A few weeks ago I had another opportunity to speak about my favorite topic, practicing, to a group of college freshmen music majors. We decided to solicit questions from them at the beginning to get a sense of where these students were coming from and to find out what their most pressing questions were. They came up with some thoughtful questions that I want to share here, along with my answers to them. If any of my colleagues have any thoughts to add, please feel free to do so in the comments section!
How do I
keep myself from getting bored?
Make
sure your mind is constantly engaged.
Be what I call a musical investigator, always searching for new patterns
in the music to make it easier to take in, process, and reproduce; never make a
mistake without figuring out the root of the problem and finding a way to deal
with it; come up with different rhythms to use when practicing note-filled
passages; while doing repetitions come up with something different to do musically
with each repetition; never spend too much time on one thing – if your mind
starts to tune out, take a little break, choose a new goal in a different
section or piece, and then move on; practice away from your instrument –
conduct, sing, look up info about the piece, the composer, the period of music,
art that was being created around the same time, figure out rhythms, listen to
a good recording.
How do I
practice a lot and not end up hating my instrument?
See
the previous answer for some ideas on how to keep practicing interesting. One
of my mantras is, “If you aren’t walking away from your practice session
feeling good about yourself, your practicing is probably not as efficient and
effective as it could be.” This is
not to say that we don’t all have frustrating sessions, we do. But if that’s happening the majority of
the time, it’s time to do some re-vamping.
How much time "should" I practice?
In my opinion this question shouldn't be the question you ask. It is not duration that is important it is consistency and quality that is most important. Without consistency it is difficult and slow to move anything new you have learned from short term memory into long term memory. Without consistency, nothing is truly dependable. And how do we determine what quality practice is? For me, quality practice means practice in which my mind and creative side has been constantly engaged. Mindful practice makes the music more meaningful to us and makes it stick in a way that mindless rote practice can't.
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If I only
have one hour to practice today, how do I make sure to get the most out of it?
Especially if I’m tired and would really love to take a nap instead.
Goals,
goals, do-able goals! And a
plan! Figure out what needs the
most work and spend time only on those passages. Don’t practice what you’re already good at when you don’t
have much time. If you choose your
goals wisely and check them off your list during your hour, you probably won’t
feel like you need that nap after all and you may even decide that you can
squeeze in a little more practice time later in the day since you were so
successful. But sometimes we could
all use a nap. You need to decide
that for yourself. If you think
you’re just avoiding your instrument, I would try practicing. If you really are exhausted it might be
better for you to take that nap.
·
Attention
span, seeking help, frustration, self-motivation, self-criticism.
Attention span – very few people have a long attention span. There’s nothing wrong
with that. Create practice
sessions that keep you moving from one goal being conquered to another. Have shorter practice sessions.
Seeking help – SEEK HELP from your teachers, your colleagues, your neighborhood
practice coach (you can facebook, tweet, e-mail, skype me when you’re having
trouble or just need a pep talk.) You are not alone if you don’t know what to
do, how to get over a wall, etc…
Self-motivation – Once you see your practicing transform your playing you won’t need
as much self-motivation. But even
for the best of us, we sometimes need to drag ourselves to the practice room to
get started. That’s normal! Practicing is hard work!
Self-criticism – Don’t do it! Treat
yourself in the practice room the way you would treat a friend of yours. You wouldn’t say to someone, “You are a
horrible musician!” so don’t say that to yourself either. If you do you’ll find yourself saying
it to yourself onstage too.
Which is
more effective – practicing for a large chunk of time or for smaller portions
spread out throughout the day?
It
depends on you and on the moment.
It also depends on what is realistic for your schedule on any given
day. If you only have 10 minutes
at a time here and there throughout the day that’s a lot better than waiting
for that hour that never ends up happening. Always be sensitive to how your brain and body is functioning. If you’re making lots of mistakes,
spacing out, checking your phone every time you stop, whatever you’re doing at
the moment is not effective so either try some mini-goal setting to get you
back on track or walk away for a while.
You don’t want to keep making mistakes, whatever you do!
·
Time slots
– 30 min., 60 min., etc. Warm up
once a day or every session? Best way to warm up?
Again,
this varies from person to person, day to day. For warm-ups, I think it’s important to get in a good
warm-up at the start of your day when you can. If you have other sessions later in the day, be very careful
to not just launch into something technically demanding or take a difficult
passage so slow that your body and mind can warm back up without any stress or
tension. Your private teacher will
have good warm-ups on your instrument – I would check with him or her to get ideas of
specific routines.
·
The
practice rooms are so hot that I can’t stand to spend more than 30 minutes at a
time practicing. How can I try to find more short amounts of time during the
day when I have classes nonstop from 8am – 4pm?
Dress
in layers, and more importantly, drink lots of water, especially while
practicing! Water is really
important for proper brain functioning.
If it’s hot, be sure to take more breaks and leave the room for a few
minutes to cool down. On busier
days, try to find ways to practice that don’t involve your instrument so that
you can do them as you’re walking to class, as you’re on the bus, while you’re
getting ready for bed (a good time to study, by the way! Your brain processes the last thing
your mind processed while you sleep!).
Practice rhythms, write the words of your songs on index cards and carry
them around with you, have your music on your portable devices so you can
listen to it while you’re on the go.
If you practice at home, leave your instrument out in a safe place so
that when you walk by it and have a spare moment you might actually pick it up
and do a mini-goal.
·
How long
should I practice?
You
should practice for as long as you can practice effectively and
productively. Generally 2-3 hours
a day is good. Any more than that
and it’s debatable how good that practicing is going to be. You also need to be careful of your
body if you practice in the 4-6 hour range on a regular basis. It’s not time, it’s quality – that’s
really, really important! Make it
a game with yourself to see how much you can accomplish in shorter amounts of
time.
·
What did
you do to help find the patterns (the overall picture) in the music, instead of
looking at each individual note?
You
can look for patterns at lots of different levels, starting off with really
basic observations such as, “These first four notes go up in a step-wise
motion” or “this measure is exactly the same as measure 4.” As you get more accustomed to this and
as you learn more theory you can add to your musical vocabulary, transforming
the statements I just wrote into something like, “These first four notes are
part of an f minor melodic scale.”
Other things you can look for are arpeggios, patterns that are almost
identical but have a minor difference in which case you can ask yourself why
there is that difference, broken chords, repeated notes, repeated passages,
contrapuntal material, canons…The point is to get you being able to narrate
verbally what’s happening in the music because then you’re making it meaningful
to you. And that use of your brain
is going to make learning a lot easier and faster. At first this may take a bit of time but as you get
accustomed to it you’ll find the process gets to be second-nature. Seeing music this way will also help
with sight-reading! On my blog, if
you look at the table of contents tab, you’ll see a category of posts labeled
“Musical Investigations.” Those
are all posts in which I show the patterns I’ve discovered in the pieces I’ve
worked on. That might give you
some more ideas.
·
If we
split our practice time up throughout the day, how would you advise we use
these smaller sessions?
I’ve
already touched on this but I want to add that I have different types of
practicing I regularly engage in.
I am either a) learning notes from the end of the
piece to the beginning, and this includes coming up with good fingerings,
bowings, etc…in addition to
carefully learning the notes; b)
reviewing what I worked on the previous day; c) drilling and working up spots that I’ve marked as being more
challenging technically; d) musical work
where I just experiment with musical
issues; e) practice performing where
I play through a part of a piece or the entire piece at tempo, as if I’m
performing, letting go of any worries of wrong notes. It’s an assessment time for me that helps me figure out
where I am with the music. I take
note (in a non-critical way) of what I want to work on next time; f)
memorizing/playing by ear is
another good way of practicing to make sure I’m really internalizing and understanding
the music. I do this with small
passages even though in my job I’m not required to memorize anything. It’s also a great ear-training
exercise!
·
Mindlessly
playing things without realizing you are not actively thinking about it.
Playing well in the practice room, and performance does not reflect any of
that. What to do?
We
can get to a point, with deliberate, good practice, where the “right” neurons
are so efficient that it might feel like we don’t have to think about what
we’re doing. This is not such a
bad thing! But if that’s not the
reason why you’re being mindless, that’s not so good for reasons discussed
above. If you’re playing well in
the practice room but your performance does not reflect that, there are many
different reasons why this might be.
Perhaps you haven’t always played it well in the practice room, even if
you have recently. If at the
beginning of learning the piece you made a lot of mistakes repeatedly those can
easily creep in when you’re on stage.
Or you might be disengaging when you’re on stage and not staying with
the music, in which case you can create a cue for yourself to keep you on
track. When I’m losing
concentration I tell myself, “Sing…keep singing!” and I make myself sing the
music in my head while I’m playing.
If I’m singing in my head, I can’t be easily distracted and it brings me
back into the music. Also make
sure that you perform for other people a lot, even if it’s just in the practice
room. Offer to play for people at
church, at home, wherever…just keep performing because even performing can use
practice!
·
Is it
okay if I like to practice where there may be a lot of people listening?
Yesterday at Convocation, they said practice should be a sacred time for yourself,
but I like practicing outside.
As
long as you’re not tempted to perform while you’re practicing I think it’s fine
to practice with people around and/or to practice outside. It can actually be a great way to force
you to focus and to block the outside world out – a good skill to have!
·
How can I
inspire myself to use my full voice in the practice room? (Usually use
half-voice) What can I do to retain what I practice better? What makes you the
happiest to practice?
When
we practice we want to physically feel good as much as we can. Singing in half-voice might feel good
in a psychological way but it often doesn’t feel very good physically. My guess is that it’s not so healthy
either. You could ask your voice teacher
about that. When you’re in the
practice room you can try pretending you’re a singer you admire or someone that
has more self-confidence than you do. Don’t try to imitate their actual voice – that can
lead to some unhealthy singing too.
Imitate their character.
Also remember that everyone around you in the practice rooms is there for
the same reason – to get better.
Very rarely, if ever, are they there to listen critically to you. And if they are? Well, forget about them. They’re wasting their time when they
should be practicing. In regards
to your question about retaining what you practice, engaging in thoughtful
repetitions (at least 3-5 repetitions of something correctly executed or more
if you’ve already had some goes that have had mistakes), and being sure to
review at a comfortable tempo what you did the previously day are good ways to
help with retention. And what
makes me happiest when I’m practicing?
Checking things off my list!
It makes me feel fantastic and want to practice more.
·
What is
an appropriate scale/etude to rep ratio for practice? For people practicing rep
with long whole notes or uneven sections of play, what is a good way to
practice timing? I often find that playing with a recording seems to waste
playing time.
I’m
not sure how to answer the first two parts of the question, unfortunately. I would say, however, that good ratios
and routines can be recommended by your teacher. In terms of playing with a recording, I don’t advise doing
that because it’s often hard to really hear all that you need to hear while you
are playing. Mistakes can be made,
especially rhythmically or with the pulse, without you being aware of it. Instead I’d recommend listening to the
recording away from your instrument.
Have the score in hand, conduct, sing your part, count out loud, make
sure you understand your entrances and count the right number of rests in
between playing…that’s a good way to figure out how your part fits into the
larger scheme of things.
