and another one i cant remember right now.

[schalk]

Talking about Steve Vai- do any of you know where I can find the tabs,if they can be found, for that classical/rock piece that Eugene plays at the end of the movie Crossroads?

[Azrael]

i say quality over quantity. if you know how to practice and if you have developed the ability to notice your mistakes and instantly work on them, you dont need a 5000 hour routine. i learn more in 1 hour now than i used to learn in 4 hours back when i had no clue how to learn. be efficient.
this must be one of those guitarist-ego syndromes...
"look i practice 12 hours a day" .... "you suck - i practice 20 hours a day" .... "but i´m faster - i can play 3 billion notes a second" ...

[basics]

I totally agree. You master the technique of practicing. You shouldn't have to spend 10 hours a day and I'd be curious to find out what the average practice time is for a professional whatever in a wind ensemble or something. When you're beginning, granted, you could spend maybe 5 hours on muscle memory and strength but after that it's all repitoir and arrangement. Anymore than 4 hours daily for myself personally would be a waste of time. I average 2.

[iamthe_eggman]

Originally posted by Azrael
i say quality over quantity. if you know how to practice and if you have developed the ability to notice your mistakes and instantly work on them, you dont need a 5000 hour routine. i learn more in 1 hour now than i used to learn in 4 hours back when i had no clue how to learn. be efficient.
this must be one of those guitarist-ego syndromes...
"look i practice 12 hours a day" .... "you suck - i practice 20 hours a day" .... "but i´m faster - i can play 3 billion notes a second" ...

Like my hero, The Sphinx said, "To learn my teachings, I must first teach you how to learn"...



Also, "You must lash out with every limb, like the octopus who plays the drums".

[Josh Redstone]

Originally posted by Azrael
i say quality over quantity. if you know how to practice and if you have developed the ability to notice your mistakes and instantly work on them, you dont need a 5000 hour routine. i learn more in 1 hour now than i used to learn in 4 hours back when i had no clue how to learn. be efficient.
this must be one of those guitarist-ego syndromes...
"look i practice 12 hours a day" .... "you suck - i practice 20 hours a day" .... "but i´m faster - i can play 3 billion notes a second" ...

I've noticed that too. I practise about an hour a day now, excluding rehearsals with bands that is, and I've noticed that a lot of guitarists out there who practise a lot more than I do, for lack of a better word, suck, because when they practise for 12 hours straight or whatever, they just practise bad technique, playing with distortion on all the time, not knowing the proper whay to do whatever they're doing in the first place, you get the idea.
Anywhoo, I didn't mean to toot my own horn there. But hey, if your like Vai and you practise that much with good technique, there's nothing wrong with that.

[Azrael]

as for the professionals in classical ensembles - they do practice for about 6-8 hours a day, but thats not because their routine is so inefficient - its simply because most of those pieces are extremely long and extremely difficult to master. so they lock themselves like 3 - 5 months in a padded room before they go out and perform the pieces. then, after having performed a certain programm for like half a year live, they lock themselves again in that room with the next set of pieces.

[Death55]

classical stuff is so hard. I learnt a piece a while ago and i took me ages to learn it.
I practice a lot but i never know what to practice. If you know what to practice its ok. I think even if you dont really know what to practice you will still improve. You might not be able to write amazing songs and understand theory better but you should start to be able to improvise and start using more techniques by finding them out by messing around.

[basics]

Man, any time spent on your guitar is benificial, whether beginner or pro. It's just after a while you recognize which direction you want to take and what it's going to take to get there. It's like anything else - you can't dive into some specific field without knowing the basics first. A brain sergeon couldn't be one without a doctorate per se, or knowing what a regular doctor knows. Once your playing gets to that next level of specification, that's when your practice time gets organized and you start to get recognized for your dedication to your art. In my opinion.

Learning the ground techniques takes a while, considering, and is where many potential future grasshoppers get lost in the mud. I just woke up.

... I didn't really read what you wrote, and you're right. Any time spent on the guitar is going to help you improve. And I mean any time. 99% persperation, %1 inspiration or whatever that is.

[sambob]

I think it was Buddy Rich who basically said somethign to the effect of "If you want to practice practice, even if its only for a few minutes. When you're done, go play some stick ball, or mug somebody. Go pick up the sticks when you want to."

Of course, he's talking about drumming. But the same idea applies to guitar.