Quotes:
“Ignore your instrument for one day, it will ignore you for two.” – source unknown
“If I miss a day of practice, I know it. If I miss two days, my manager knows it. If I miss three days, my audience knows it.” — André Previn
If you are a prodigy, stop reading. This is a waste of your time. Go play something perfectly, while making coffee and answering your email. For the rest of us mortals, it’s still very possible to be a very able musician. It takes a little more work than you might think, but luckily not as much as you might fear. This pattern is based on my almost 20 years of playing and 10 or so of teaching. It’s not researched by Harvard, but I’ve seen it time and time again.
First of all, there’s the big question: How much do I need to practice? That is such tough question to answer. I am not going to get into how subjective that can be. I am just going to take the ideal numbers for most of my students. If you fall into the other ends of the bell curve, you probably know that about yourself by now. Try these numbers, and add or subtract based upon your results. Sprinkle in extra sessions to taste, and go see live music to add inspiration. Field trips rock!
Here’s the non-scientific scientific answer:
3 hours per week, or 1.5 hours per week per concept
It’s best to have two clear simple objectives per week. That means, “G major scale in 3 forms.” “Practice jazz” is not a clear, simple objective. You need to spend 15 minutes per day on each concept. These two 15 minute sessions DO NOT need to be in a row. If necessary, even the 15 minute sessions can be broken into 5 and 7 minutes bits between diaper changes and dinner and during LOST commercials. This is aimed at full time workers or students, or both. If you are an aspiring professional musician, that’s a whole ‘nutha entry that we’ll approach in the future. Unless you have gobs of time or aspire to play professionally, I think it’s unwise to tackle more than two major new concepts per week.
Here’s what a practice could/should/would look like:
Day 1:
Practice some the day of the lesson. This is SO key to absorb what happened. If your teacher is not recording your lesson, YOU should be. There is NO way you can take in everything they told you. Remember, they are not responsible to learn this for you. You must take ownership and responsibility for your studies. RECORD the lesson. Every lesson. Put them in a neat order. A large CD holder, or a great MP3 file is ideal. Practice that day or night. Listen to the CD again. Even if you don’t have tons of time, go over the lesson for the few minutes before you fall asleep. Your rentention will increase ten-fold
(the number “ten-fold” is not determined by Harvard research, either). This session is purely review and retension.
Day 2:
Mostly review again. Often feels uphill and arduous.
Day 3:
Our mind starts to grasp the idea. Our hands have not quite caught up to our mind. Still uphill. Persevere. Trust me!
Day 4:
Mind meet hands. Hands meet mind. How do you do? Nice to meet you! Satisfaction and success begin to increase. Hurrah!!!!
Day 5:
We’re making music!!! Sense of flow begins. Lessons enter long-term memory and muscle memory. Sense of ease begins.
Day 6:
Can play for an audience (teacher, family, friend) with few or no mistakes. Can experiment with not looking at guitar. Control over dynamics and technique can be added without loss of accuracy.
The Harsh Reality:
SKIP 1 DAY- THAT’S FINE. YOU WILL MAINAIN
SKIP 2 DAYS – MOVE BACK ONE STEP IN THE PROCESS
SKIP 3 DAYS- BACK TO DAY 1
REMEMBER:
Everyone will respond differently. Don’t comment that you had a different time frame. This is a guideline.
Warming up and noodling are just that and do not count at all as practicing. Both are important and fun though. If you get brilliant song ideas during your practice, great. You make the call. Either catch it on the tape recorder you already have since you take responsibility for recording all lessons are rehearsals. Sometimes it’s genuine inspiration to pursue, and sometimes it’s laziness disguised as brilliant inspiration. Most good song ideas don’t go away after 15 minutes. Be suspicious of your monkey mind, especially on days 1, 2, and 3.
Breathe from below the belly button while practicing. You will learn better with deep rich breathe, and relaxed muscles.
Even if you can’t see it exactly in your mind’s eye, spend idle time on line at the bank or during boring conversations visualizing what you are working on. Remember ANYTHING you can about the lesson. Fingerings, feelings, sounds, previous practice sessions. Any of these will help your brain absorb the lessons.
Watch live music or live DVD’s with a specific intention of imagining what the musicians FEEL like as they are playing. Try to imagine what playing freely and beautifully feels like in the head, hands, and heart. This will give your nervous system clues at to what to aim for.
Please, please, please disagree with me. Just play beautifully and tell me how you learn faster and more completely. I’ve been looking for the shortcut for almost 20 years!!!
If people knew how hard I had to work to gain my mastery, it wouldn’t seem wonderful at all. – Michelangelo
Daniel Barrett is co-director of Red Leaf School of Music and member of Austin-based band porterdavis.
