Practice regimen guidance?

Hi, I've been a member here for about 3 months or so, and just signed up for high bandwidth - getting serious I guess :cool: . Anyway, I apologize if this has been covered in the forums but I haven't come across a training schedule yet in my searches so I'm hoping some of you can give me some "sound" guidance. There are so many lessons here its a bit overwhelming for me to know where to start.

First, a little about me so you know where my goals are (I'll try to keep it somewhat brief). I was given a Fender (Korean) acoustic about 10 years ago. I wanted to play but found it tough to start from scratch on my own and so the guitar was a room decoration for years. About 2 years ago I picked it up and started painfully working on chords - gained a little confidence and learned some Eagles rythyms. Christmas this year I bought an Epiphone SG with a 10 watt Kustom amp. I've messed with this and/or my acoustic almost everyday since then and have been learning as much as I can from here, guitarnoise.com, tabs, Hal Leoanard and Total Guitar books and a couple of sessions with accomplished players (I felt really inadequate trying to do the simplest things with them but learned more from playing with them in an hour than 20 hours practice on my own!). Last month I took the plunge and bought a Marshall Valvestate amp - WOW!!!!

Favourite Group: The Tragically Hip
Favourite Genres: Classic Rock, Southern Rock, Blues Rock
Best guitar accomplishment so far: playing rythym to the Tragically Hip's New Orleans is sinking along with the CD.
Strengths: E,A,D,G Major Chords, lots of enthusiasm and a willingness to make time for practice at least 30 minutes per day.
Weaknesses: everything else :(

I've read everywhere here that if you want to improve: practice, practice, practice. I want to build a practice schedule for myself to progress consistently rather than learning the first couple measures of a bunch of songs from tab. So, here's what I'm thinking I should start with:

Darren Jones' Pull Off Exercise, Hammer On Exercise, picking exercise once a day.
Schmange's Palm Muting Basics once a day.
Pentatonic Scales!!
Get to know my fretboard.
Work on two songs as I have time till I learn them.
Play with other guitarists at least twice a month (all I have time for).

Anyway, to bring this lengthy post to a merciful end, here's my request:

I want to "play" guitar not memorize tab sequences. I would REALLY appreciate your advice as to particular lessons to work on or techniques I should try and master in some sort of sequence. I figure there is no better people to ask about learning then those who have gone through it before.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Bazaa

Schmange and I are working on a "curriculum" that starts at the beginning and goes thru a lot of material from the site. We recognize that the amount of material here is slightly overwhelming.

It sounds like you are beyond our target for the beginner curriculum. I would think you could kind of dive in.

One approach would be to go thru tutorials only instead of individual lessons. Tutorials force you to focus. You could do only "rock" tutorials or only "easy" tutorials.

Another approach would be to pick an instructor and go thru all that instructor's lessons. This will keep you from dabbling (doing slide one day, fingerpicking the next, sweep picking the next).

Definitely memorizing a lead scale is important. If you like rock music, pentatonic is the basic scale to know.

Hope this helps!

jon

Thank you Jon. I think the curriculum will be very helpful for new and experienced players alike and its a great idea. Guess what I found?

http://www.guitartricks.com/scales1.shtml

AHA - the pentatonic scale authoured by none other than,

drumroll........

Jon Broderick! :rolleyes:

An excellent starting point for scales. Looking forward to cranking this tonight and I'll choose a tutorial as you suggest :D .

Bazaa

I just had to write in and share. Since I started this thread in July, have been dutifully practicing pentatonic scales, have learned to palm mute, hammer-ons and pull-offs aren't perfect but getting much more consistent and jamming for a couple of hours a week with a friend. Anyway, I started working on Dr. Simon's Blues for Beginners. Well, I suppose part 1 is easy to play - but it sounds pretty good I think. Well, anyway, after a couple of hours I could play it in time sounding just like Dr. Simon. For some this is probably not a big deal - but for me - a huge breakthrough and a big confidence boost.

Anyway - thanks to the site and everyone on here for just being there as I worked away over the past couple months - and thanks to Dr. Simon and John Broderick for their sound advice and support! Sliding scales and the blues scale - here I come! :D

Barry