Do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall? Practice!

This is a very old joke but there is a lot of truth in it. It’s easy to look at someone who is accomplished in their field and forget how much work they had to put in to get there – and probably still do!

Think of basketball …

If you want to get to where you can shoot free throws well, do you always practice at the foul line if you can’t get the ball in? No, you’ll miss most of the time. Do you find the place from which you can sink it and always practice there? No, you’ll never get better.

What do you do? You start where you can sink the ball and then back up. “Whoops, missed again. Darn, missed. GOT IT! Missed again…” Gradually you can get it most of the time. So you back up again … and … repeat!

When in a game, do you go to the place you know you usually miss? No, of course not! Hot shotting never wins a game. You move in to where you know you can sink the ball and score the points. 

How does this relate to music?

If you always play in the levels where you know you can play well and get the note to speak and have a good tone, you never get better.

When you practice, “back up” a bit. Let the note splat because you are playing too loudly, let the sound not come out because you are trying to play too softly. Those are missed baskets.

Your muscles will learn how to hit it every time and then you back up a little more! Exaggerate the louds & softs in your practice. When you get to rehearsal or concert time, stay within the range you know you can do well!

Now that we know that practice is important, let’s talk about how we can structure our practice time.

Practice Sessions

Generally, a practice session should include:

• a warmup
• rhythm work
• technique work (exercises or ensemble music)
• tone, phrasing & dynamic focus (exercises or ensemble music)
• something just for fun that you love to play!
• if your chops (muscles – usually mouth, but can also refer to hands, esp in the case of drums, guitar, piano…) are tired, warm down with low, quiet long tones.

You can adjust how much time you spend on each area depending on the areas you need to work on.

Practicing is a skill like any other – so you may need to actually practice practicing! Here is a form you can use to help you focus your practice sessions and improve your practicing. Practice Practicing Sheet 

Important Tips

Three starter things about practicing that all players of any level should keep in mind:

1. Work on small sections.
   Two – four measures. One measure. A few notes. Two notes!
   Say you are having trouble nailing a high note quietly – then work on only that one note!
   Once you have the small section, do another. Then put them together.
   (You wouldn’t try to memorize a long poem by reading from beginning to end over and over would you?? Don’t practice that way, either.)
2. Link the sections together.
   Always play the first note of the next section as part of your chunk you are practicing. Ex: I’m working on two measures; I will practice two measures PLUS the first note of the next measure. If you just play the two measures, then practice the next two measures, you’ve never practiced the link between the groups.
3. Once you get it, do it correctly at least three times.
   If you work on something 15 times and finally get it right! Cool, but you’ve played it 15 times wrong and once correctly. What will your body remember? The wrong way, of course! Practice it correctly several times – at least three so that you get the correct playing in your muscles. 

Warmups

Warm-up and practice routine resources for strings, winds and percussion are COMING SOON!

Rhythm Work

Pick exercises from your favorite etude book that focus on different rhythms.

Do the exercises three ways:

1. Set up the beat somewhere in your body and speak the counting.
2. Count out loud and clap the rhythm (can you tap your foot, too? Always tap only on the numbers, not the rhythm)
3. Play the exercise using the 1, 3, 5 of a scale. Like in a C scale, the first note is C, third is E, fifth is G. Mix those up and make up melodies using the rhythm in the book as your framework. Use the notes in more than one octave (low C, high C…) You can also add passing tones – more on that later.

You can also pick out one of the really hard parts in your music and work on just the rhythm by doing # 1 & 2 above and then play it all on one note so you don’t have to think about fingers, then add the notes as written, slowly, gradually building up speed.

Your Ensemble Music

Work on the tough spots. As you play through the music in rehearsal, it is helpful to put a little check mark next to the parts you need to practice, then when you’ve got it down, erase the check mark. Remember, a run-through is NOT practice. It is diagnostic (where do I still get stuck) and it is very useful as you get close to a performance, but you won’t fix mistakes in run-throughs.

End With Something Fun

Be sure to end with something fun! 

Then, if you have been practicing a lot of high or fast things, warm down… 

Winds

Long tones, low lip slurs, slow & quiet.

Do “raspberries” with your lips to loosen the muscles and roll your shoulders – stretch out.

When you get everything put away, rehydrate the muscles by drinking some water

Percussion

Quiet rolls or single strokes.

Shake out your hands and flex the fingers, roll your shoulders and stretch out.

Final words of wisdom: 

Remember… good practice is hard work and is not always fun!!! The results are fun, though!