We want to help you practice better. Click here to receive regular advice or here for help on your current problems.

Let's get this straight. This isn't a book about practice. It won't tell you how to get be better or how to play your instrument. It doesn't contain tips and techniques for learning. It's not specific and it doesn't grab you with it's design and layout. It's just brilliant!

That's right. One of the best books a practising musician could possibly read.

Whilst not specifically about practice Ristad's effortless style contains many examples that we can use to change the way we think about music and practice.Read more . . .

Would you like to be the subject of a future practice clinic? Contact us with any practice problems and we'd be happy to help.

Is music your day job? Do you play for a living?

Chances are that you are one of the vast majority of musicians who has a day job where you don't play. This creates a number of issues for practice - not least when to fit it in. It also requires an adjustment of expectations to ensure that your goals are realistic given the time you can devote to music.

Today's clinic subject want's to develop the following skills under these circumstances:

Our reply:

It's good to hear that you have the drive and commitment to practice your music after work. If you can, try to make sure that you do so each day. Small amounts each day are much more useful that a large chunk of practice at the weekend.

Firstly I would say that if you want to play a greater range of things in performance then that's what you should do in practice.Read more . . .

We want to help you practice better. Click here to receive regular advice or here for help on your current problems.

We're fast approaching the point when our new free eBook will be available. The Complete Beginners Guide To Practice will contain all the information you need to practice better.

In addition to the many pages of advice on offer the guide will include templates and charts to help you with your practice.

One of those charts is our Music Practice Flowchart which we're making available for free download today. Simply login to your account and you will see a download link below.Read more . . .

We want to help you practice better. Click here to receive regular advice or here for help on your current problems.

Having read and reviewed a lot of books on practice over the last 5 years I thought it was time to put together a list of my favourites.Each of these has excellent advice which applies equally to players of all instruments.

I have stayed away from academia in this list. Whilst there is some excellent research and writing coming from Universities most of it is not accessible or applicable for the practising musician.

As I find new material I will update this list. If you'd like a more complete list of books on practice then why not take a look at our bibliography.

In the meantime if you know of any other books on practice then please feel free to leave them in the comments below

1. The Musician's Way
2. Practicing for Young Musicians
3. Not Until You've Done Your Practice
4. A Soprano On Her Head
5. The Perfect Wrong Note
6. Practice is A Dirty Word
7. Art of Practice
8. Now I Love Music Practice
9. Passionate Practice
10. Art of PracticingRead more . . .

Would you like to be the subject of a future practice clinic? Contact us with any practice problems and we'd be happy to help.

Practice is not just an issue for young learners. Older, more experienced musicians can face dilema's too as a recent contact to the clinic put it:Read more . . .

Our reply:

We want to help you practice better. Click here to receive regular advice or here for help on your current problems.

Hopefully it has not escaped your attention that last Friday saw the start of the annual BBC proms concerts (details of which are here ).

For those that don't know, the Henry Wood Promenade Concerts (or Proms) is one of the biggest music festivals in the world and has been running for nearly 120 years. Aside from the amazing line up of artists from around the world, what makes the proms unique is the ability to stand up and walk around whilst the concert is going on.

Can you imagine how much practice goes into putting on a festival of this size? Probably not.

In fact it's an awful lot less than you might think.

Typically each group of musicians will have one afternoon to prepare. Given that each concert lasts 2 hours, this pretty much means only one run through before the concert.

How would you feel if given only one run through of your pieces before a performance?

Pretty scary isn't it?? Read more . . .