Musicianship

Practicing and the two-minute rule

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David Allen’s well-known book Getting Things Done is always within arm’s reach at my desk. I find its concepts and techniques valuable for managing my time and productivity.

I don’t consciously use a lot of “GTD” ideas in my practicing, since practicing seems to me like a thing that is never “done.” (If any of you are applying GTD concepts to practicing, I’m interested in hearing about it.) But there’s one part of the GTD system that I do think of often when practicing or working with students: the “two-minute” rule.

photo, Matthew
photo, Matthew

The idea is this: when organizing your tasks, if something comes up that will take less than two minutes to complete, it’s better to go ahead and do it rather than taking the time to process it into your to-do list and revisit it again later.

I try especially to impress this on students who are stuck in “stage one” practicing, running long passages or entire pieces without stopping to isolate and fix problem spots. If you are practicing, here are some examples of things to spend two minutes or less solving now, rather than adding them to a do-later list:

  • Look up an unfamiliar foreign term
  • Mark in a missed key-signature note or ensemble cue
  • Practice an awkward three- or four-note passage (How many times can you practice it in two minutes? One or two hundred times?)
  • Check and adjust the tuning of a problem note
  • Revisit a favorite tone exercise to improve the sound of a certain note or passage
  • Figure out and mark in a trill fingering
  • Make and notate an interpretive decision (You can always change your mind later. For now, pick a plan and try it out rather than leaving it up in the air.)
  • Choose and mark a good place to breathe
  • Settle a question or conflict by consulting the full score or accompaniment part
  • Make a quick recording (your smartphone probably has a voice-recording app) and identify some areas to focus on (and possibly solve in two minutes)

This approach does sometimes mean breaking stride on larger practice-time projects, but in general I find the two-minute fixes to be worthwhile.

But I can do it in the practice room

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Every week I hear students play badly, then tell me, “but I can do it in the practice room…” Here are some reasons things might go more poorly in a lesson than in a practice session, and some strategies for dealing with those problems.

Subdivision, long notes, and slowing the tempo

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As my students get better at reading more complicated rhythms, often it is the “easy” notes that emerge as the ones still lacking in precision. Master the technique of subdivision for greater precision and control of tempo.

“Next” steps in preparing repertoire

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I think many aspiring musicians pass through a phase in their development where they have “learned” fingerings, music reading skills, and other fundamentals at a basic degree of mastery, and turn their attention to developing sufficiently fluent technique (mostly finger technique) to tackle the instrument’s standard literature. Once they acquire that fluency and tackle that … Read more

Sparking creative inspiration

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It’s tempting sometimes to see my students as either left-brained or right-brained players—either the precise, technically-oriented type or the creative, intuitive type. The reality, of course, is that they are all some of each, but may have greater strengths in one area or the other. And good musicians need both. Trying to get the more … Read more

Three stages of practicing

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As my musical standards, maturity, and commitment to practice time improved, it became clear that beginning-to-end practicing was not the best use of my time.

Counting rhythms with a non-quarter-note pulse

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Sometimes my students are stymied by rhythms like this: These rhythms are really not at all difficult to play—to actually execute—for an intermediate-level student. The problem is just one of unfamiliar notation. It is usually related to the all-too-common misconception that the rhythmic pulse is always equal to a quarter note. If you approach this … Read more

Practicing, boredom, and guilt

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I find that my students who struggle with practicing are sometimes afraid to talk to me about it, and want to brush aside talk of their declining practice hours with thin excuses about having a “busy week.” But if we can address the problem honestly and openly, I can offer some suggestions to help them enjoy their practice time more and get more out of it.

Jazz swing notation

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The issue with each of these bad notational approaches is that they try to approximate characteristic jazz rhythms with symbols that are rooted in the rather different rhythms of classical music. But real jazz swing rhythms aren’t dotted or 12/8 or triplets, or least they aren’t necessarily any of those. This leads to problems both for composers and performers.

Isolating problem spots

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Earlier this month I posted about a fundamental practicing concept that sometimes escapes my less-experienced students. Here is another: Me: Play your D melodic minor scale. Student: [Begins D minor scale, plays a wrong note in the second octave.] Me: Whoops, remember to play B-natural. Student: Okay. [Starts over, makes same mistake.] Me: Please start … Read more