How To Practice - Articles

The Music Practice Alphabet - Part 3

How To Practice — Tue, 03 May 2011 16:45:06 +0000

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Moving swiftly along - it's part 3 of the Music Practice Alphabet series

Mental

Not all practice needs an instrument. In fact you can get a lot of practice done without your instrument, on the bus, at lunch or in the bath!! Simply spend time thinking and imagining in detail your perfect performance. You can also use mental time to memorise notes, scales and fingerings - all useful stuff which will be invaluable once you get back to your instrument.

Notes

The right notes are kind of important. Try to ensure that you play correctly more often than incorrectly. Just because you played something right once doesn't mean you can play it like that every time.

Options

Keep your practice fresh and inspiring by ensuring that you always have options in your practice. Try doing things in a different order, learn new music, select music at random or improvise. Read more . . .

The Music Practice Alphabet - Part 2

How To Practice — Tue, 26 Apr 2011 12:28:25 +0000

Time now for part 2 of our tips in the Practice Alphabet series

Honesty

Honesty is most often missing in the practice room. We are just not good at being honest with ourselves about the mistakes we make. We're also not good at being truthful about how focused our practice is, how much we achieved and how good we really are. Remember, a little honesty goes a long way.

Interesting

You don't have to do the same old things in the same old way when you practice. Mix it up, try different things and take a few moments to play things you really enjoy. You can find lots of ideas on this site, such as bag full of scales, roll up roll up, practice signals and many others. Read more . . .

Spring Music Practice Links

How To Practice — Wed, 20 Apr 2011 08:55:59 +0000

It's seems like a very long time since our last collection of links - it's high time for another. So without further or do, here is our regular round up of music practice links.

Don't forget if you run a piano blog, guitar tab resource or any other site that has some practice related information then we'd love to hear about it.. Read more . . .

How many hours a day should you practice - Bullet Proof Musician
The habits of musicianship - Robert Duke, University of Texas
The Nature of Expertise - Robert Duke - University of texas
Working Solo: Problems & Solutions - Getting There
Performance Oriented Practice - Musician's Way
Musical Memory - Level One - Susan Paradis
Practice, then practice some more - Wolf Trap Opera
Learning When to Listen - Music Think Tank

The Music Practice Alphabet - Part 1

How To Practice — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 18:16:35 +0000

Stuck for some inspiration on which direction to take your practice in? Why not let our alphabetical guide to practice assist you

Analyse

Make sure to understand what is wrong with your playing and how you will put it right. Don't make the mistake of plowing through endless repetitions with out analysing your playing between repeats.

Begin

Often the hardest part about practice is getting started. If you are someone who finds it difficult to practice regularly don't get hung up on how much practice you need to do. Instead of thinking about minutes just set yourself the target of picking up your instrument and at least starting to practice every day. Read more . . .

25 Music Practice Links 17th September

How To Practice — Fri, 17 Sep 2010 15:56:00 +0000

It seems that discussion of practice is blossoming on the web, either that or we're getting better at finding it

Anyway, here is our regular round up of music practice links.

Don't forget if you run a piano blog, guitar tab resource or any other site that has some practice related information then we'd love to hear about it.. Read more . . .

Practicing Your Scales Effectively from Getting There
The Definitive Guide to Building and Maintaining a Repertoire List - Collaborative Piano Blog
5 Tips For Helping Students Fix Persistent Mistakes - Music Matters Blog
Pony Over the Rainbow Practice Aid - Susan Paradis' Piano Teacher Resources
Real Discipline - The Classical Guitar Blog
Making the most of music lessons - The Musician's Way
Aristotle "We Are What We Repeatedly Do" - Thomas J West
Charting Songs - Jazz Ed Magazine

The 10,000 hour rule - a self evaluation

Mike Saville — Thu, 16 Sep 2010 16:06:25 +0000

Have you heard about the 10,000 hour rule? It is based on an original study by Ericsson et al which found that on average it takes 10,000 hours to become an expert in a given field. The research has been further expanded by others (Sloboda etc) to show that ability is largely based on effort and not on any preconceived notion of talent.

Personal Evaluation

This got me thinking - Surely I've done 10,000 hours practice? I achieved a standard necessary to play professionally at the top level. Over the years I've been diligent about my practice and assumed that I'd met 10,000 hours. However upon further investigation the reality proved to be a little different.

I did some calculations from memory on the practice and playing that I did between the ages of 11 (when I started playing) and 22 when I was playing at a professional level regularly - around a 10 year time span. I've estimated how many hours I spent practising, playing in groups, having lessons and other associated activities and learning over the given time period.

The Results

Read more . . .

Ensemble planning - or lack of.

Mike Saville — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 06:28:04 +0000

We talk a lot at How To Practice about how to prepare and plan for practice.

Why then do leaders and conductors of ensembles insist on keeping rehearsal plans to themselves?

How can they possibly expect group members to turn up prepared for rehearsal when they have not explained what is required?

What's the big secret?

I've very rarely seen detailed rehearsal plans provided for players. Imagine the difference that could be made if players knew exactly which specific sections, techniques and musical elements the leader was going to focus on at the next rehearsal?

It's a MASSIVE failing on the part of band leaders and directors. Send your group away with no knowledge of what they will do at the next rehearsal and you set them up to fail.

What do you do with your group? Do you tell them what's expected? Replies in the comments below.

Photo coutesy of Nic McPhee Read more . . .

Back to School - Get the most from lessons

Mike Saville — Sat, 11 Sep 2010 08:28:19 +0000

Music lessons are important when you first start to learn an instrument. Be aware however that you need to do more than turn up once a week. If you just go through the motions then you will most likely not improve.

Specific to you

If you have the chance to select your own teacher then try to speak to people that they already teach. Find out if they teach all their students the same things in the same way. If they do you might want to think about looking elsewhere.

Your lessons need to be focused on the things that you need to improve and also take you towards your ambitions, not your teachers. Read more . . .

Back to School - Listening

Mike Saville — Fri, 10 Sep 2010 17:54:47 +0000

The best thing you can do when starting out on learning an instrument is to understand the importance of listening. More than anything else your ability to listen will affect if you succeed or fail.

LEARN TO LISTEN!

OK, so not very subtle but it is that important. The more you can develop your listening the more you can tell which areas of your playing need improving. Think of it like this: You go to a lesson once a week with your teacher. You pay them a fee for this. This fee is essentially rent for their ears. You use their ears for 30 minutes so that they can listen and suggest improvements. Imagine if you could listen as well as your teacher . . .

Here are some areas that you should concentrate on when listening: Read more . . .

Back to School - Experimenting

Mike Saville — Thu, 09 Sep 2010 13:14:12 +0000

So you've made a commitment, chosen an instrument and are now itching to get started on the fantastic journey that is learning an instrument.

This is a great time to experiment. Explore your instrument and find out what it can do. Don't worry at this stage about wrong or right just try to spend as much time as you can enjoying and exploring your instrument.

Here are some ideas of the types of experiments you can do:

Dynamics

Dynamics is the word musicians use to refer to how loud music is. There are other terms such as piano and forte but you don't need to worry about these at the moment. Instead try seeing how quietly you can play and then see how loudly you can play. Can you make a really big difference between the two? Read more . . .