How To Practice - General

Total Sensory Immersion

Mike Saville — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 09:40:06 +0000

We want to help you practice better. Our newsfeed will keep you up to date with regular advice. Free personal help is available in our practice clinic and new news and offers can be found in our newsletter.

Are we all blind, unfeeling and without emotion?

Of course not!

Why then do a lot of musicians only use their hearing sense when practising? Yes, listening properly is VERY important. Make use of the other senses as well and you can make your music come alive, have more fun and learn things more quickly.

Sight

What can you see? Do you have music? What does it look like? In a performance take time to notice your surroundings.

Touch

Playing your instrument is NOT a purely mechanical process. What does your instrument feel like? Can you touch it in different ways? Where do you experience most pressure? Where is your touch the lightest? Is you instrument hot? Cold? Sticky? Soft? Read more . . .

Pareto Practice

Mike Saville — Wed, 11 Aug 2010 07:45:00 +0000

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

The Pareto Principle (also known as the 80/20 rule) argues that 80% of the rewards come from 20% of the efforts.

Think about this for a moment in terms of your music practice. This means that 80% of your time could effectively be wasted. Awareness of this fact is the first part of the cure for practising musicians.

For this practice method you are going to ensure that not only do you use all of your time as well as you can, but you also use the most productive time to work at the weakest things.

Firstly you are going to split your weaknesses down into 5 easy chunks. Have a think about what the 5 weakest areas of your playing are. Is it scales? Tone? Fingering? Reading? Embouchure? Write these 5 things down in order of weakness. Read more . . .

Different Perspectives

Mike Saville — Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:09:24 +0000

Just as there is no single correct way to play a piece, there is also no one right way to practice.

You need options.

If your usual practice methods don't seem to be giving the results you want, try looking at your music from different perspectives.

Pick several of the options below and practice your music in that way.

Notes

Focus purely on playing the right notes. Forget about speed technique and everything - just get the notes perfect.

Read more . . .

Technique

Silence

Mike Saville — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 10:57:07 +0000

Photo courtesy of Pardesi

"Silence?"

"A practice method?"

"You must be mad!"

Well actually no. Unfortunately there are not enough thoughtful silences in the practice room. Just because you are making noise does not mean you are getting better! Read more . . .

Opposites Attract

Mike Saville — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 14:22:27 +0000

Photo courtesy of Half Blood Prince

Much of what we do in the practice room is about putting information into your brain. By doing the EXACT opposite of what you are supposed to do the brain will remember the right way more easily.

Pick any section of music to use for this method. Look at the notes and markings and take turns at playing them in the opposite way to normal.

These might include: Read more . . .

Playing very loudly where the music says very quiet (ff instead of pp)
Playing smooth instead of legato (or legato instead of smooth)

What? Where? Why? How?

Mike Saville — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 10:37:31 +0000

Photo courtesy of Marco Bellucci

Each time you spot a mistake ask yourself a few simple questions to put it right quickly.

The following questions are very easy to remember and will help bring focus to specific practice problems.

What?

What exactly was the issue? Was it a wrong note? Fingering? Or perhaps a dynamic. Be very specific. The more accurately you can diagnose the problem the closer you are to fixing it. Maybe there is an underlying issue in your technique that caused the problem - you should identify that too.

Where?

Where was the problem? Read more . . .

Simplification

Mike Saville — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 14:23:54 +0000

Photo courtesy of Gabe Photos

Take a step back and look at a problem from a new angle.

We all encounter tricky passages when we practice. Sometimes playing the passage over and over again doesn't seem to solve the problem. Use this method to reduce the problem and clear a path to playing it correctly.

When you reach a tricky section clear out some of the musical elements to make the section easier to play.

Notes - If your section has lots of tricky notes miss out every other one or every second one. Perhaps if you have semi-quavers you might play just the first of every group of four.

Rhythms - If a rhythm is giving you a problem play it all on one note. Or perhaps leave some notes out to make is easier. Read more . . .

A Change Is As Good As A Rest

How To Practice — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 10:00:51 +0000

Photo courtesy of Gaetan Lee

Keep your practice routine fresh

If you find that you are not improving as quickly as you like or that you are bored with your routine there are two things you can do.

Firstly really focus yourself on your current practice routine and try to complete this as well as you can with as much concentration as possible.

If this does not work, and assuming that you are concentrating when you practice you could try making a change to your routine. Making a change means that you will still cover the same areas as before (scales, studies, pieces etc). What you will do differently is to choose new exercises to practise. For example if you have been practising your major scales up and then down you could try doing them down then up or maybe in thirds. If you are practising fingering perhaps you could do some different patterns or different keys. Read more . . .

Take A Break

How To Practice — Tue, 02 Dec 2008 08:11:42 +0000

Photo courtesy of Foxtwo

A planned break will revitalise your playing.

There are a number of reasons why you may feel that you want to take a break. You may be tired after a period of hard work or you may be stuck on a particular technique or section of music and no matter how hard you practise you can't seem to master it.

If you are stuck on a piece or technique then you can change your routine to cover something else. However do put a date in your diary in a couple of weeks time when you will come back and try again at the bit you were stuck on. Read more . . .

Tuneful Rewards

How To Practice — Thu, 23 Oct 2008 09:03:42 +0000

Photo courtesy of aaardvaark

Reward yourself for good practice.

We all prefer to practise some things over others. The trick is to make sure you practise them all.

For this practice method you will begin by practising your least favourite thing first (don't tell me, it's scales isn't it?!). After this you will then move on to your next least favourite and so on.

When you have finished your practise you need to ask youself honestly if you have done a good practice session. If the answer is yes then treat yourself by playing your all time favourite piece. Read more . . .