Organizing your Music Practice

One of the things I felt missing from the very beginning of my musical studies was How to Practice? It’s funny that all this time is spent on how to hold the instrument, where to put your fingers, and learning chords and scales, yet many instructors don’t discuss HOW TO PRACTICE.

I had teachers throw modes, chords, and all sorts of songs in front of me, yet none mentioned the first thing about practicing. I suppose it was assumed you’d figure it out?

In the beginning, it’s not that big of an issue because you only have 1-2 things to work on. However, as you start piling more onto your plate, you need a method to your madness.

Do you just pick up your instrument and play whatever you feel like? Should you warm up? Should you play songs first and then practice technique? What do you do?

Today, I’d like to give you a general outline of how to categorize your practice sessions. Understand, this is only an outline. I don’t like making practice into some regimental thing that’s always done the same way. That’s a great way to take the fun out of music. However, I do think some plan is required to progress; otherwise, it quickly devolves into goofing off.

How To Practice

• Warmup
• New Repertoire
• Old Repertoire
• Technique
• Have Fun

Warm up

I like to use my warm up time to practice scales slowly or do finger exercises.  Next, I might move on to right-hand things.  For banjo, I’ll mute the strings with my left hand and do a set of rolls (randomly).  For guitar, this might mean crosspicking or drilling string crossings with a muted left hand.

Other possibilities- Double stops you already know or chord-changing exercises.  Anything where you are playing slowly and not fast.

I think the most important thing is that this portion of your practice shouldn’t be the longest.  Maybe 5-10 minutes.  The purpose is to get your hands and fingers prepared to play.  

A runner doesn’t go out and start running as fast as possible right off the bat.  The older you are, the more important these warm ups are.

Repertoire- New Songs

Repertoire is just a fancy word for SONGS, aka tunes.. You need time in your practice session devoted to practicing songs. Songs contain techniques, so you’ll also be working on technique in the context of a song. I forgot who said it, but someone once said, “There’s nothing a tune can’t teach you.” Given the right song, it can teach you plenty of things.

The main thing I want to stress is that you do not spend the majority of your song practice time starting at the beginning and going to the end of the song. If you do this, you are limiting your progress. Find the spots you have the most difficultly with and do repetitions of those (preferably in two-measure units).

In fact, you might find it beneficial to start at the end and work backwards. Play the last two bars, then the last four bars, and so forth. Why? Often, the beginning is the easiest part. If you can do the end, the rest will follow (especially in classical music, where there is a grand climax of notes).

By practicing things in segments, you are getting the most bang for your buck. Once you feel comfortable with the smaller units, start back at the beginning and play up to that point and see what happens. At some point, try to play the entire thing.

If your song is 16 bars long and you spend all of your time playing from beginning to end, you aren’t going to get enough repetitions of the material you are having trouble with. You will also play things you know well more than you need to.

Repertoire-Old Songs

One of the largest hurdles the music student faces is keeping up with the old stuff while learning new stuff.  It’s a serious juggling act, and if you aren’t careful, before you know it, you’ve dropped all the bowling pins!

How I learned to play so many songs doesn’t largely exist any more.  I would go to jams four nights a week, and that’s how I learned so many songs and kept them in my long-term memory.  Many people don’t have anyone else to jam with.  Here is some advice I give my students:

Pick one day a week, and make that day CONCERT DAY.  Imagine you are giving a concert, and your job is to play through as many songs as you know.  The idea isn’t to stop and get them perfect.  It is to play through tunes (it takes about two months of practice to get them into your long-term memory-where they will be more difficult to forget).  This is why people forget songs-they stop playing them after a month and move onto the next one without coming back to it.  REMEMBER- One day a week the goal is to play tunes, as many as you can.  This is as close as you can get to attending a weekly jam without one.  Use backing tracks or strum machine if you need to.

At the same time, spend a small portion of each practice session playing through an old song or two.  Only pick a few. Don’t over do it.  I have a few students that put song titles on cards and draw them out of a deck randomly. 

Technique

Technique is practiced during warmups and songs.  However, you might want a dedicated portion of your practice time devoted to learning a new technique.  A few examples:

• Learn the Bb major scale
• Learn and play a song in four different keys
• See how fast you can play the forward-reverse roll, work on playing faster (or picking guitar quicker)
• Work on your tone
• Work on left-hand pull-offs, trying to increase their clarity and balance

Some of this can be done as a warm up.  However, some technique practice you DO NOT want to do until you are very warmed up.  Practicing speed is one where you can injure yourself if you try doing that as a warm-up.  Don’t make technique the main portion of your practice.  Your goal is to be a musician, not a technician.  People that devote all their time to technique tend to sound mechanical.  They have gotten tunnel vision.  For example, if all you do is work on obtaining 185 BPM, then you’ll be able to play fast…..but what about playing a beautiful waltz with a pretty tone?  Balance is the key with technique.  You need technique, but not to the exclusion of the music.

Have Fun

I’ll quote one of my teachers, Kevin Bales:

“It’s called PLAYING music for a reason.”

One reason people burn out from music and practice is they forget to have fun.  Music is supposed to be a journey, an adventure.  Sure, it will feel like a chore some days.  However, don’t forget to enjoy yourself.   Imagine a kid playing with a bunch of toys.

Set aside five minutes each practice session where you completely forget all the routine stuff.  Grab your instrument and try to make cool sounds.  Move your hand along the fingerboard randomly and try to discover something you like.  For those who are apt, try to improvise.  My composition teacher Doug Gibson told me, “Record yourself improvising, then use those ideas you happen upon as material for composition.”

The goal here is to turn off the analytical side of your brain and be more free-form and flowing with it.  Pure creativity!

Closing Thoughts

If you only have 15 minutes to practice, you don’t want to spend five minutes hunting for your notebook or sheet music.  Get as organized as you can so you can spend time practicing and not  hunting stuff.

I previously wrote an article geared for the more advanced student regarding practice, check it out!

If you need a music coach, banjo instructor, guitar instructor, or want to learn more about improvisation and music theory, please don’t hesitate to contact me.  I’m here to help you reach your musical goals.

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