How to Practice (in one easy lifetime)

Introduction

Who is reading this? Everyone knows they need to practice, and people who have been at it for a long time probably already have some sort of method. If you are someone like that, you might get an idea of how I like to practice, and find some fresh ways to approach your work. You also might have some suggestions or even take issue with a few of the things I prescribe, which is fine, and I welcome your feedback. Actually, this article is written for the benefit of my students. These subjects are things we discuss in their lessons, and most of them find it helpful to see things in print, especially the exercises in the “technique” section. You won’t find my technique book here, but some examples of the way we work on them.

My first-year students have come from many different backgrounds, but one thing they almost all have in common is that they have never had to practice as though their careers depended on it. In their first lesson I tell them that it will take them about three hours of work each day to complete the assignment, and I almost never see any reaction from them. Either that statement goes right over their heads, or they wonder how on earth they are going to stay busy for that long in a single room. By the third or fourth lesson it becomes apparent to them that they haven’t accomplished nearly enough and that I’m going to continue to pile stuff on until they are buried in assignments they have no clue how to attack. That’s exactly what I have in mind. I have to find out what their capacity for work is, and see if they have the resourcefulness and work ethic to get it done.

For the most part, these students have come from public school music programs where the only practice they do is during band rehearsals- they learn at about the same speed as the rest of the group and there is very little incentive to work on their own. Competition is almost nonexistent, and the only tangible benefit is playing well enough in the concert so they don’t stand out. Some have performed in adjudicated solo events, but were able to prepare their performances by getting out of study hall, and working for less than an hour at a time. Others have belonged to a drum corps and know about the grueling hours of rehearsals. But that isn’t personal, private practice. Rather, it is a drill master rehearsing several people playing unison parts, and nobody had better stand out! So when I tell these students that they will learn more music in their first semester than they have played in their previous music careers, it doesn’t meet with their imaginations.

This series of articles is aimed at my students, especially those who actually ask, “how do you practice?”

“Practice every day that you eat.”

There are many different things to practice: there’s the stuff you should be doing everyday, and the stuff you’d better learn before it’s too late. They’re not mutually exclusive. The stuff you’d better learn before it’s too late is closely related to reading practice which, if you work on everyday will make those looming deadlines a little less foreboding.

I believe in maintaining a practice routine, which is a convenient way for me to make sure that everything gets accomplished. Everything? Yes. See, many people only practice the material that is due for a lesson, a rehearsal, a recording, or a performance. I have to practice some skills on a regular basis: things like reading, technique, transposing, ear training, improvising, time keeping, coordination and independence, etc. Failing to improve those skills just makes the work aimed at the single performance just that more difficult. It also relegates a single performance to just that: a single performance. Sometimes it goes well, and other times it does not. There is no way to assess whether those individual performances are improving. It also makes all the practicing an exercise in “end gaining,” that is: once the performance is over, it’s over. That’s like cramming for a test when you know that once it’s over, you’re going to forget all the material you studied. All these skills need concentrated effort in order to excel. If you only practice the pieces you have to perform, these skills only get better in small, forgettable doses. Usually the skills that come more naturally compensate for the deficiencies of the others. For most of my students, the skill that supplants the others is memorization, and in particular, the memorization of kinesthetic motion over the geography of the instrument.

Routine means regular. I used to say, “Practice every day that you eat.” I’ve since modified that to, “One day off per week, if possible.” Some players enjoy the benefit of getting paid for every service- rehearsals as well as performances. Those who are lucky enough to make a living that way are aware that they could lose that job by failing to maintain the skills that got them the job in the first place. The rest of us must consider that a large portion of the job is actually in the practice room. That job is twofold: learn material for performance and increase the level of skills. This is not a part-time job, and it never ends. You’re going to have to maintain sanity by making the job interesting, fulfilling, productive, and enjoyable, otherwise practicing will become a dead end job with no end in sight. And then you have to realize that as with any kind of employment, practicing may not always be interesting, fulfilling, productive, or enjoyable. But it beats any other full time day job I’ve ever had.

Below is a sample of a table I might use.

Day 1	Day 2	Day 3	Day 4	Day 5	Day 6
Warm Up	Warm Up	Minimal Warm Up	Warm Up	Warm Up	No Warm Up
Literature Learned on Day 6	Literature Learned on Day 1	Literature Learned on Day 2	Literature Learned on Day 3	Literature Learned on Day 4	Literature Learned on Day 5
Technique	Technique	Light Technique	Technique	Technique	Light Technique
Learn New Material	Learn New Material	Learn New Material	Learn New Material	Learn New Material	Learn New Material
Maintenance	Maintenance	Maintenance	Maintenance	Maintenance	Maintenance
Reading	Improvisation	Transposition	Improvisation	Reading	Improvisation
Cool Down	Cool Down	Cool Down	Cool Down	Cool Down	Cool Down

This kind of schedule works well when I can devote several hours over the span of a week to a month. During the school year, I usually have to break the practice time into one or two-hour segments that concentrate on only one type of pract