Pratice?

Practice? What !
Why?

Do you have to practice? No... Do you want to play a guitar? Then Yes:

What you don’t need to play guitar solo on a stage or busking.:

Music Theory
Pitch pipe
Metronome

What you do need to play guitar solo on stage or busking.:

an intune guitar.
4 to 6 well memorized Cowboy - open- Chords
a few Power Chords memorized.
a plectrum
That is all you need.

To play with a group or with a songtrack your gonna probably want to have a little theory, some strings memorized, practice with a metronome. However, I do know many people that can’t read a lick of music nor sing in tune that do well plying in bars.

Why practice with a metronome? You don’t, if you don’t care about the meter. If you need to start playing at a specific time in a song. Then you do care about meter and should be counting with a metronome. You can use a Google metronome, an app or buy a mechanical one.

How often to practice. Now this is the kicker. Clean practice often will get grande results.
Most good musicians have a practice schedule like: Morning Walk/Run. Hand and arm range of motion. Spider scales. Single String Chromatic Scales. Hand and arm range of motion. Pentatonic Scales, Major Scales. Now time to practice that intro, improve or song..

Daily sometimes and usually 2X or 3X.

You didn’t get up and suddenly walk one day. Most of us crawled around a couple years first and as we age it seems thats easier than getting up on 2 at times. We go to school for 12 years to learn basic Arithmatic/Reading/Writing.

Why do people think they can pick up an instrument and start to play like Bon Jovi in 30 days or less?

If you think that you and your 2 or 3 mates can sound like the Traveling Willburys in less than 5 years of hard practice from scratch. I would suggest that there is going to be great disappointment.
In fact, don’t even try. You are setting goals way too high!

EJ Guitar