Learn to Sculpt Your Perfect Practice Session
You already know how important it is to keep a practice diary. It’s time you knew how to practice more effectively by forming your sessions properly.
Let’s look at a session of 45 minutes.
- 00:00 – 00:15 Technical Excercises: Begin your session by warming up with technical studies. Pick just one excercise in a maximum of 3 areas of focus. On the guitar, I do one exercise for the left hand (legato playing) and one for my right fingers. My third exercise is a study by Sor or
- 00:15 – 00:30 Work with fresh pieces: Dedicate your fresh brain to tackling a piece you’re less fluent at or still need to read fresh. Practice short passages, progressing slowly through the piece. Forget the dynamics and just get the notes right.
- 00:30 – 00:45 Play pieces for concert level: Work on a piece that’s fluent already and start shaping it up for public recital. Work on dynamics and iron out technicalities as you go. Play the piece at a full go if you can. Just enjoy playing.
That’s my usual practice routine. Some might object that I spend too much time on technique, but I usually pick my exercises relevant to the pieces I’m playing (if I’m playing Villa-Lobos’ Study No. 1, I’ll probably prepare with thumb exercises).
Tell me about your practice routines? Ever been disciplined about it? Or do you just enjoy grabbing that guitar and strumming away?
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