practicing

The best practice routine

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Lately I’ve been on a diet that has a weekly “cheat” day. Six days out of the week, my meals are Spartan, but on cheat day I get to eat whatever I want.

My guess is that isn’t the ideal way to manage my waistline. I would be better off eating more regimented meals every day. But I would burn out and quit. The cheat day is a compromise. It cedes a little ground to my sweet tooth, but keeps me going back to lentils and broccoli for another six days.

photo, Dave Crosby
photo, Dave Crosby

Every so often I decide to revamp my practice routine. It’s always ambitious. I plan hours of long tones, a battery of scales and exercises and etudes, piles of classical repertoire, and new jazz tunes. I see myself drilling every aspect of my playing for hours and hours every day.

It usually goes well for a few days, and then fizzles out. I tell myself that I’m not getting my routine done because of a deadline. Or a conflict. Or because I just needed to sleep in a little that day. But the truth is that I’m burned out—I’ve given myself a practice routine that I can’t or won’t sustain.

It’s often said that the best diet is the one you stick to. I think that’s good advice for practicing, too. It would be great to do a super-intense practice routine every day. But if a little lower intensity is what prevents burnout, then so be it.

If you are finding your latest practice routine to be hard to keep up, ask yourself what you can do to make it a better experience. What will bring you back again the next day? Shorter sessions? More frequent breaks? Fewer things to practice? A greater variety of things to practice? More structure? Less structure? A weekly “cheat day” when you get to skip scales and play whatever you want?

A practice routine, like a diet plan, should be good for you and should help you reach your goals, but it should also be something you can sustain and even enjoy.

Practice slump checklist

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Sometimes my students complain that they have had bad practicing days or weeks. Here are a few ideas for breaking out of a practicing slump.

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 … Read more

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.

FAQ: Practicing schedule

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Some of the questions I am asked most frequently about woodwind doubling are about how I practice. Specifically, how often do I get to each instrument, and how do I divide up my time? The truth is that there isn’t an ideal solution, and maybe not even a good one. There are only so many … Read more

“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

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.

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.

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

Slowing down

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I can’t tell you how often I have had this happen in lessons, especially with my younger students: Me: Play your E-flat major scale. Student: [Begins scale at breakneck speed, plays 3-4 notes, makes a mistake, stops. Begins again at the same speed, makes a different mistake, stops.] Me: Wait— Student: [Begins again at breakneck … Read more