Mike Saville's blog

Complete Beginners Guide to Music Practice Imminent

Mike Saville — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 07:42:44 +0000

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

Our upcoming book, The Complete Beginners Guide To Practice, has just entered it's final draft. We're really excited about he prospect of getting it out there online.

The guide will be full of useful information that you can take and apply directly to YOUR practice. Among the topics covered are:

What is practice?
Why should you practice?
The process of practice
Self Assessment
Do's and Don'ts
Tips
Goals
Charts, templates and plans

. . . in fact everything you need to practice more effectively! Read more . . .

Music Practice Links 8th Feb 2010

Mike Saville — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 06:23:58 +0000

It's been a while since I brought you any links to other sites. In that time there's been a lot going on in the world of music practice online.

Here's a collection of links that I've found useful or interesting over the past few weeks.

David Cutler runs the Savvy Musician blog which accompanies his book of the same name. A bit late for new year but always worth considering are his 23 Resolutions. I'll be pickiung up a copy of that back to review in due course so watch this space on that one.
A new site to me is The Practice of Practice with a thought provoking article. Great to see another book on practice in the works.
Thomas J West talks about the pros and cons of the practice journal
Christopher Davis rethinks slow practice
Molto Music are the publishers of the Musicians Practice Planner. A few months back they started to blog on practice as well. Here's an article on using online metronomes
About.com have 10 tips for practice time" and also some tips for parents
The Practice Notebook shares these tips on holiday practice
Another site that support's a book is The Musician's Way by Gerald Klickstein. I already have a copy of this book and will be doing a review shortly. In the meantime there are some interesting articles on the ultimate practice shortcut and habits of excellence.
Muscian Home write about the metronome a musicians best friend.
Finally the Piano Pedagogy Page provides some tips on How to memorize

Phew!, that's a lot of reading to get through. Something for those breaks in your practice sessions perhaps Read more . . .

More Practice Books

Mike Saville — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 15:55:16 +0000

Photo courtesy of perreira

I've just added a few more titles to the bibliography section.

If you have any other books, resources, websites or information about practice that you would like to share I'd love to hear about them. Just leave a comment below Read more . . .

Practice Links 16th Nov 2009

Mike Saville — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 09:59:11 +0000

As ever I have been keeping an eye on all things practice on the web. This week has thrown up some interesting reading: Read more . . .

First up is a clear concise guide to slow practice brought to you by the publishers of the Musicians Practice Planner.
The 10,000 hours rule is an oft quoted and misunderstood rule that has been around for a couple of years now. Elissa Milne has a slightly different take on quantity and has an interesting application for her own students.
Regular readers will know I'm a great fan of practice and musical quotes. Meg Grace has put together an inspiring collection here.
Finally a new site instroduced to me by Gerald Klickstein - The Musicians Way.

Mixing up your lessons

Mike Saville — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:50:38 +0000

I cam across an interesting post today by Jason over at the Piano Pedagogy Page.. He is running a series of posts on how to improve your teaching or 'In service DIY' as he calls it.

This post has a couple of interesting concepts I like. Firstly the idea that both teacher and student do not speak in the lesson but instead find other ways to communicate ideas.

Secondly he suggests not using standard italian terms to describe things but to instead use a greater variety of adjectives. There's even a downloadable list of suggested words you can use.

The reason I think tips like these work is that it keeps lessons fresh and students on their toes. If you are not sure what your teacher is going to ask at the next lesson chances are that you will practice to cover all the bases. Read more . . .

Are shops and publishers anti practice?

Mike Saville — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 17:22:09 +0000

Can someone please explain to me why music shops and publishers ignore the subject of music practice? I find it beyond belief that those with a major influence over the materials we use to learn music should do this.

This issue was brought back to my attention today. I am working in London this week and found time to visit one of our major music shops - in fact the one with the largest selection of sheet music on display in the country. Always on the look out for all things practice I thought I would look and see what they had.

Downstairs in the sheet music department I was first greeted by shelves of pop selections and piano methods. Guitar tutors were also in abundance.

I thought I would first look through the books on music to see if any of the more common ones were there. No Inner Game, no Soprano on her head. In fact not a single book on the subject of practice!!!

Perhaps I was being to ambitious and demanding . . . . let's have a look instead at the practice notebooks. After some hunting (no prominent position for these) I found them next to the manuscript. When I say them, there were in total six books. Six! This is typical of my experience in other music shops. There were a couple of Chesters notebooks and a couple of the ABRSM ones.

The music shops should not take all the blame. In the UK many are under the control of the large publishers and so have little choice in the stock they carry. These publishers are not exactly brimming with material on practice - I have to search to find the materials you see featured on this site.

I would love it if the shops and publishers could take a lead in promoting practice books. Somehow though I doubt if they will forgo the profits of pop anthologies for the benefit of learning musicians. Read more . . .

Changes are afoot

Mike Saville — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:25:00 +0000

The summer's here, school's out and it's time to party!!!

. . . .well kind of. As well as being a great time of year to catch up on some much needed practice it's also a chance to take a step back and gain some perspective. That's exactly what I'll be doing here at HTP over the next few weeks. I'm planning some changes to make the site more accessible, more useful and more relevant to you dear reader. Don't worry though, updates will continue as normal so you can get your regular fill of practice

PractiCe Read more . . .

Practice Diary now only £3.99

Mike Saville — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 19:43:27 +0000

Our music practice diaries have been selling quickly and we are fast approaching the time when we will need to have the next edition printed.

As a special offer on the last few diaries of this edition we are offering them for sale at £3.99 - two pounds off the usual price. There are also discounts available on orders of 10 or more. If you would like a price for larger quantities please contact us.

HTP Instrumental Champions

Mike Saville — Mon, 06 Apr 2009 10:01:09 +0000

Photo courtesy of Terren

We have a lot of general information about practice here at HTP. But how about MY instrument I hear you ask?

Well, I agree. There's no replacement for specific instrumental expertise. General practice techniques will help improve your efficiency but an expert on your instrument will save you time by explaining how to solve problems on your instrument.

I'm therefore introducing a new feature to HTP - Instrumental Champions. Over the next 30 days I'll be looking for experts on all instruments who are willing to share advice on practising their instrument. Ideally I am looking for experienced players and teachers who can submit a monthly article about practice for their instrument. In return I will include a brief biography and links back to your site so you can promote you blog or studio in the process.

If this appeals to you please use the contact form to register your interest. Read more . . .

100 ME Bloggers now complete

Mike Saville — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 09:55:28 +0000

If you're a follower of music education resources on the blogosphere you cannot fail to have noticed the excellent 'ME Blogger' campaign organised by Jo Pisano.

The aim of the campaign was to find 100 bloggers writing about music education. The goal has finally been met and you can now find some truly excellent resources among the list of sites mentioned. I'd encourage you to take a look a the list (we're at number 60!) and perhaps subscribe to some of the blogs there (like you do already for HTP ). Read more . . .