Today I would like to share with you what I feel are the very best practice habits you can employ to maximize not only your skill advancement, but also your overall enjoyment in playing music.
(A free PDF download of this information is available for free here; beautiful-souls-academy.teachable.com/p/best-practice-tips-for-musicians-794674)
My name is Jennifer Kathleen Agrawal. I have been a musician for most of my life, and a music teacher for over three decades. During my time as both a student and a teacher I learned a lot about the best ways to practice and how to avoid common roadblocks on your musical journey.
Listed below are what I believe to be the 10 best practice tips you can employ to ensure that your study of music will be a lifelong pleasure.
1. Short practice sessions every day are MUCH more beneficial than doing one long session once a week. Daily practice, even if it is just 10 minutes, will help you to increase your skills much faster than practicing only once a week. Even if your one time weekly practice session is very long, it still won’t give you as much benefit as daily practice will. Therefore, set a reasonable amount of time (that you can definitely achieve without difficulty) as your daily goal. What usually happens is that the session will often go beyond your goal just because you are enjoying the time more, knowing that it is not a lengthy obligation.
2. Slowly we make haste. Realize that even if you only learn one measure a day, you are still making progress. Steady progress guarantees results. Too often students get frustrated when they can’t achieve their (unreasonable) goals and they quit. Undoubtedly these are the folks who lament later in life saying, “I wish I had stuck with piano” and “I wish I never gave up the violin.”
3. A mistake that many new musicians make is always starting their practice at the beginning of the song. Then when a mistake occurs they go back to the beginning and try again to play through the whole song with no mistakes. The result of this type of approach is that the beginning of the song gets a lot of practice and the ending of the song gets much less. So, mix it up a little. Sometimes try playing the last line, or the last few lines, of your song first. Work your way back from there.
4. When you make a mistake, take time to drill the correct notes. That means repeating a short section of the song, where the mistake was made, several times in a row. Go slowly at first so that your brain and fingers (or voice) have time to absorb the information. Then try to repeat the drills at a somewhat faster pace until that section begins to feel easy, or at least easier than it was before.
5. Maintain a slow practice tempo. Resist the urge to play the easier sections faster. Make tempo consistency your habit. Oftentimes you may not realize that you are slowing the tempo at the difficult sections. A metronome (or your teacher) can help you recognize your tempo discrepancies. Set the metronome to the pace at which you can comfortably play the most difficult sections. In this way you will create tempo consistency from the very start. This is a much better approach than having to correct the tempo later if you have made a habit of slowing down at the difficult sections and speeding up when it feels easier.
6. Mindset and attitude is everything. Feel joy in the journey and don’t postpone your happiness until you can play the song “perfectly.” Enjoy the whole process, the learning, the steady improvement, the feel of the instrument in your hands, the feeling of the vibrations of music. The real pleasure is found in all of it and not just those times when you play a song with no mistakes. “Joy in the Journey” is my motto and I also encourage my students to discover the same.
7. Take time to learn how to read music. It can seem rather daunting at the beginning, but the time that you invest in learning how to read music pays off in huge dividends. Although you may feel that it slows you down at the start, once you learn how to read music, you will absorb your songs faster than ever.
8. Before you begin playing a song, have a clear idea in your head if you are playing it for practice or for fun. Music should also be fun! Not everything you play has to be for the purpose of moving closer to your perception of perfection. You should definitely have times when you play a song just for fun, and don’t get disappointed or angry with yourself at any mistakes that happen. Mistakes are part of the journey. Enjoy the whole journey.
9. Take a break. If you feel yourself getting frustrated with a song, or a section of the song, set it aside briefly and play something that you generally play well and enjoy playing. Enjoyment reminds you why you are working so hard to learn a new song. Then come back to the difficult song and try again. Frustration is an indication that your mindset needs some re-tuning. Take a few deep breaths and try again. If it is still not working then set it aside for a while - maybe for a day or two - and then come back to it again.
10. The study of music is a privilege that many don’t have. Enjoy your good fortune.
Do you have additional practice tips that have worked well for you? Please be sure to include them in the comments below so that others may benefit from your experience.
Thanks for reading!
Love & Music,
Jennifer