How to practise
I’ve played an instrument for nearly ten years now and I still struggle to practise effectively and often find myself walking out of a practise after sitting in there for hours and barely achieved anything. So, in order to try and prevent those mistakes, I’ve come up with some tips on how to practise and make it mean something.
1. Learn the piece(s)
And yes, I know what you’re thinking, “but that’s why I’m practising” but that’s not what I mean. You should go into your practise time already knowing what your piece(s) sound like. Whenever my tutor gives me a new piece, the first thing I do is go onto Spotify* and listen to as many different versions as possible as many times as possible until I’m able to play it in my head like my favourite song. This also helps because you can hear different performers’ interpretation of the piece(s) which can give you inspiration.
*The reason I use Spotify instead of YouTube is because anyone can post a video of them playing a piece to YouTube, but with Spotify you’re more likely to get professional recordings.
2. Make a plan
The next thing I like to do before I even try to go practise is make a plan for what I want to get achieved. A strategy that I found really effective in school was the use of a practise diary. Whenever I practised, I would write down in my diary what I achieved and what I wanted to achieve next time, meaning that when I went back to the piece, I knew exactly what needed to be done. This is a strategy I’ve carried through to university.
3. Pretend you’re studying
Think of practising like studying, as it’s not all that different. Which means don’t let your phone be a distraction, and your only excuse to be using it is for three things: to listen to a piece; to tune your instrument; to use a metronome app. This also means you can use conventional studying methods to practise if they work for you. One of my favourite methods is the podomoro technique, where you practise for 25 mins (or any time you like!) and then take a 5 minute break, and when you do that four times you take a longer break.
4. Make the use of your warm up
This is a point I cannot stress the importance of enough. As a brass player, a good warm up for me is the difference between being able to practise for 45 mins or 2 hours without wearing out my lip. This also counts for rehearsals, if you know you have a long rehearsal ahead then make sure you arrive early enough to get an effective warm up. Unfortunately I can’t provide many tips for string players or percussionists, but I can help with pianists/brass and wind players.
Piano: Scales, scales, SCALES! If your piano is beg enough, then play four octave scales (major, minor, harmonic minor, melodic minor, and chromatic) on your right hand, then left hand, and then two octave scales with both hands together. I would also recommend every so often to do hand stretches and try and stretch the interval you can play on each hand.
Brass/woodwind: I recommend playing any warm up that stretches both your high and low registers, and your breathing. Your diaphragm muscles are so important, because those are what will keep you going at the end of a long rehearsal/practise session, especially once your lip goes. Make sure you support every single note properly and concentrate on the tone quality you are producing, not the notes you’re playing.
I hope these tips helped! If anyone has any questions then please do not hesitate to ask, or if any of these tips helped you then please let me know that too!!