You likely already know this by now, but I’m very much into productivity. Whether that means reading about productivity, trying out different tools, or listening to and creating a micro-cast, if it’s about productivity, I want to know about it. At any given time I’m likely working on 2-3 long term projects in addition to my school work and work work so being organized and being productive are super important if I want to make progress on those projects.

In any case, I love hearing about peoples workflows. When I think of workflows I think of the tools and systems that people use to get the things that they need to do done. I’ve seen A LOT of these types of posts on the internet, but haven’t seen too many from musicians and even fewer from the perspective of a classical guitarist so here’s my current practice workflow.

Here’s a picture of all of the things that are in my current analog practice workflow. You could also say that these items are part of the system that I use for setting up successful and productive practice sessions.

Metronome

The first and largest part of this set up is my metronome. This particular metronome is actually the most recent addition to this set up. This is the Dr. Beat DB-90. It’s expensive and admittedly doesn’t make me a better guitarist, but I’ve been looking at it for the past few years and some saving and budget adjusting allowed me to make the purchase. Besides pencils, the metronome is singlehandedly the most important part of my practicing. workflow. I am a huge advocate of using a metronome during practice. Of course, you don’t need to spend money on a metronome. I used a free version on my iPad for the past 3 years and was able to make the same amount of progress in terms of practicing. I just wanted this and liked a lot of its capabilities.

Timer

Since I’m no longer using my iPad as a metronome and timer, and am trying to cut down on phone usage, I needed a timer. This isn’t likely something that most people have in their practice setups, but I am a huge fan of the Pomodoro technique which is basically alternating work and rest sessions. I believe officially the work sessions are supposed to be 25 minutes with a 5 minute break and after the 3rd session you get a 15 minute break, but I practice in 30 minute periods and rest whenever I need to. I’ve been doing this type of practicing since college, the first time, and it’s really helped me to stay on track and keep me honest about how much time I’m actually practicing and not how much time I’m procrastinating watching YouTube videos. I also use toggl, but that’s for a different purpose.

Pencils and Analog Corrector

Yes, I do have an iPad that I use for practicing and that I LOVE, but during the early stages of learning a piece I use physical copies of the music to write in fingerings. Using paper, while taking up space, helps to reduce the strain on my eyes. I say all of that to say that using paper means that I need pencils. Other posts have discussed my love of pencils so I won’t wax poetic too much here about that, but I love pencils. Pencils are great because they allow you to write in and erase ideas. I, of course, have a system for what the different colors mean and I’ll talk about that in another post. Since I have pencils that means that I need an analog correct or as most people call it, an eraser. This particular eraser is clear, super cool, and does a great job at not reminding of all of the mistakes that I’ve made when I’m trying to fix them.

Sandpaper

If you’ve ever met a classical guitarist you’ll learn within about 5 minutes of meeting them that we have an obsession with our nails, particularly those on our plucking hand. In short, the sandpaper or nail buffer helps to smooth out the tips of the nails to help produce a more pleasing and soothing sound. There are endless videos and reviews of different types of nail products, nail shapes, and so on, but I find myself coming back to this sandpaper often.

So here it is. This is my analog workflow / system for practicing. If I make any changes to this, I’ll be sure to update this post.

Thanks for enjoying!

-Ciyadh

P.S. This is the eraser listed above. Seed Clear Radar 150 Eraser | JetPens