Making the Most of Practice Time

Making the Most of Practice Time

“The most important thing you can bring to your rehearsal is your personal practice.”  One of my students made this statement this week in regards to his personal feeling of preparedness for a recent band practice.  And he’s right!  Making sure that when you show up for your group, it is the best version of your musical self (and otherwise would be great too) can be the difference between a great, productive rehearsal and a hard rehearsal.  If you are prepared on your part, then the group isn’t waiting for you to learn your music.  No one likes to feel like the weakest link due to a lack of preparation.  Learning your music should be done on your own time.  The ensemble rehearsal is for taking your prepared music and working on all the ways it fits together with the other parts.

This conversation made me think about another question that comes up often in lessons.  How do I effectively practice on my own at home?  I want to practice. So, I try and just do what we did in lessons.  “Doing what we did in lessons” needs a bit more definition and maybe isn’t always the best process to follow in personal practice.

Here are some things you can do when you are working on your own.  Also, these items are not meant to be accomplished all in one practice session, but will most likely be a continual process over several practice sessions.

Look through the piece – with just your eyes.   Don’t try and play or sing anything yet – first just look.  Is there anything in the music you don’t know?  Are there symbols or terms that you need to define so that you know what to do when you get there?  Look up a textual explanation or translation (if applicable) and a brief history.  You can dive more into this as the process goes, but a brief idea of where the work comes from and why the composer wrote it or what it’s about is good to know at the start.  And then, later in the process, as you are working on details and some performance-ready additions, you can dive deeper into this.

Sight-Read the piece.   After you’ve looked through the piece, at a slow-reasonable pace, sight read it!  Play or sing through it once (knowing and accepting there may be a TON of errors).  This will give you a big picture feel for the song and help you quickly identify areas that you will need to spend some time with – tricky rhythms, harder melodies, breath management (for singers), intentional fingering choices (for pianists), etc.

Break down the elements.   After you sight-read the song, then work on things one at a time or just a couple things at a time.  Here is a suggested order for learning the piece.

1. Rhythm – Tap or clap the rhythm and singers, speak the text in rhythm – in harder spots. Once it feels solid, get out the metronome and make sure you didn’t miss anything, rhythmically speaking.
2. Melody – Add the notes to the rhythm. The tempo can be as slow as you need to be able to do both at the same time successfully.  Then, increase the speed to the correct tempo.  If mistakes happen when you speed it up, slow it back down again and keep working it until you can do it faster.
3. Isolate hard parts. After sight reading and looking at rhythm and melody in detail, there will still be parts that need a little extra work.  Some will already feel easy and natural, others not so much.  Don’t keep starting at the beginning and slogging through it.  Work on the hard measures and then work backwards – work on the last page first.

Check the Musicality.  Once you can successfully play or sing through the piece, check the musicality. Are you paying attention to musical directions and dynamics?  Why do you think the composer (or editor) added those markings in those specific places?  How will they effect your performance?  Circle back to the history, translation, and original intent behind the work.  If it makes sense to do so, dig a little deeper.  Make sure that when you perform the piece you are true to the composer’s original intent, while also adding your own artistry to it.  This step will widely differ between different genres, but the concept is the same.

Some other things to consider…

Listening

Don’t underestimate the value of listening!

Listen to recordings.  If there are recordings of the piece you are working on, listen!  Listen to various artists performing it, if that is an option for your song.  Listen while following along visually with your sheet music.

Listen to your recorded lesson.  This is always recommended.  But, take some time to listen back to your lesson (if you recorded it) and just make some observations and note things that you don’t want to forget about.

Listen to new music.  Add some things to your play list you’ve never heard before.  See if you can discover something else you want to learn, elements of other works that you appreciate, etc.

Music Theory

Don’t forget that the more you know about the language of music, the better musician you will be.  Work through your theory text we’re doing as a part of your lessons.  Re-work concepts that challenged you or you already forget about.  Work on a piece of music reading that is a challenge for you.  Some examples: bass clef is harder than treble – do some flash cards for bass clef; you only read cords – make yourself read some notes on a staff, etc.

Time

How much time should I be devoting to personal practice?

The answer to this question is….it depends.  This is personalized depending on where you are in your musical journey.  However, I think smaller amounts of time more often is a good general rule of thumb.  But your “small amount” will not be the same as someone else’s.  Also, this answer may change depending on if you are preparing for an upcoming performance or just practicing to make progress.  Ask your teacher for specific recommendations on amount of time.  Any practice is better than none.  If you only have 10 or 15 minutes, it will still be helpful!  Don’t skip a session because it doesn’t feel like there’s not enough time.

Following these guidelines during your personal practice time will help you show up to practicing with others are your best and ready to adapt to the needs of the group.  It will help you grow as a musician and artist.  Rome wasn’t built in a day, so recognize it is a process – sometimes a long one.  Celebrate the successes along the way and enjoy the progression of your development as a musical artist.