The old saying goes, practice makes perfect, and it couldn’t be more true, but something that many students struggle with is developing good practice habits. It is the start of a new year and there is no better time to work out a practice schedule. The first thing is to find regular times in your week to practice. We are all busy but if you want to learn an instrument then you need to be prepared to make time to practice.
Three good times of day that are worth considering: 1. As soon as you get up in the morning: when you are most likely to be fresh and awake, before you are distracted by the business of the day
2. After lunch or dinner: after a meal you will be re-energised and have renewed focus to concentrate on your practice
3. Before bed: All children want to delay bedtime, so once they have gotten into pjamas is a great time to schedule practice time.
The next consideration is how often you practise and how long you are practicing for. In order to make consistent progress it is important to practise on an as many days as possible between lessons, and at a minimum, three times a week. Any less than this and you will spend all your practise time just working out what to play rather than mastering it, which after all, is the point of practicing!
I like to use the following guidelines to help students know how long they should be practicing for:
Beginners should practise for 5 minutes at a time
Students in Book 2 (or those who have been learning for a year or more) need to practise for 10 minutes at a time to continue to make meaningful progress
Students in Book 3 (or those that have been learning for 2 years or more) should practise for 15 minutes at a time
Students in Book 4/Grade 1 plus will need to practise for 15-45 minutes depending on their age and the complexity of the task.
Once you have set a time of day to practice, and established how long you need to practise for, now you need to consider how you practice. Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of your practice time:
A quiet room: Ideally you will have a quiet room to practice in where you can focus and not be distracted.What is your mission? Always start your practice session by looking in the homework book to see what tasks you have been set. Whenever you are practicing you want to consider what you are trying to achieve so you can keep your goal in mind.
Break it down: Break down your piece into manageable chunks. This might mean working one line at a time, or even one bar at a time. If you are working on a piece that is hands together you should always practice right hand, then left hand, and then hands together
Find the problem, and fix it: If there is one particular part of the piece that you are struggling with, try starting with that rather than starting at the beginning of the piece. This way you will be able to use your most focused time to fix the problem. Don’t waste time playing through the good bit!
Slow and steady wins the race: It is better to perfect one small section before moving on, even if this means you don’t have time to work on the whole piece in this session. Tomorrow you will have a more productive practice session if you have perfected the tricky part today!
When you have finished practicing for the day, consider how much of your mission you achieved so that you know what you need to work on tomorrow.
Good luck with your practicing and let us know which of our tips worked you for!
