It's always a red flag to me when people say they are practicing 5-8 hours a day. Among pianists in a particular and music major in general it becomes a bit of a pissing contest. But like you, I've found that REAL practice is so mentally taxing that it would be impossible to go that long. I can play for hours on end, but I certainly can't practice that way. I use a lot of relatively short, very focused sessions throughout the day and the thing is... even if I have more time, low stress, and nothing else going on that day, I simply can't just add more practice time. Sure, I could sit and play, but I find a point where trying to do any sort of deliberate practice is impossible because my brain is just too fatigued cumulatively. I keep trying to tell people... practice well, feed your brain good, accurate practice, and then get plenty of sleep on that practice. There was a time I would've spend 30m-1h hashing at one thing, but just the nature of working full time as a musician, I have to learn to much music to have time for that and I didn't need that time anyway. 5 minutes of focused practice on a section or technical issue once a day or even once every 2nd or 3rd day (depending on my workload) is honestly more than enough. I can now accomplish more cumulatively in 5-15 minutes across an entire week than I would've gotten out of 4-5 hours across that same week when I was younger. Your brain tells you that you need to keep going and that 5 minutes isn't nearly enough, but I find that when I come back to it later, it's almost MAGICALLY easier even with just a tiny amount of very focused practice with a solid goal. More time just leads to practicing until you're tired (before you even realize it) and letting sloppiness creep in... stubbornly beating your head against a problem that just needs time to marinate. And then you end up learning tension, bad habits, mistakes, maybe you misread something and are literally practicing the wrong notes, etc. So often I'll go back to a section with a bit more clarity and catch things I over looked. Carrying an accidental, a better fingering choice, and obviously as I'm no longer thinking as much about technical execution I catch subtle things with articulations that I can focus on. It makes me so glad I didn't spend an hour ingraining mistakes because I wanted to be a hero and practice for hours on that one thing. And for students (as well as myself) if means if you stop spending an hour each on 3-4 things you can instead cover potentially dozens of things, each with more focus and improve much more wholly as musician rather than just getting good at a few pieces of music that frankly, if you're not investing in your overall skills, will simply be learned by rote muscle memorization and will be forgotten without constant refreshing of that muscle memory.

It was the picking arm for me, and I did a real number on it. after 15 years of not being able to play I am working through rehabilitating all the specific muscles and can currently play for about 30 minutes so I try to make the most of that 30 mins with thoery and study. Agree with all you said, be flexible, look after your strength, get the nutrients you need,I think the most important thing is learning what pain is ok (like sore skin on fingers or tired muscles) as opposed to inflamed tendons, joints and muscles.

I've watched several of your videos for a few weeks now and aside from the content and delivery really appreciate the precision with which you communicate. Thanks for posting and teaching.

Very interesting Jared. Over the past year After having blunt force trauma to my right hand, I have been doing much to change my way of playing and being more consience of how I am playing. I do multiple excercises daily prior to playing. The end result is that I have gained much more agility and technique in how I play. A lot of it involves what you have shared.

awesome video. i have insane tendonitis in both arms right now and will be applying this as I get back into guitar shape.

Good one, Jared! You shared many good points which are very helpful. Like many guitarists who own many guitars, we get in the habit of playing our same guitar that introduces us to bad techniques. I played my Adamas 12 string ( @ regular pitch) as my go-to for many years and couldn't shake the habit of pressing too hard on the strings. Now, I often play my low-action classical nylon and my tele to teach and keep me from grasping so hard. Of course, holding and playing a comfortable guitar makes a big difference with our personal ergonomics : ). Thank you for this video. Aloha*

Great video on a much overlooked topic!

My problems are more age related, according to my doctor. I do daily exercises because it helps with arthritis and together with your tips I keep problems to a minimum. Thanks for the time taken to make people aware.

Very important topic. Lots of players have warned me and Tim lerch covers this very topic though related to aging. Thank you!

oh yeah .this channel will help improve my arrangements..I subscribe

I needed this because my arm is starting to hurt lol! And this is just practising scales!!!! I am actually nodding as you are mentioning these tips…lolol 😂😂

That’s how I am right now with my right hand. It started about two years ago because like a dumb dumb I kept playing because I was inspired and the pain just kept getting worse and worse and I just kept hoping it would just go away and then I had to stop all together. But anybody who is a real musician and can’t live without it knows how hard it is to not pick up your guitar and so for a year I would just play it every once in a while, but it was so unsatisfying because as soon as I would get warmed up, it would start hurting again. And then I found this channel that taught me some massages and it worked for a little while but then it came back again and then the second time I tried to do the massages it wasn’t working so well so right now I’m kind of trying to find this balance and I’m thinking I might need to go to a proper massage therapist instead of doing it myself, which is kind of weird unless you have these really strong hands to get deep into the tissue. I’m still trying to figure out what to do and it’s kind of depressing.

Besides what you mentioned ... I went more or less through the exact same stages. Started with serious wrist pain (solved it for a while with bee poison and cheating around it). The problem traveled to the elbow ... further to the shoulder blade ... to finally torture the entire arm. Tried about everything you did yourself until I got the idea to warm up without the picking hand and guess what? ... I found myself playing extremely tense! far from what I usually managed to play using both hands! So I started to build and practice single note exercises without the picking hand plus relax breathing to the rhythm ... and doing the things you talked about in point seven. It finally solved the problem - what doesn't mean that I stopped doing those things - we all tend to fall back in one or the other way. Plus, with the age your hands/fingers start to wear out what causes some aching here and there 😜✌️!

currently also having these pains, i too think #4 is the biggest reason for it.

So important! Thank you.

Hi, greetings from the UK. I am really enjoying your chord series at the moment I have learnt so much! I was wondering, have you ever considered doing a video on West African guitar style? Such as that of Toumani Diabeté or Ali Farka Touré. Such fantastic pentatonics and rhythms! Would be awesome to see and understand it better, in case you're looking for ideas Anyways keep up the good work it's appreciated :)

WoW I got this wrist problem really bad when I was @ 22 years old and always put it down to my job as a plasterer my left hand gripped the handboard tight all day while moving the wrist around with plaster on the board but also gripping the neck and stretching for chords on the guitar, it was that bad I needed an operation and I was told it was to decompress my tendon leading to my left hands thumb I think the medical term /tendon is called APL Abductor Pollicis Longus. the pain was caused through the slightest touch in a downwards motion on the thumb, this had a terrific eletric shock type of pain in the wrist when the thumb was slightly touched like this. From the age of 14, I always had guitars and spent alot of time trying to play, just loved 2 string riffs kinda thing but remember as I got to @ 21/22 I had to stop playing because of the pain, but I always thought it was down to my job, in hindsight it was probably a good mixture of both, but in my job I have suffered with tendonites , in the sides of my knees, and tennis elbow, luckily both were cured with steroid injections. Been back on the guitar for a week now after a 43 year lay off and I am now 65 years old and still stretching for the chords, and the wrist is starting to ache, this video has just brought everything back, and with your excellent advice I will really take it in. thank you.

Thank you! Do you have suggestions on how to hold the guitar in certain positions to relieve tension? Are there any hand stretching methods that have been helpful? I have heard using a small rubber ball can help relieve tension in the hands.

Hey Jared, I may have missed the video where you talked about the injury, but what exactly was your injury? I am so bad at the moment I have not been able to practice and had to quit worship team and gigs. I have left thumb tendinitis and a little bit of carpal tunnel. The thumb tendinitis is so bad I can barely hold my phone and cannot fret chords or notes at all. Just wondering if our injuries are related and if you think your suggestions could help my problems? Love your content. Thanks for everything you do

Great lesson and information. What is the massage technique you used on the arm? This is where my problems are located. Thanks, Wayne

Thanks

I've got a question, did you play through those 3 years of recovery? or did you have to take a complete 3 year break?

just subbed! what model martin is that! did u do a video of all your guitars?? thanks! greetings from nyc!

Jared you look like Magneto bro

How long is too long? 4:38

It would be so cool to have an informative video on this topic in 2 minutes instead of 11.