The amount of time you should practice guitar daily depends on your skill level and goals. Here's the bottom line:
- Beginners: Start with 15–30 minutes a day, 4–6 days a week. Focus on basics like chords and finger exercises. Short, consistent sessions work best.
- Intermediate Players: Practice 60–90 minutes daily, 5–6 days a week. Divide time into focused chunks for techniques like barre chords, scales, and rhythm.
- Advanced Guitarists: Aim for 60 minutes a day with highly targeted sessions. Break practice into 20-minute segments to refine skills and avoid burnout.
Key Tips:
- Consistency matters more than long sessions.
- Use tools like metronomes and apps to track progress and structure sessions.
- Rest days are crucial for recovery and skill retention.
Whether you're just starting or refining advanced techniques, regular, focused practice is the key to improvement.
Beginner Practice Schedule: First 6 Months
How Long to Practice Daily
For beginners, aim to practice 15–30 minutes a day, 4–6 days a week. This schedule helps you develop skills without overworking your fingers or overwhelming your routine. Justin Sandercoe, the founder of JustinGuitar, advises:
"I will suggest 15 / 20 minutes of practice to start (six days a week). If you can do more, then increase the times of all the areas"
Focus on deliberate practice - target specific techniques and exercises, and use a timer to keep sessions focused. Practicing 20 minutes a day, five days a week, gets you to the 20-hour mark in about 12 weeks. By then, holding the guitar will start to feel natural. After about 100 hours of practice, basic chord transitions often become automatic and fluid.
If you can manage 30 minutes a day, try splitting it into two 15-minute sessions - one in the morning and one in the evening. This taps into the brain's tendency to better retain material practiced at the beginning and end of sessions.
Example Weekly Schedule
Here's how you can structure your sessions:
- 15-minute session: Spend 3 minutes on finger exercises, 5 minutes on chord transitions, 5 minutes on a simple riff, and 2 minutes on free exploration.
- 30-minute session: Dedicate 5 minutes to finger exercises, 10 minutes to learning new chord shapes, 10 minutes to practicing songs with a metronome, and 5 minutes reviewing your progress.
As Hub Guitar notes, "An hour of effective practice is worth two hours of wasted practice". Focus on quality, not quantity.
For chord transitions, aim for 30 smooth changes between two chords in one minute. If a riff or transition feels tricky, slow it down and use a metronome until you nail it. And don't overlook rest days - following a "2-on-1-off" pattern (two practice days followed by one rest day) gives your brain time to absorb what you've learned.
Intermediate Practice Schedule: 6-18 Months
How Long to Practice Daily
Once you've built a solid foundation, it's time to dive deeper into skills like barre chords, improvisation, and rhythm techniques. At this stage, aim to practice 60–90 minutes a day, 5–6 days per week.
Break your practice into 20-minute chunks, with short 10-second breaks in between. These quick pauses can help your brain process and solidify movements more efficiently - up to 20 times faster. As Guitar Gear Finder points out:
"The effectiveness of your practice decreases the longer you spend practicing"
Dedicate 70% of your practice time to tackling specific challenges, like perfecting the F major barre chord or improving alternate picking. Use the rest of your session for reviewing songs and free play. A metronome is your best friend here - start at 60 BPM and gradually increase by 5 BPM as your timing and accuracy improve. To keep your skills sharp, try the 2-on-1-off schedule, which alternates two days of practice with one day of rest.
Using Riff Quest to Structure Practice
Riff Quest can help you organize your practice sessions so you're not just aimlessly noodling. Its song library with difficulty ratings lets you pick tracks that focus on barre chords or intermediate rhythm techniques, keeping your sessions both productive and fun. The app's auto-generated practice sessions take out the guesswork, balancing technical drills with song-based exercises.
Here's an example of a 60-minute session using Riff Quest:
| Block | Duration | Focus Area | | --- | --- | --- | | Warm-Up | 10 minutes | Chromatic "spider" exercises and finger stretches | | Technique | 20 minutes | Barre chord transitions and A minor pentatonic scale runs | | Repertoire | 20 minutes | Learning new song sections from Riff Quest's library | | Improvisation | 10 minutes | Jamming over backing tracks using pentatonic scales |
For even better results, try a weekly rotation. Spend an entire week focusing on one skill - like hammer-ons or vibrato - rather than switching techniques daily. This method helps you develop a deeper understanding of each skill.
And the best part? Riff Quest is completely free - no subscriptions, no hidden fees. With features like guided routines, skill-specific analytics, and progress tracking, it's a powerful tool to take your playing to the next level.
Advanced Practice Schedule: 18+ Months
How Long to Practice Daily
By now, with more than 18 months of consistent practice under your belt, you've established a strong foundation. This is the perfect time to refine your skills with focused, efficient sessions. Aim for 60 minutes of daily practice, broken into three 20-minute segments. Each segment should be followed by a short break to avoid burnout and maintain precision.
The 20-minute chunk rule is your ally here - concentrate fully on one technique for 20 minutes, pause briefly, and then shift to a different focus. These breaks give your brain time to process and solidify what you've just practiced, allowing for faster skill retention.
Another key strategy is using the Serial Position Effect. Your brain tends to remember the beginning and end of a session best. So, place your most challenging material - like intricate solos or tough chord progressions - at the start or the end of your practice. A well-structured 60-minute routine might look like this:
- 10 minutes: Warm up with chromatic exercises
- 20 minutes: Focus on a tricky 4-bar solo passage
- 20 minutes: Apply music theory to improvisation
- 10 minutes: Transcribe solos by ear
Remember, even top-tier musicians rarely exceed three hours of daily practice. In fact, pushing beyond two hours can lead to diminishing returns. Consistency and quality always outweigh marathon sessions.
Staying Motivated with Riff Quest
At advanced stages, it's common to hit plateaus where progress feels slower or less noticeable. This is where Riff Quest shines. The platform offers skill-specific analytics, helping you identify strengths and pinpoint areas that need work - whether it's alternate picking, vibrato, bends, or other techniques. This data turns vague practice goals into clear, actionable improvements.
Riff Quest also keeps things exciting with its gamified achievements system. You'll earn rewards for milestones like mastering complex songs or hitting speed benchmarks. And since the platform is entirely free, you can access guided routines and auto-generated practice sessions without any financial commitment.
Use its song library to find advanced pieces that challenge your weaker areas, and make it a habit to refresh your routine every 30 days. This regular update prevents monotony and ensures you're always working toward new goals.
How to Make Practice Time More Efficient
Focus on Specific Goals
Having a clear plan is key to avoiding wasted practice time. The SMART framework - Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound - turns vague intentions into actionable targets. For example, instead of saying, "improve at scales", try setting a goal like, "increase alternate picking speed on the chromatic scale from 80 to 120 BPM by Friday". This kind of precision keeps your practice sessions on track.
One way to apply this is by breaking down your target songs. Pinpoint the specific techniques used - like bends, slides, or hammer-ons - and make them your practice objectives. Spend at least 70% of your practice time on 3–4 focused skills, updating these goals monthly to stay challenged.
It's also important to separate focused practice from casual playing. While jamming through familiar tunes is fun, true progress comes from deliberate effort. Set aside blocks of time to drill exercises with a metronome, pushing yourself just outside your comfort zone. Try the 3-Time Rule: only increase your metronome speed by 5 BPM after you can play a passage perfectly three times in a row. This kind of focused practice works hand-in-hand with structured schedules to maximize your improvement.
Take Rest Days
Once you've set clear goals, it's just as important to give your body and mind time to recover. Rest is when your brain processes and solidifies new skills. Studies show that motor skills continue to develop over 24 to 72 hours after practice. Skipping rest days can not only hinder progress but may also lead to physical issues like tendonitis or carpal tunnel syndrome, especially with long practice sessions.
"It's not that we work too hard. It is that we do not recover enough." - Joanna Latała, Cellist and Researcher
Plan at least one rest day each week to allow your body to recharge. Some musicians follow a "3 hard weeks, 1 easy week" cycle, a method borrowed from athletic training, to balance intense practice with recovery. During practice, take short breaks every 15–20 minutes to stretch your wrists and shake out your hands. If you feel stiffness in your hands or back, take a pause immediately. Sleep is also crucial - challenging sections often feel easier after your brain has had a chance to process them overnight. Incorporating these rest strategies into your routine can help you maintain steady progress without risking burnout.
Weekly Practice Schedule Comparison
This table highlights how practice time and focus shift as you advance in skill:
| Skill Level | Daily Duration | Focus Areas | Total Weekly Hours | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Beginner | 15–20 minutes | Finger dexterity, basic chords, simple riffs | ~2 hours | | Intermediate | 30–60 minutes | Scales, specific techniques, full repertoire | 3.5–7 hours | | Advanced | 60+ minutes | Theory, songwriting, improvisation, complex concepts | 7+ hours |
Conclusion
The key takeaway is straightforward: consistency trumps intensity every time. Whether you're a beginner dedicating 15 minutes a day or an experienced player putting in two hours, regular practice is what builds the muscle memory and neural connections needed to truly improve. Short, focused sessions done consistently will always outshine sporadic, marathon practice sessions.
Setting realistic, SMART goals is another game-changer. Instead of vague objectives like "get better at guitar", aim for something specific and measurable, such as "Master the G to C chord change 10 times in a row by Friday." This kind of clear target turns your practice into tangible progress. And don't forget to prioritize your weakest areas - spending about 70% of your time on them ensures steady improvement without spreading yourself too thin.
Rest is just as crucial as practice. Your brain needs downtime to process and solidify new skills. Overworking yourself without breaks can lead to burnout or even injury. Make sure to plan at least one full rest day each week, and take short breaks during longer practice sessions to stretch and relax your hands. This balanced approach not only prevents exhaustion but also keeps your progress sustainable.
If you're looking for tools to keep your practice on track, Riff Quest offers free resources like structured routines, progress tracking, and gamified achievements. Whether you're logging your first 20 hours or surpassing the 100-hour mark when skills start to feel automatic, tracking your sessions can help you stay motivated and focused on what to tackle next.
Start where you are, adjust your schedule as you grow, and remember: the guitar rewards steady, patient effort far more than chasing perfection.
