10 Tips for Improving Your Music Practice
How do we get the best out of our music practice? Some days it feels great, other days we just don’t feel like it or when we do, it feels like we’re getting nowhere. Fear not, every practice session adds to you becoming a super musician.
You might not be able to see the improvements from day to day but it will be very apparent from month to month or year to year. Here are a number of tips to ensure that we are set up well to start practising and to make the most out of our time while in the practice room.
- Instrument access – can you access your instrument easily? Often people find it easy to practice the piano if it is situated in a place that is on the way to somewhere else in the house! By passing it regularly, you are more inclined to sit and play. Leave the piano lid open, put the cello/guitar on a stand or do whatever you can do to make it easy to reach.
- Practice time plan – For a practice session, decide the length of time you would like to practice and split it up into time for scales, studies, pieces etc. Make yourself stop after each section’s allotted time and move onto the next section of your practice. Even if you have only 15 minutes, make a plan. It could be just one scale and a piece but it focuses the mind.
- Set a goal – Always have a goal or a set of goals. Decide what you want to achieve by the end of your practice session so that you can focus on this. Then you can celebrate when you achieve it! It doesn’t need to be a giant goal. Something as simple as ‘playing the E major scale from start to finish with no mistakes’. It is important to be able to congratulate yourself about something during your practice session. Then you can move onto some other challenges in your practice which might take a few practice sessions to improve. They can be long term goals – these are very satisfying when achieved.
- Be a good detective – If you make a mistake, find out what happens in the few notes before it that creates the mistake and see how you can fix that specific moment. Sometimes a hand position is the culprit, support as a singer, a shift or string crossing in a string player, fingering etc. Now work out the best way to fix the issue. Slow it down so that you can easily practice changing to the new, mistake fixing option, repeat it correctly in the new way (to cut out the old practised way) and then bring it back up to the tempo bit by bit. Finally, go back a few bars and try that area to see if that fixes the original mistake. If not, go back to the initial stage and try another solution or mark it down as a question to ask your teacher. If it is solved, well done!
- Save time – When correcting a mistake, just go back a few notes. Start here and work through the mistake area until a few notes after. Do not start again at the beginning! This is a common practice that wastes the most amount of practice time. See where else you can be more efficient. Is there an area that repeats itself exactly? Don’t bother playing through this again when you are just in practice mode. Save it for the playthrough.
- Slow practice – Often there are many things going on at the same time while playing a musical instrument. Take out any passages that need attention. Slow it down to a slow speed that is so slow that it seems very silly. This makes it much more achievable to correct something. I like to feel that it is very easy for me (back to feeling a sense of achievement) and then I edge up the speed from here. A useful way to do this is to use the metronome. Find a very slow speed, when that passage is successful 3 times at that speed, increase the speed one notch. Repeat this process until you are back to the original speed.
- Metronome practice – The metronome is your friend. Even if you think that you are playing in time, the metronome never lies. I use the metronome for slow practice but also at the marked tempo of a piece. We don’t have to play through the entire piece with the metronome but it is very helpful at the starting point of learning a piece. Similarly, the metronome is a helpful aid when we know a piece for a long time. Funny rhythmic issues sometimes creep into our playing of an old piece and the metronome can keep this in check.
- Repetition is important – This will solidify a passage in your brain and muscle memory. In general, if you can play something perfectly 10 times in a row, it is well practiced. Be careful, however, that whatever you are repeating is correct or you will be in trouble.
- Little and often – Practice every day is much better than a long session on just one day. 10 minutes is always worth it. You could master a scale, a mistake that has been bothering you or even the 10 minutes towards one of your long goal passages. Every little helps.
- Record yourself – Every phone has a recording/voice app these days. Use it to record one phrase at a time to see if you are producing the sound that you are imagining. Record yourself and listen back to the recording while looking at the music. Make notes as you listen. Mark out mistakes where you can apply your detective skills.(Tip 4) Are there any strange sounds or noises where you can make things clearer or can you improve the quality of your sound at spots? Practice all of these issues and record again. This will help you to improve much faster.
Remember that learning an instrument is a long term process. Every practice session counts towards your end goal. Don’t forget to have fun!