"How long should I practice every day?" Don't ever ask that. Certain questions have no answers. You actually should never stop practicing if you ever want to get anywhere, but there are practical considerations, eating, sleeping, etc. Still, it is natural to be curious about the shape and duration of the learning curve.

The best assumption anyone can make about progress in musical development is that it's going to take a lot longer than you want it to. A lot longer. A lot. Look, years ago I realized I was too dependent on CAGED fingerings. So I started leaning how to play across the neck, sideways in addition to the vertical CAGED thing. After about eight years it started feeling ok. About five years after that I was phrasing within it, and it was working on the gig. And now I've gone back to studying the CAGED stuff again, because that's now weaker by comparison. So it's best to not bother thinking of progress as a goal. Rather, think of process as a goal.

So where does process begin? First, understand what your goals are. Do you know how you want to sound? You don't want to sound like Wes or Joe, you want to sound like you, but what is that? Will you know how it feels when it's really happening? What is it about all this that turns you on? That's the first step, but know that it continues and changes while the later steps are in progress.

Next is the development of good, efficient study habits. You need solitude, so find times and places when no one bothers you. I get up early, hours before anyone else, so I have the place to myself. Avoid TV or devices that aren't directly involved in your studies.

Don't do too little, but don't do too much either. I only have two or three things going on at a time, over a duration of months. If I sense that I've gotten somewhere with something, I switch to something else that needs attention. I rotate material, but I stay with things for a long time, many weeks to months.

Always, always be thinking about more efficient use of time and energy. You've got about 45 minutes of hard focus in you when doing something unfamiliar before getting too tired to really get anywhere. Then it's time to take a short break, or switch to something less arduous. Monitor how you feel, your energy level, the times of day when you feel at your best.

I never study something, like a Bird phrase or a chord substitution, with the intention of playing it that night on the gig. I do those things, but not for that reason. It will come out when it wants to come out, today, next week, next year, or never. Put your time and energy into mastering the neck, the tune, theory, and working on your lines. If you want spontaneity, work on your lines, contradictory as that sounds. You don't think "I'm going to do this thing over here next." You just take what the song and the guitar neck gives you at that instant, you hear ideas, and you play them. If you have the technique to play it, wherever your hands are right then, it will come out. It's like the NBA, coach draws up a play, but what happens on the court is what happens, plan or not.

I do a thing now, I got it from Nick Schneider, who got it from Ryan Kizor. Thanks to you both. One tune, fifteen minutes straight in each key, alternating between a chorus of the melody in chords, and a chorus of soloing. This, in twelve keys, over three hours. I'm studying how to concentrate on the fly. Am I thinking the changes or just playing familiar patterns? Am I staying in front of it? I can play all the chords, but not on all the string sets. I know the extensions, but sometimes I don't know them fast enough. When I'm in Db or Gb and the like I sometimes fall into the easier choices rather than the right ones. That's where learning can happen. You encounter obstacles, analyze them, and you push on through. I'm getting a lot out of this, and I've committed to it for a year. If it's going well after the year is up I might extend it, or I might have become aware by then of something else that needs attention. Depends.

It's slow, slow enough that it's not productive to bother trying to gauge it. It's tiring, enough so that you need to think about stamina, biorhythms, diet, scheduling. It's wierd to admit this, but sometimes you find yourself being a little irresponsible in other areas of your life. It's a case of "to be or not to be," but if you commit and you don't let go for anything, you might get a little taste of how it is for the great ones. People will tell you it sounds great, and you say thanks, but they don't see you at 5:30 am, tuning up and waiting for the coffee to be ready.