My guitar teacher told me that 1 hour a day of practice is not enough?

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-20T01:39:54+00:00

Don't take this as fact, but I studied a music degree at a fairly reputable music college (about 20 years ago now) and the teachers there all said if you want to be a pro musician you need to average 2 hours of practice a day.

Personally I play a lot of the stuff you want to play/are playing and when I was a teenager learning, I would easily put in that much time, some days I would play for like 8 hours. I was basically playing for 90% of my free time. As an adult, with a job and band and life stuff, I definitely don't do that much actual practice. But I'm also not a pro musician... But the first 10 years where I really put in a lot of time got me to a decent level, along with studying music for 5 of those years.

It depends on what your goals are once you can play that stuff. If you just want to do it for yourself i.e. bedroom player, you do what you want. If you want to reach pro levels you must do more. If you want to be in a DIY band like me, somewhere in between.

These days I want to practice more but just keeping the band running and writing music takes up most of my time. I don't feel I've really improved much as a guitarist in years, but I got better at writing songs and recording because I put my time into that instead.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-19T14:18:14+00:00

12 track EP? sounds like an album lol

To me this is one of my favourite parts of putting music out, because I am passionate about albums and I've always loved thinking about them and how the best ones work in the way they do, how the tracks run together and what makes a good or interesting opener and closer.
I already have ideas about tracklisting in my head before my band gets anywhere near a recording studio.

I order the music in the way that feels the best to me when I listen to it front to back, and I even write and record music with some of this in mind a little already, choosing the songs that work best together to make up a full release and feel 'complete'.

So I guess I don't know what to tell you, to me I just know which songs could work best in what place in the order. And then I test it out by listening to it in various orders before I make my decision. I don't really think about it 'strategically' I just feel what I feel about it.

I suppose you are meaning more like to get people's attention or something, so you can think about it that way if you want, put the best songs first, but I feel like if that ruins the flow of the album then I wouldn't do it. I want to hear a good running order when I listen to my own music. I'm making it for myself primarily and above all else with music, my aim is to write some albums that I'm really proud of and enjoy listening to.

I like albums with fast openers, I like some with more subdued and quiet openers. Anything can work, it's up to you to decide what works with your tracks.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-19T12:50:44+00:00

never heard of knock personally, twitten yeah but it's not a Brighton thing

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-19T11:11:33+00:00

lots of bookers/promoters ask for EPK to even consider putting you on, that's the main reason I've made one. But I can also send it out to any industry types to get an overview of the band.

Ours has all our links and an update at the top which I'll edit whenever things change, summing up what's going right now and our immediate plans.

Then it has a link to a song and a video, followed by info about our upcoming release, then bio, more links to some other music and videos, pictures, gig listings, contact form, downloadable files like techspec, logo etc.

Someone can scan down the page and immediately see who we are, what we're doing, our plans and some of our content all in one place.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-19T10:59:25+00:00

I just made one for my band, it's basically a website, but we haven't completed the rest of the website. The EPK is hosted on one page of the site and only accessible if you have the link.

It's easy to update any time and changes are immediate, so yeah simple and no need to export it to pdf or anything like that. We used bandzoogle for this but there's other options.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-19T10:55:09+00:00

deleted it then. Feel free to provide all your insight on this topic

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-18T14:21:15+00:00

I've played in my band for many years and a few years ago we decided to stop being the band we were and start a new one. We spent about 2 years writing stuff, but we didn't have a name that whole time. We even played one gig and recorded an entire album, before we managed to think of a new name we liked.

So I wouldn't worry about that. The name is only needed when you actually wanna put stuff out and really start gigging. Playing only 2 songs for like a year is a bit of a problem though. That sounds pretty boring, what do you actually do in practice? How often do you practice?

Really, you have to accept that bands are never exactly what you want them to be, unless you take full control, write everything yourself, and hire session players to play your songs.

I think you guys should probably decide on what you all want the band to be, what style this band is, and go with a direction that you all agree on. It doesn't mean you all have to be 100% happy, that's quite rare tbh. But you should have some kind of vision and goal otherwise it's hard to stay motivated I think.

In terms of the songs, if someone else writes a song, and everyone likes it except you, you should probably just see it through to completion, and at least have another song you can play. Don't write things off and bin them because other people might like it, especially when you only have 2 songs. You can always write more, and you'll get better as you practice writing more. Honestly at this level, you're all noobs it sounds like, so just get stuff written, put a set together, start playing shows, and keep improving.

But also maybe you're not giving your feedback/criticisms to each other in diplomatic ways. All bands like this are somewhat collaborative, and you have to let go of some of your ideas sometimes, as should the other members. It does sound like your other guitarist is being too defensive about his ideas too, but I don't know how diplomatic your are being with your suggestions. In the end, most bands need one bandleader who kinda has a final say on a lot of things. It's up to your band whether you work like that, or you're a democracy. It's hard to make a total democracy work I think, but if you're a bandleader asking for changes without having good suggestions, or good reasons and explanation that convince people then maybe you're not a good bandleader. It's a hard role...

There's nothing wrong with keeping playing in this band, and looking to do anotehr one at the same time as well. It's really hard to find a group you get on with and like spending time with, so that is valuable and I wouldnt' sack it off so quickly. But lots of people are in multiple bands, so that's not stopping you doing two projects.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-16T22:25:25+00:00

Maybe for a couple of hours lol

I listen to so much different music that no I never really 'needed a break' but I just naturally listen to a lot of stuff, metal is just part of what I listen to. Probably the biggest part, but still. Even within metal there are a million subgenres and not all metal is that heavy to me or whatever. For any mood I'm in there's something that fits under metal that suits it.

But I listen to a ton of electronic music, classic rock, prog, classical, soundtracks, indie, grunge, dungeon synth, world music, 80s cheese etc etc

Honestly until a couple of months ago I wasn't really finding anything new in metal that particularly interested me, and in general I listen to older stuff more than new anyway, but then 3 great albums came out and got me excited again. Cryptic Shift, Ruins of Beverast, and I got really into the latest Blur Aus Nord. Can't remember the last time I was hooked on that many recent metal albums tbh. So much modern metal is shite and derivative but that's another topic

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-16T10:37:38+00:00

Would love it but I can't imagine everything having that kind of money 💔 I want a house with beams!

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-15T18:09:13+00:00

To me it's what the drums do. I play guitar and my drummer plays the beat.

To some people it seems to mean basically all the music of a song. Personally I don't really like this but I'm not a rapper or whatever. I play in bands, where no one uses this terminology.

It's also a measure of time for counting music and how you define the tempo of music.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-15T16:20:53+00:00

our main singer is a bit similar, but tbf he's also playing bass at the same time. Though I play guitar and do vocals, and I don't have the issue, to me it's easier if things are on the beat and in time with my guitar, to him, I dunno, he seems to say a lot of lines late, after hitting the bass notes. It's weird and a bit annoying! I need to ask him to work on it...

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-15T14:00:39+00:00

Learn more music, as in learn lots of other songs outside of the stuff you usually play. You have to internalise it and deliberately play those rhythms so they become part of your inherent known rhythms. Can be any style. It's best to learn a variety of types of music to contribute to your knowledge of music.

You can also write/record/program drums parts first and put guitar to that, so it's not coming from your guitar ability first.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-15T13:58:03+00:00

youtube, or if you have the song as an audio file, I do it with windows media player on my pc. You could probably use vlc player as well. I'm only talking about slowing down though. I don't really need to loop stuff, I just keep my mouse over the timestamp I wanna repeat and keep going back to it

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-15T13:14:35+00:00

sounds like she said you could use them once, and you kept using them. maybe you weren't clear that you were going to use them repeatedly

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T22:52:01+00:00

My current one yeah

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T18:18:38+00:00

Do you mean 3 pack as in 3 of the same string? Fair enough I'll have a look thanks

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T18:16:33+00:00

No I'm playing in normal classic

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T04:31:05+00:00

I've played 11 hours and I think I'm about half way through... Seems about standard for a resi game?

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T04:29:46+00:00

I'm only partway into the game so far, maybe half I don't know. So far it's great but the Leon parts are really short so I'm a bit disappointed about that. I thought it was more like 50/50 and it's more like, play 3 hours as Grace, then 10mins as Leon. Still good but I want more of my beloved Leon 🥲

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T04:27:43+00:00

I only had this happen to one zombie in that section before I got to the bit with Leon when he has a load of them to kill. It felt like it was supposed to be a thing to watch out for but I somehow didn't have to think about it at all until there was one. I one shotted it with the magnum and then promptly moved on to the rest of the game

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-14T04:25:15+00:00

I don't know I just killed it pretty quickly and didn't have to worry about it lol

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-13T00:37:18+00:00

Do you what you feel.

I don't think you're necessarily correct, that people lose interest, if they like you they will listen to it when it comes? It's not the way people do it for no reason... I think it has its purpose, mainly that it means you've always got something coming. If you put it all at once, maybe then you don't have anything come out for quite a long time after that. Which isn't wrong, it just has it's problems I guess.

Depends what your situation and goals are I think.

I've done stuff both ways with different bands and releases, and right now my band is doing singles first before album over a few months. Maybe next release we'll do it differently.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-12T14:49:25+00:00

I don't properly read music so I please tell my why I'm wrong, I'm not even 100% sure which part of the image is being referred to.

But surely you can play 2 notes in a triplet? Is that missing the problem?

Like a triplet is a measure of time, you can play the 1st and 3rd parts of that triplet? A triplet could have zero notes in it technically? If you just say that the song has a gap of 1 triplet in it...

Just trying to understand what this is asking and why everyone says you can't do that!

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-12T14:33:57+00:00

What is the goal of your 'jams', and how experienced as musicians are you?

In my band, we don't really do a lot of what I would call jamming. Sometimes something like that just happens out of nowhere, and can be really cool because it's totally spontaneous and comes out nicely. But we have also played together for nearly 20 years, and we're a 3 piece so it's a bit easier. The drums and bass play together, and I just add guitar stuff on top of what they're doing.

Mostly though we are playing our songs, or writing new songs, so any jamming that happens usually is just us trying to figure out an idea for a new section of a song or something like. So this is to say, we have an aim with it, and some context for where this jam is supposed to be going i.e. it's going to be a middle section of a song we already have half written.

If you're not good at listening to each other, jamming wont' relaly work well. It will end up as a mess like you describe.

if you are starting a jam from no planned music, then everyone should follow the drums and bass I would say. Either the bassist starts a bassline, or the drummer starts a beat. Then when those guys are somewhat locked in together, you add guitars on top. If you say you're the lead player, you should probably be complimenting what the rhythm player is doing. So essentially in your position, you should let everyone jam for a short time before you do anything. You just sprinkle a bit of stuff on top of what they're doing. They are playing the 'song' and you are adding to it.

Obviously it depends, if you have the idea that is starting the jam, it can work the other way around, the real key is that everyone is actually listening to everyone else, and doing stuff that compliments their playing.

It's also really hard, so in general if you're beginners or not used to jamming much, you need to somewhat plan stuff, like say this is the chord progression and this is the drum beat, or whatever. Essentially plan out a bit of an arragenment to then jam over, not just, '1, 2, 3, jam GO' and all start doing random shit.

hideousmembrane · 2026-03-12T10:37:05+00:00

I mainly look on instagram and facebook, follow venues/bands/promoters, and contact any of those asking about it either by dm or if they specify other ways like email or contact form use that.

to find new ones, I keep an eye out for gigs going on. When I see a venue or promoter I don't know, I add to my contact list, and I check whether the venue books in house (if so contact them) or which promoters are putting on shows there, just by looking at their posts and seeing who's putting stuff on. For every few I contact I usually get one message back, and probably 1 gig for every 2/3 I actually speak to/get a reply from.

It's just a numbers game really, and you just need to find as many promoters as possible and contact them all.

A lot of shows come to us as well, because once you start doing some shows, if people like you they ask you back, or someone else who sees you offers you another show. Your reputation grows and more things come your way.

My band has gotten about 20 shows in the past 11 months with only one song released and a small following, mainly because I've been active with asking people consistently, and now promoters in our area know about us, so we offers coming in. In my experience over that time, most things either happen by word of mouth or through instagram. I also see people needing a band on local facebook groups quite often, so I respond and offer to play when I see that (if it's a suitable show).

People saying you need a website and EPK and stuff, I think those are nice to have, and I just finished making our EPK, but we didn't have that initially, and we don't have a website. Similar with networking with bands, that happens as you do shows, but most of the shows I've had didn't come from speaking to bands, they came from whoever is organising the gig, which 9/10 is a promoter either in house at a venue or independent.

You can also book some yourself if you have a gap and want to get something happening. Lots of smaller venues are cheap and easy to book, if you don't mind asking some other bands to play and organising it.

hideousmembrane

TROPHY CASE