🧠 Can 10 minutes of practice actually work?

Hey music makers!

Week 2 did not fully go according to plan. But that's life, right?

I underestimated my schedule and had some unexpected challenges:

We hosted my oldest son's birthday party. I was fighting off a cold that wouldn't quit. My in-laws came to town. Monday was a holiday. Friday, I had to prep for the upcoming winter storm and finally pick up our car from the collision shop.

This didn't include my regular work.

All while trying to hit 5 hours of practice a week on two instruments.

What actually happened: I touched both instruments almost every day. Missed guitar one day, but otherwise stayed consistent. Sometimes just 10 minutes. Sometimes 15 or 20 if life cooperated.

I'm noticing improvement within these small sessions, and I've been leaving them very satisfied with the work that I put in.

Part of it is having a curriculum ready to go. I can click into a lesson and start immediately—no planning or programming my own exercises. That especially removes friction on chaotic days when I barely have time to practice, let alone think about what to practice.

On bass, I started using beginner material as warmup. Root-fifth grooves, simple A-string work. It's fun, sounds good immediately, and lets me dial in fundamentals such as tone, finger placement, and string movement.

Then I jump into my intermediate material. I’m learning to play Serpentine Fire by Earth, Wind, and Fire. It’s a quicker groove and uses ghost notes, which I need to learn how to play cleanly on demand.

I'm also counting post-practice rest as practice time now. After a focused session, I'll lie down for 5-10 minutes. Your brain consolidates learning during rest and rehearses what you practiced in reverse. There's solid science on this.

So why not include it in my practice routine?

But the biggest breakthrough came on guitar.

I'd been obsessing over technique to learn how to strum with a pick. Wrist rotation, pick angle, and the exact flicking motion. Trying to replicate what I'd seen in videos. But unfortunately, my strumming still sounded timid and sloppy.

Then I stopped focusing on mechanics and started searching for sound.

I played louder. More confidently. Exaggerated the movements. And suddenly, there it was. That full, rich sound that I know from recording other guitarists.

Once I started producing that sound, I would pay attention to what my body was doing. I kept trying to recreate the internal feeling instead of perfecting the "form."

Maybe that's why great players struggle to explain their technique. They found the sound first, then repeated it until it became natural. The form followed the sound.

On bass, I worked on a Dua Lipa-inspired piece at 102 BPM, focusing mostly on tone, timing, and some root-5 moves against a jam track. I noticed my tone improving within a single week just from paying attention to where my picking fingers land and where my thumb is resting based on the string that I'm playing.

The adjustments: Ten to fifteen minutes of focused work on chaotic days keeps momentum alive. I'm also embracing "positive reaches", basically working on things slightly beyond my current capability. Right now, that's strumming with a pick on guitar and playing simple lines consistently to quick groove tracks with good tone on bass.

I've got an hour left to hit my 5-hour target this week. Didn't want to chase practice time over the weekend, but I'll get it done.

After the week I just had? Being this close feels like a win.

Quick question: When life gets chaotic, do you skip practice entirely or find ways to stay in touch with it?

Hit reply. I'd love to know how you handle the messy weeks.

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