The 32-week practice path
A week-by-week practice plan for intermediate guitarists: sixteen weeks of blues or rock lead from pentatonic box 1 to writing your own solo, then sixteen more learning real pieces and playing them for people. One short session a day
It is one path, played blues or rock — most weeks teach the same skill with a different accent, and you can switch which you want any day without losing your place. Each week has one set of material and one daily session of five steps — warm up, the week's material, a technique, applying it over a backing track, then a jam. The session stays the same all week while the tempo and the intent move: learn it slow, clean it up, apply it, push it, then record and listen back.
Every fourth week is a checkpoint — 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, 24, 28 and 32. They carry less new material and more consolidation, and each one ends with something you can measure yourself against: comping the form, lifting a lick by ear, building a solo with a shape, writing your own, then learning a real piece end to end and finally playing a short set.
The thirty-two weeks
- Week 1A minor pentatonic box 1, and where the root livesWeek one of a 32-week guitar practice path: owning box 1 at the 5th fret, and finding the three roots inside it. Blues or rock.
- Week 2bends and vibrato, in tuneWeek two of a 32-week guitar practice path: bending accurately and holding a note with deliberate vibrato — the half-step blues bend or the whole-step rock bend.
- Week 3saying it (phrasing, space and legato)Week three of a 32-week guitar practice path: no new notes, only delivery. Short phrases and real silence, or hammer-ons and pull-offs that let a line pour.
- Week 4the rhythm side (playing the form, not over it)Week four of a 32-week guitar practice path and the first checkpoint: comping the 12-bar shuffle, or locking a palm-muted power-chord riff.
- Week 5getting past one plain pentatonic shapeWeek five of a 32-week guitar practice path: aiming at the 3rd of each chord, or filling the pentatonic in with the 2nd and the ♭6.
- Week 6two notes at once, and mechanical motionWeek six of a 32-week guitar practice path: harmonising the box in double stops, plus the ♭5 passing note or sequences in threes and fours.
- Week 7getting off the 5th fretWeek seven of a 32-week guitar practice path: learning box 2 at the 7th–10th frets and crossing the seam between positions mid-phrase.
- Week 8stealing licks by earWeek eight of a 32-week guitar practice path and the second checkpoint: lifting phrases off records by ear, plus the turnaround or the unison bend.
- Week 9linking the positions up the whole neckWeek nine of a 32-week guitar practice path: joining the pentatonic positions so the scale runs unbroken from the 5th fret to the 12th.
- Week 10the shapes are movableWeek ten of a 32-week guitar practice path: sliding the box and the chord shapes into new keys — E and G, or E and D.
- Week 11command (dynamics, feel, and locking to the click)Week eleven of a 32-week guitar practice path: loud and soft and behind the beat, or economy picking and a metronome ramp.
- Week 12building a solo with a shapeWeek twelve of a 32-week guitar practice path and the third checkpoint: an opening, a build, one peak and a resolution — recorded.
- Week 13learning a whole song by earWeek thirteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: taking a tune you love apart — the head or riff, the changes, and one solo phrase.
- Week 14motif and developmentWeek fourteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: stating one short idea and varying it, so a solo grows from a seed instead of wandering.
- Week 15colour that follows the chordsWeek fifteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: Mixolydian on each dominant chord, or Dorian and arpeggios that spell the changes.
- Week 16writing your ownThe final week of a 32-week guitar practice path: your own licks, a riff worth remembering, and a signature solo — then day 112 beside day 1.
- Week 17choose a piece, and map it before you learn itWeek seventeen of a 32-week guitar practice path, and the first of the repertoire half: picking a piece and taking its shape apart before a note of it.
- Week 18learn it in chunksWeek eighteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: learning the piece you chose by ear, two bars at a time, the way week 13 taught.
- Week 19the hard bit, and no stoppingWeek nineteen of a 32-week guitar practice path: fixing the one bar that beats you, then playing the whole thing through mistakes rather than restarting.
- Week 20at tempo, and perform itWeek twenty of a 32-week guitar practice path and a checkpoint: finding the tempo the piece lives at, then playing it for someone without stopping.
- Week 21name the gap the piece foundWeek twenty-one of a 32-week guitar practice path: turning the thing that beat you into a capability you can practise away from the music.
- Week 22colour over the changesWeek twenty-two of a 32-week guitar practice path: choosing notes by the chord underneath, on a piece you can already play.
- Week 23fold it back inWeek twenty-three of a 32-week guitar practice path: putting the new capability back into real music, at tempo, where it either survives or does not.
- Week 24a second piece, chosen against your weaknessWeek twenty-four of a 32-week guitar practice path and a checkpoint: choosing music that will not let you avoid the thing you just built.
- Week 25the job of the player who is not soloingWeek twenty-five of a 32-week guitar practice path: comping and rhythm playing as a real skill, whose commonest fault is doing too much.
- Week 26following changes you did not chooseWeek twenty-six of a 32-week guitar practice path: hearing a change coming rather than remembering it, and moving key without re-counting.
- Week 27trading foursWeek twenty-seven of a 32-week guitar practice path: answering a phrase you just heard instead of playing the one you had planned.
- Week 28play it with a personWeek twenty-eight of a 32-week guitar practice path and a checkpoint: playing your second piece with somebody else, or over something you have never heard.
- Week 29choose the third, and learn itWeek twenty-nine of a 32-week guitar practice path: picking the third piece of the set for contrast, then learning it by ear.
- Week 30finish the third, and join them upWeek thirty of a 32-week guitar practice path: an ending for the third piece, then the transitions that nobody rehearses and everybody hears.
- Week 31stamina, and playing after a mistakeWeek thirty-one of a 32-week guitar practice path: playing well on tired hands, and carrying on as though the wrong note was intended.
- Week 32the set, end to endThe final week of a 32-week guitar practice path: three pieces, two joins, played through in one take — and day one beside it.