Practice Routines
Of all the questions you should ask your lesson teacher about music, how to practice is the most important. If you have a weekly, bi-weekly, or even monthly lesson, you shouldn’t kid yourself that the majority of the work is done with your teacher helping you.
A good musician practices, a great musician practices purposefully and efficiently.
Here are a few key things to consider when building your practice schedule.
The W’s: When to Practice, Where To Practice, and What to Practice
When to Practice
Choose a regular time (preferably daily) to practice just like you choose a regular lesson time. Give yourself plenty of time to prepare (assemble instrument, find music), warm-up, practice, warm down, and put your things away. Try to practice when your energy and focus are not yet drained. Practicing right before bed time or right after a soccer game will be less effective than practicing when rested and focused.
Where to Practice
Practicing in a busy living room with the T.V. on is not as effective as your own room with relative quiet. Take steps to control distractions, interruptions, and to maintain a level of personal comfort. When performing/practicing music the musician should not have to consider ANYTHING except the musical task of the moment.
What to Practice
There are a few categories of practice materials that should be reviewed regularly.
Warm-up Material
Make sure that you have a few basic, simple exercises that you can use to get focused. Horn players use long tones and slurs, woodwind players often do similar exercises and trill exercises, piano players can do scale, chord, and arpeggio exercises.
Fundamentals
Whatever your instrument, there are certain fundamentals that must be reviewed EVERY DAY. These include, but are not limited to, scales, arpeggios, chords, articulation exercises, range-building exercises, flexibility exercises, dynamic exercises, and tempo exercises.
Exercises
The bulk of your lesson time is usually spent on learning new exercises, practicing them, and then learning a more complex exercise to continue. Often, you will have more exercises to practice than can be played in one practice session. In this case, alternate exercises daily. When practicing exercises, take care to use slow tempos and review the material deliberately. Counting rhythms, reviewing notes/accidentals, and graphing dynamic/style changes are just as important as actually playing the piece. When dealing with a particularly difficult section, review it line by line, measure by measure, or note by note. A philosophy I’ve continuously held to is:
Never make the same mistake twice.
Review each error, correct it, then repeat it with a greater number of perfect repetitions than imperfect until the correction is automatic.
Solo/Performance Material
Although not a mandatory part of lessons or practicing, the goal of most music students is to perform. Separate performance material from exercises and give equal time to both. The approach, however, is the same for performance material as for exercises.
Sight-Reading Material
This is the category that your teacher will directly help you with the least. On a regular basis, pick up new music and just play. It’s always a good idea to get recommendations from your teacher or your peers to avoid music that is too difficult or too easy. Otherwise, pick up a lesson book that looks to be a satisfactory level of difficulty. When sight-reading, decide how far your will try to play. Then review the piece without playing once – checking fingerings, accidentals, rhythms, and so forth. When you start playing, do not stop or pause until you have reached your pre-designated end. Upon ending your exercise, review any mistakes and evaluate your success. Playing the exercise again is not necessary, but most students do just for the satisfaction of correcting any errors made.
Warm-down Material
Like the warm-up, this depends on the instrument. Warm-down material is more often than not a review of easier, more playable music. Consider this the ‘dessert’ at the end of a meal. Pick something you enjoy playing that is both easy and relaxing, and perform it for yourself. The idea is to end what may have been a frustrating series of exercises on a literal ‘good note.’
Practice Schedule
It should go without saying that students should try to practice every single day. What does need to be said is that 30 minutes of carefully scheduled practice is more beneficial than 60 minutes of unorganized practice.
Below, I’ve listed some possible timelines for a good practice session.
20-Minute Timeline (optimal for first month beginners)
• 4 minutes: Warm-up and/or Fundamentals
• 7 minutes: Exercise #1
• 7 minutes: Exercise #2 or Performance Material
• 2 minutes: Warm-down
30-Minute Timeline (optimal for first year students)
• 4 minutes: Warm-up
• 4 minutes: Fundamentals
• 8 minutes: Exercise #1
• 8 minutes: Exercise #2 or Performance Material
• 4 minutes: Sight-Read
• 2 minutes: Warm-down
45-Minute Timeline (optimal for intermediate students)
• 5 minutes: Warm-up
• 8 minutes: Fundamentals
• 10 minutes: Exercise #1
• 10 minutes: Exercise #2 or Performance Material
• 7 minutes: Sight-Read
• 5 minutes: Warm-down
60-Minute Timeline (optimal for advanced students)
• 5 minutes: Warm-up
• 10 minutes: Fundamentals
• 10 minutes: Exercise #1
• 10 minutes: Exercise #2
• 10 minutes: Exercise #3 or Performance Material
• 10 minutes: Sight-Read
• 5 minutes: Warm-down