Steve Vai's [Modified] 30-Hour Workout

OVERVIEW – DECEMBER 7, 2010

It’s funny, sometimes I can be extremely anal about things and sometimes – ah, whatever…

I don’t even remember how I came across it, but in my search for an “at-home” practice routine, I came across Steve Vai’s 30-Hour Guitar Workout(subtitled Steve Vai’s “30-Hour Path to Virtuoso Enlightenment” or How to Destroy Your Pop Career in One Easy Lesson). I have a copy (actually two) of Steve’s 10-Hour Workout, on which the 30-Hour regime is based. The version I have is from the October 2007 issue of Guitar World, in which the original 10-Hour Workout was reprinted, with some additional commentary by Steve.

For a while now, I’ve been trying to come up with a practice routine that I could (at least try to) adhere to so that I would actually practice – not just learn a few new songs and then noodle aimlessly. Aimless/endless noodling – that seems to be the downfall of many a practice routine and that’s not a trap that I want to continue falling into. From what I understand (and per Guitar World), Vai’s practice regime has become the “Holy Grail for serious players”; it has become “a must-have for guitarists” and that “many of the players interviewed in [Guitar World] have cited it as an influence on their development as guitarists”. Who knows – I’m sure most of that is true, but I guess I’ll take it with a grain of salt. Either way, I have no delusions of grandeur here. I don’t think that I’ll instantly (if ever) become the next great virtuoso. BUT, I do think that, if this was the basis of Vai’s virtuosity, if I can manage to sustain an even modestly similar regime, I should be able to elevate my playing and overall musical vocabulary immensely. Even if I never reach “virtuoso” status, it’ll be a great way to enhance what I do with any band I’m in, with any music I write – anything pertaining to the musical side of my life.

With this practice regime, I really want to adhere and document the process; for my benefit as well as that of future students. If I’m going to teach, I want to be able to look the student in the eye to say, “hey, I hear ya, I’m doin’ this too!”

This “workout” is not meant to be an exact replication of either the 30-Hour or the 10-Hour formats, but rather one tailored from both to fit into a 15 day regimen. As such, the following should be noted:

• Each day covers only four given topics.
• Not everything that was originally published is included in this regimen. For example, in the Ear Training section, I’ve only focused on the first 2, 4th and 5th bullets as laid out in the 30-Hour Workout article.
• There is a focus on technical development.
• Depending on the time allotment per day, each section covered could range from 15 minutes each (a 1-Hour Workout) up to 1 hour each (a 4-Hour Workout), per day. This way, even if there is only 1 hour to practice in any given day, all of the desired topics are still covered and nothing gets skipped because of “oh, I didn’t have time today”…

After each day’s routine, I’ll be posting a brief blog post on what was done that day and what results were noted, if any. Some of these posts may be brief; some may be more in depth. A lot of it will honestly depend on how much time (realistically) I have. Unfortunately, I’m not independently wealthy, nor am I currently a professional musician (i.e., I still have a day job to worry about :)

Regardless of the length of the post, just the act of logging this information, however brief, will if nothing else, help me stay focused and hopefully minimize the aimlessly noodling. In addition, it will be an interesting experiment, similar to the concept behind the movie Julie & Julia where (I think) a woman named Julie decides to take recipes by Julia Child, prepare one-a-day and blog about it (nope, never seen it, but I did think that the concept was a neat idea, and if I got the plot of the movie wrong, oh well, I still think that concept is kinda interesting).  As of today though, I think having pulled together this information was a small accomplishment in and of itself, so stay tuned!