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Practice Tools
ChrisDowning
70 posts
Oct 18, 2009
3:31 AM
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There's been a couple of questions about practice and I guess it's always going to come up. How to practice, what to practice, how long, how often...
I thought I'd give you my set of tools and approach to practice to start this thread off.
Firstly the tools. I use a timer, music stand, diary sheets, coffee, buns (not that! - in England these are sweet dough based cakes - like hot crossed buns), and sleep. Let go through those.
Timer - I use a cheap digital cooking timers. I like to start work on a new piece by breaking it down into 15 second chunks and doing plenty of repetitions. I'll do that 15 second line for 4 minutes and then move onto the next 15 second piece. Can't really do that without a timer. If you get really picky you could also have an alarm clock go off after about 45 minutes and give yourself a break because this intensity of practice is hard and you need regular breaks. I'll practice this routine for two days and then join each part so that each part is twice as long - do the 4 minute routine again but as each piece is twice as long you won't repeat it so many times. After a couple of days join up these longer pieces so each repetition is twice as long again - do the 4 minutes again on these pieces that by now are four times as long as they were on day one. Anyway you get the idea. You need a timer for this.
A music stand. Why would you struggle on reading the music on the kitchen table. When I was 12 that's how I did it, but I always use a music stand now. It's more comfortable and you can position it correctly. I've cut off 4" from the height of both of mine so that the music can be positioned behind my left hand and not up in front of me. That means I can see my left hand AND the music at the same time - not having to look up and down all the time. Get a decent heavyweight music stand - they cost about $20 - don't get one of those flimsy folding ones.
Diary sheets. I've been using these for years - how can you know what to practice exactly, if you don't have a diary - a plan? The big advantage is - you can have 15 minutes spare - just get the sheet and start immediately. Keep the diary sheets with the music you're pracicing, it's easy. I do sheets that reflect exactly the scheme of work I described at the top - 4 minutes per 4 bars, whatever - I've got them on my website or email me for a copy. This is a routemap to success - you can work out how long it will take you to learn a piece - count up the 15 second elements and multiply by 15 minutes. How cool is that?
Take regular breaks and have coffee and buns so the break is meaningful and relaxing. The more starts and finishes you have to your study, the more you retain. So no more three hour marathons - break it down. If you really want to do 3 hours, break it into four part of 45 minutes with 10 or 15 minute breaks - so it's really going to take something nearer to four hours to do three hours of effective practice. Being effective is what we are aiming for - not macho marathon sessions of finger bleeding determination.
Sleep. You can't study and retain new information without sleep. I know it doesn't sound cool and playing away into the night until 3.00 sounds where it is - but it's not sustainable. It has been said that it takes 2000 hours to become a competent average player and 10,000 hours to become a good pro player - it's a lot of hours. Don't make it hell by getting tired and trying to tough it out - you won't retain new skills and knowledge that way. Get your sleep, look after your nutrition, stay healthy and alert. When I play I know when I'm tired, I just start to relax as I play and the eyelids start drooping. Do yourself a favour - get enough sleep - something like 6-8 hours a day. When you sleep, it's like your brain processes and sorts out all the things you've been doing and puts them into order for recall later. The next day you'll find a lot of stuff that didn't make sense seems to look better after a night's sleep. Allow your natural learning process to kick in - look after yourself.
Lastly attititude. Don't be too hard and critical on yourself. I'd recommend you read Kenny Werner's book "Effortless Mastery" and do the CD exercises that come with the book as well. It will put you in the right frame of mind for learning. You need a child-like approach, open and spongey - soaking up all that you encounter without the adult's critical, blocking and judgemental attitude. And lastly, we are looking for quality practice rather than quantity. Concentrate on the best you can sound, not how fast you can go, Speed comes after quality sound - it's easy to speed up top quality playing.
OK. Enough. So that's my take on practice. Anyone else have some contributions to make?
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Eric E
Moderator
49 posts
Oct 22, 2009
6:57 PM
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Excellent ideas Chris. Thanks.
--Eric
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Al
32 posts
Dec 09, 2009
10:26 PM
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Personally, I like to load as many practice tracks of all exercises on my computer's media player. When I play a track, it tallies on the media player's play count. I used to use things similar to timers and diary sheets, but for me, I get an idea of what I am practicing but what has the most tallies and the kind of time I've put in. It's simpler for me.
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