Practice Tips
How to practice practicing
Practice Tips
Whether you're a student practicing at home or a parent trying to help your child out, figuring out how to practice well (and efficiently) is a skill that takes time to develop, just like any learning to play an instrument. How and why we practice will shape our future as musicians, performers, and even just people.
To me, practicing an instrument is equal skills and trust building.
We need to have the skills in order to complete the task (our performance/audition/show/etc), but in order to do so, we must be able to trust ourselves. If we practice but have no trust, it will be too hard. Additionally, if we only trust and don't have the skill to back it up...chances are that won't go to well either.
In order to build skills, we must create neural pathways (sometimes known as muscle memory). Our body must have recall of the task we are asking it to do. It's for this reason that we must practice correctly - if we do something 30 times in a way we don't want (wrong notes, rhythm off, not thinking about phrasing...) but only once the way we do want it to go (hooray!! I did it!), odds are, it'll go the way you didn't want becasue you haven't developped the neural pathways needed for your brain and body to get on board and do it that way.
One of the most common performance killers I've observed professionally and in my studio is doubt. The second someone starts to doubt themselves, or has created a habit which causes them to doubt if they'll remember how to do it on the big day, the second we start to stumble across all kinds of traps. That's why I advocate for as much self trust as skill building. Every time you get in the practice room, it is an opportunity to build a relationship of trust with yourself. It's a chance to remind yourself that you can do this, and prove that to yourself.
The following are a few practice tips and activities to in your practice session to simultaneously develop the skills you need, and the neural pathways that you know you can trust to execute your performance with all the elements you dreamt you'd be able to.
Skills for Self Trust
Practice Journal | Find a nice little journal, and start to keep track of what you're working on, what questions you have for your teacher, how much time you spent on what you did, and anything else you think of! Being able to record your practice session will automatically give you more consistency day to day, and will help you and your teacher identify any gaps. |
Time Management & Timers | Plan out your week, your month, your year if that's what it will take to get you ready for your performance. Decide ahead of time what you need to be prepared. Be productive with the time you have. If all you have is 5 minutes one day, how can you use that 5 minutes? No amount is too little. You can also set timers. Choose how long you'll spend on fundamentals, how long you'll take breaks, and how long you'll spend on rep. The more prepared you are, the better you can work. |
Practice Session Planning | Learn how to make a plan for your session. Talk with your teacher; what exactly do you need to be covering every day? What should you start with? How much work should go into certain elements of your playing and performance prep? Knowing what you need to do and adhering to a plan will give you confidence and certainty that you have prepared how you needed to. You'll have documentation to show your worried self in the future! |
Taking Breaks (and how) | Most people learn in short bursts, so doing something for an hour straight really won't help you learn that much. For others, they get very easily distracted by social media or tasks that need to be completed, and so don't get enough minutes focusing in a row. We need a balance. For every task you do in your practice session, assign a time to it. 5 minutes on scales, 5 on rhythm, 5 on sight reading. You can even go deeper, like 2 minutes on measure 25, 45 seconds on these three notes, then 20 seconds off, then back to it for another 45 seconds. Be specific. Be detailed. And then, take a break. Humans need this. Too much, and we won't remember it anyways! |
Thought Box | Inevitably, we start thinking about other things we have to do while we're practicing. Neeidng to do homework, chores, text someone back, watch that show we've been wanting to watch. Sometimes the thoughts are actually just us being hard on ourselves, trying to be perfect. In your journal, put a little square at the bottom of your page. Everytime an unhelpful thought comes in, jot it down. You can go back to the thought box at the end and do all those things...once you're done practicing. |
Identify Strengths and Weaknesses | Start to get clear on what you're good at, and less good at. Are there certain things you've been avoiding that could come back and scare you in the week before your performance? Are there things that you are really strong at that you can do every day to reinforce that you know how to do them? The idea is to be honest with yourself. Know the shadow parts, so that nothing creeps up on you and freaks you out! Rememebr to ask your teacher for help if you're not sure what your strengths and weakneses are. |
Mocks | |
Taking Lessons | |
Recording Yourself, and Listening Back | |
Assign a Story | |
Add Lyrics | |
Assign colour/texture | |
Seeking counselling & coaching | |
Score Studying | |
3 Instructions | Having a ritual of 3 very clear and evocative instructions before you begin playing your peice serves two purposes. The first is that you can remind yourself of those elements that often go out the window when you're in the zone. The second is that it becomes a ritual, which is reassuring. It anchors us in the memories have playing this music at home in our practice room and reminds us that we have done this many times before. While the performance might be big and scary, nothing has actually changed. |
Skills for Musical and Technical Development
Repetition | |
Play with Metronome | |
Play with Drones | |
Play Along with Recording | |
Slow to Fast | |
What About This is Easy? | When approaching what feels like a scary passage in your music, or even just trying to do something hard, the best thing you can do is stop and ask yourself: what about this is easy? Find one note. One phrase. One section. Whatever it is, but one part that feels accessible. Solve that, then keep going. In even the most difficult passage, if you boil it down to just one note that's easy, you have your foot in the door. So much of what stops us is that feeling of a wall between us and being able to do something. If we gradually break that wall down with one easy brick at a time, eventually, it won't be so daunting. Trust the process. What about this is easy? |
Clap the Rhythm | |
Remove the Pitches | |
Sing then Play | |
Clap then Sing | |
Breathing with Rhythm | |
Subdividing | |
Chord Structure Identification |