Don’t Practice… Play!

Don’t Practice… Play!

By Paulie Felice

When I was a kid, I hated practicing piano. Hated it. It was a chore, plain and simple. Practicing meant sitting in front of an instrument I didn’t love, fumbling through sheet music that didn’t mean much to me, and trying to live up to the expectations of my teacher and my parents. And those expectations became my expectations. When I couldn’t meet them - when I didn’t practice enough, or didn’t master a piece quickly, or couldn’t memorize another stack of flash cards - I felt like a failure. So instead of being a creative outlet, piano became an experience in failure.

It’s kind of ironic that I make my living as a guitarist now. You’d think my bad experience with piano might have soured me on music altogether. But what changed everything for me was a completely different approach: the SDML philosophy of guitar education. That philosophy has carried me through nearly two decades of teaching, and it boils down to one simple idea - music should be fun.

Practice is work. Playing is joy. And guitar, at its heart, is meant to be played.

That doesn’t mean practice has no place. It just means we shouldn’t prioritize practice over playing. Playing guitar is a recreational experience, not another responsibility to pile onto your shoulders - or onto the shoulders of our kids, who already spend their days grinding through standardized testing and homework.

Now, I get it. If you’re paying for lessons, you want to make sure you’re getting value out of them. I take that seriously. But maximum value doesn’t come from maximum practice or even maximum technical skill. It comes from whether the experience feels fulfilling and rewarding. Some of my students are perfectly happy doing absolutely nothing on guitar between classes because they just enjoy the sound, the feel, and the energy of the room for that one hour a week. Others love being given a roadmap to the songs they want to play, so they’re not at the mercy of whatever I feel like teaching that week. And some are chasing big goals - achieving something they’ve dreamed of for years, or even aiming to go pro.

For me, guitar was a defining pursuit. I never thought of it as “practice.” I loved every minute of it, because I was chasing something permanent. That kind of drive isn’t everyone’s story, and that’s okay. Most people just want to enjoy playing - and that’s exactly what I encourage them to do. Don’t sweat over some rigid practice plan if it kills your joy.

That said, when someone is in private lessons and paying real money to work toward specific goals, a dedicated practice plan can be a great idea. Students will sometimes ask me, “How much should I practice?” For years, I’d fire back with, “Well, how good do you want to be?” It’s obvious - if you do something repeatedly, you get better at it. But here’s the thing: “Practice makes perfect” isn’t quite right. Practice makes permanent. Perfect practice makes perfect. If excellence is your goal, then yes, sitting with a challenging practice plan, drilling for hours, and focusing intently will pay off in massive ways.

But never - never - at the expense of enjoying the experience.

I once asked David McLean, who founded the SDML Academy of Guitar, what he tells his students about practice. He grinned and said, “Don’t practice… play!” And he’s right. That one little phrase sums up the heart of what I teach.

You practice law. You practice medicine. But you play guitar.

If a student really needs some structure, I usually recommend about a 5-to-1 ratio of play to practice. If you’ve got an hour, spend 10 minutes in focused, deliberate practice - work on scales, rhythm drills, or a tricky passage that needs attention. But then use the rest of the hour applying what you just learned to actual music. Maybe that means writing a song. Maybe it’s nailing down a cover for fun. Maybe it’s preparing for a gig. Whatever it is, it should be something that excites you to pick up the guitar again tomorrow.

Because at the end of the day, the real measure of progress isn’t how many hours you’ve logged in “practice.” It’s whether you’re actually enjoying yourself. I mean, if you’re not having fun, then what the heck are you doing this for?