PRactice Strategies 

Effective Practicing:
          Practicing your instrument is an absolutely critical part of being a musician. In order to grow as a player, you must take the time to carefully develop and mature the skills and techniques that are specific to your instrument. Here are a few tips to help guide your daily practice sessions:

Warm-ups: Don't just sit down and start playing through your concert music! Think about what we start with every day in class: a warm-up! 
  1. Begin with long tones and really focus on getting warm, consistent tone quality throughout the exercise. Start in a middle, comfortable range, then extend your long tones to the extreme registers to help build strength in these areas. This should be a 
  2. Next, brass should focus on a few lip slurs to help develop flexibility. Woodwinds can begin to work on technique in the form of scales, arpeggios, or other exercises from "The Blue Book" (Foundations for Superior Performance). 
  3. Lastly, spend a little time focusing on articulation. Start with slow articulation exercises and focus on the accuracy of your articulation and placement of the tongue when articulating. 
Start Practicing: Think about practicing using a "bowtie" or "hourglass" approach to your music (from macro to micro to macro). Start with a general, big picture approach to the music by playing through a large section. Then slowly funnel your practicing down to small, specific details. Isolate a few measures that seem to trip you up and practice them as follows:
  1. Start Slow! I always tell students "If you can't play it slow, you can't play it fast" (even though some of you don't believe me!). Using a metronome, start at a tempo where you can play the segment 100% correct. Then, bump the tempo up a few "clicks" on your metronome.
  2. Repeat the segment at the new tempo until you play the segment 10  times correctly (don't just stop when you play it one time correctly - if you made nine mistakes before that one correct time, then you practiced the wrong way 9 times and the correct way only once) . Then, bump the tempo up several more clicks and repeat the process. 
  3. Continue this method until you reach the desired tempo. 
  4. After practicing the "micro" details of the music, slowly add that segment back into the bigger context of the work, or "macro," by playing gradually larger sections. 
Practice does not make perfect. Only perfect practice makes perfect.    
                                              - Vince Lombardi

Quick Tips:

Set aside as little as 15 - 30 Minutes each day for your practice sessions - try it at the same time each day to develop a routine.


Remove distractions, like computers, TVs, little brothers, etc. to help focus your practice session.


Remember, SLOW practice is very good. Simply "running through" your music is usually not an effective practice technique.


Record yourself practicing! While you may "think" you are playing something correctly, upon listening you may discover mistakes you did not realize were occurring. 


Use a METRONOME to help keep your tempo steady and to aid in your slow -> fast practicing. 


If you get frustrated with a passage, take a break. Go outside and walk around your neighborhood, go eat a snack, or go watch TV for 5 minutes. When you come back, you may find the passage you struggled with is much easier than before!


Practice with friends who play your same instrument or part. If you can't play something, they may be able to help you out (or you could help them)!

HAppy Practicing!