How to Practice: Hard or Soft?

[Murmaider]

As a general rule when practicing, should you put more or less physical effort into practicing patterns and such, or should you put in as little as possible? For example, I've heard of guitarists talking about their practice routines and they'll say they like to pick and fret everything as lightly as possible so "when you DO put more effort into it, you get that much more out of it," but I've also heard people say that when they practice they like to pick everything a bit harder than they would typically do when performing and such. Does picking harder help ingrain muscle memory more precisely, or is it the opposite?

 

[Camaro69]

As a general rule when practicing, should you put more or less physical effort into practicing patterns and such, or should you put in as little as possible? For example, I've heard of guitarists talking about their practice routines and they'll say they like to pick and fret everything as lightly as possible so "when you DO put more effort into it, you get that much more out of it," but I've also heard people say that when they practice they like to pick everything a bit harder than they would typically do when performing and such. Does picking harder help ingrain muscle memory more precisely, or is it the opposite?

All of the above, so you learn complete control and command of the dynamics.

For me the muscle memory is not as important as you being able to ebb and flow th tone as needed

 

[pravus]

I do both for different reasons. I've found that playing hard is not only fun but also good for building basic movement mechanics, strengthening fingers and forearms and improving stamina. Once I go back to playing lightly I have more control and can focus more on tone, proper fretting, attack and release, etc. It's like the effort I spend playing hard makes it easier to be better later. I don't know if it works like that for others but that's what works for me.

 

[Lobster11]

It seems to me that you ought to practice the way you're gonna play, including whatever range of dynamics you typically use.

 

[fearceol]

Does picking harder help ingrain muscle memory more precisely, or is it the opposite?

Muscle memory has nothing to do with picking...be it either hard or soft. It comes from repetitiveness. I agree with Lobster11....play whatever the song requires.

 

[MalcolmAmos]

As a general rule when practicing, should you put more or less physical effort into practicing patterns and such, or should you put in as little as possible? For example, I've heard of guitarists talking about their practice routines and they'll say they like to pick and fret everything as lightly as possible so "when you DO put more effort into it, you get that much more out of it," but I've also heard people say that when they practice they like to pick everything a bit harder than they would typically do when performing and such. Does picking harder help ingrain muscle memory more precisely, or is it the opposite?

Picking soft or hard is a part of the technique side of playing. If the song calls for soft, play soft, if the song calls for hard play hard.

If you are still working with your patterns, scales, arpeggios, chord tone bass lines, i.e. getting those under your fingers, the main thing here is playing them to a metronome, to the beat, soft or hard IMO comes later when you start taking those "things" into songs.

I agree with the other posts that say soft or hard has little to do with getting those "things" into muscle memory. If you are working with the basic patterns the main thing here is see something and your fingers are already on their way to playing that something - if you can not do that the music is going to go on and leave you. So eye/brain/hand movement is much more important than playing soft or hard - IMO.