Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

[Richard J]

All agree with everything said. To me, practice is therapy.

[Jim Garber]

Heya Jim,

I do a mix of things. I had a big breakthrough a good while back with technique by just spending solid time everyday with Mike Marshall's "Fingerbusters." I highly recommend this book. His thinking is that you start with non-musical exercises that just get your hands limbered up and in sync with each other. Lots of good crosspicky things. There's a lot of repeating 2 notes back and forth too: G A G A G A - A B A B A B etc. This really keeps your picking and fretting hand in sync. Then you can focus on economy too. I tend to like playing chromatic stuff (every half step) - making sure you have the right fingering: generally 2 frets per finger.

Then I also really dig just playing a simple melody - fiddle tune or standard - nice and easy and super clear. And just work on listening - checking in with tone and relaxation.

Hope that helps.
z

Great! Thanks, Zak! I have Mike's FB book. (I just have to find it!) BTW I took a workshop with Evan Marshall and asked him about best fingering for chromatic stuff. I have to check my notes and see what he said. I seem to recall his saying that he fingers ascending different from descending.

[High Lonesome Valley]

Here's my issue with "Rules for practice". So you hit a lot of overtime at work, fall off the wagon, and then the natural tendency is to stay off the wagon. Seen it happen, had it happen, seen folks simply quit.

Sure, gotta practice, but I think it's important to not approach it as rules, more as a lifestyle, that's why my suggestion to simply fall asleep with the instrument in your hand if you're too beat. More often than not, you'll end up at least going through scales.

The other thing on top of everything else, probably the most important, is to seek getting together with other musicians. Isn't that why we practice to begin with? Play out so much that practice becomes secondary? The best double bass player I met in my lifetime was bound to his house, was to shy to play with other musicians, and what a waste.

[zak borden]

Great, heartfelt responses y'all. Thanks for the feedback and comments. I'm constantly retooling my approaches for myself and others to find what works best. Everyone's got different priorities.

I will say that I think the mandolin world - and the music world in general - can suffer from more, more, more. More notes, genres, concepts, chords, techniques. Until it's all just way too much. I love it all too. But my main goal as a teacher is to help folks (and always by extension, myself) redirect that energy from the "what" to the "how." HOW do those 5 notes sound? HOW solid can I make this simple groove? HOW relaxed can I be? HOW clear? HOW loud or soft?

---> How EASY can I make this? <---

And most importantly: "How do I feel when I play?"

Ok. I got a student soon. Time to practice. ; )

Happy picking. -Zak

[JonZ]

There are a lot of "how to improve your practice sessions" resources. Yet the vast majority who take up music quit or stagnate. For the average person, traditional approaces to learning an instrument don't work.

Is this how it must be, or is there just a lack of creativity in learning methods?

[Loretta Callahan]

I've cherry picked the advice that's helping me the most.

#3
10 mins of warming up
10-15 mins of a new musical exercise, arpeggio or scale pattern
20 mins working on new tune
20 just playing and having fun.: performing the tune and listening

#6. BAN ALL DISTRACTING DEVICES! NO. REALLY.

#8. 10 TIMES THROUGH – RELAXED AND WITHOUT A MISTAKE

And of course, learning to love slowing down.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What Zak really helped me with, as one of his students, was how to listen. As a beginner, I sometimes sound like a midi file. Zak taught me to hear & play the lilts, expressions, calls & responses and emotions of the music. I tend to be a very visual person and he helped me translate this into playing music.

Just about time for a check in lesson from Zak. He's an amazing teacher.

[Astro]

I dont think I've ever been able to play anything 10 times through in a row with no mistakes.

My best shot at a no mistake run is probably around take 3.

I get glassy eyed after about 5 times in a row and I'm asleep and snoring loudly by 7 or 8.

[stevedenver]

There are a lot of "how to improve your practice sessions" resources. Yet the vast majority who take up music quit or stagnate. For the average person, traditional approaces to learning an instrument don't work.

Is this how it must be, or is there just a lack of creativity in learning methods?

I don't think its lack of creativity, I think, its been proven to be effective, and, its work. And that's the rub. Speaking for myself, from music, from competitive sports, from languages and trial preparation, the good stuff requires some time consuming preparation. Basics. And, critically, muscle memory (yes even trial-one learns to control jitters and odd subconscious movements).
and as mentioned , learning to listen really closely, and doing stuff like soft, loud, sustain, quick decay, phrasing. Easy stuff to not think about, for me.

So, if you want to be able to run a half marathon, do you need to practice and build up and gradually build your running distance, then speed, then add hills and sprints, all along getting to know your body?

ditto fencing, jiu jitsu, weight lifting, etc etc?

Does one need to practice vocabulary and verbs and memorize certain things in learning a foreign language?

There must be some reason that conservatories have similar methodology? Running scales is a drag, but, my fingers know where to go, without any thinking on my part. It helps to do this with different speeds, different positions, starting fingers, dynamics, etc.

I think the reason this method fails is strictly the student and discipline.
That's why, for me, its best a little bit every day.

I will be the first to say, there are some long days where I will not/cannot do this stuff. I have to be mentally in the groove to sit and be in school again. But, it does help ME a lot more than simply playing pieces over and over. Metronome work is are grueling at times.


I can say, for myself, that you don't learn this stuff jamming, playing in a band, or learning a new tab, or sitting on the couch. That kind of playing keeps your callouses an that's about it.

Mindful practice is different, its deeper, and , speaking only for myself, it requires doing something with a particular focus and, repetition. And once I did it, routinely, it made sense, more than simply thinking about it.

[JeffD]

There are a lot of "how to improve your practice sessions" resources. Yet the vast majority who take up music quit or stagnate. For the average person, traditional approaces to learning an instrument don't work.

Is this how it must be, or is there just a lack of creativity in learning methods?

I am suspicious of the correlation. I while I don't doubt that the vast majority who take up music quit or stagnate, I am not sure it is because of boring practice. As you say there are lots of resources to make practice less onerous, if not more fun. And I am not sure its learning methods, as much as it might be wanting to learn.

Its a separate thread to sort this out, but I have heard over and over from music teachers that student retention correlates strongly with playing regularly with other people. Which in my mind speaks to motivation. The resources are out there, there are tools for a wide variety of learning styles. Its all out there handing from trees if the student is hungry enough to pick it.

A motivated person will benefit from Zaks' videos. An unmotivated person won't benefit from anyone's resources.

[JonZ]

For some reason, musicians are slower than people in other fields to integrate new methods into their practice. Today, most people who decide to run a marathon, or get into strength training, are going to go about it very differently than a person would have 50 years ago. We have more information about periodization, nutrition, etc. Most of the way people practice music today is the same as it was 300 years ago, and that is seen as a positive: this has worked for 300 years!

This conservatism even extends to the instruments. Every violin player should have the new mechanical tuners that are available. They are easier to adjust, and don't slip, and they even look like traditional tuners. But most still insist on using wooden pegs. Wooden pegs have worked for 300 years!

Because there is money and competition driving sports, "This works" is not good enough. The standard for sports is "This is optimal".

[JeffD]

For some reason, musicians are slower than people in other fields to integrate new methods into their practice. Today, most people who decide to run a marathon, or get into strength training, are going to go about it very differently than a person would have 50 years ago. We have more information about periodization, nutrition, etc. Most of the way people practice music today is the same as it was 300 years ago, and that is seen as a positive: this has worked for 300 years!.

Very interesting thought. I have been chewing on this since October. I don't have a good answer that I can defend, but you have hit something I think could be huge. To either defend the status quo with hard evidence, or to abandon it as merely tradition and move toward things more effective.

And what gets in the way of that kind of thinking.

My first answer to that last question is the success many have seems to justify the path to getting there.

But I am not so sure. When I am feeling mean about humanity and down on people I think that perhaps the reluctance to discover new practice techniques and new training techniques and new learning techniques is more that folks don't really want every one to "get it". If the conventional techniques don't work, it is easy to blame the student for being not dedicated enough, not serious enough, not disciplines enough, or not talented enough. And that, perhaps, rewards the status quo.

I think about learning to read, which most acknowledge everyone needs to "get". Any student's failure to "get it" is treated seriously and I have seen good teachers use a big variety of techniques to help make reading happen. What if society felt the same way about learning to play an instrument. (I am not saying society should feel this way, I am saying that I think the number of possible paths to try to teach and learn music would increase if society valued this as much as it values reading.)

I am also very much aware that blaming "society" or blaming "the culture" are ways of giving up and I don't want to be so cynical as to buy into that too much.

I am still thinking.

[DavidKOS]

Here are my three suggestions, as rules suck. I've found they really help to get through plateaus.

1. Fifteen minutes a day every day is better than a single three hour stretch on Saturday.

First, the OP's article is excellent!

Next, there have been fine suggestions so fat on this thread.

I will add my 2 cents' worth:

Practice , except for warming up, is not about playing what you know how to do well. It's about focusing on improving what one does NOT(yet) do well or do with consistency.

It's about focusing in on the details and making sure you can execute the technical skills needed for the music at hand.

Really I can sum it up in the word "focus". Those of you that have alluded to martial arts will understand.

[DavidKOS]

For some reason, musicians are slower than people in other fields to integrate new methods into their practice. Today, most people who decide to run a marathon, or get into strength training, are going to go about it very differently than a person would have 50 years ago. We have more information about periodization, nutrition, etc. Most of the way people practice music today is the same as it was 300 years ago, and that is seen as a positive: this has worked for 300 years!

This conservatism even extends to the instruments. Every violin player should have the new mechanical tuners that are available. They are easier to adjust, and don't slip, and they even look like traditional tuners. But most still insist on using wooden pegs. Wooden pegs have worked for 300 years!

I certainly get what you are saying, but there is one other factor to consider.

I'm not sure there is a linear, logical pattern of development in music as there is in competitive sport. Sports like that are driven by money and the ultimate time/score/goal/whatever of the sport itself.

Music is not a competitive sport.

As such it cannot be judged with the same criteria as sport, where a simple score tells who wins.There is no "winner" in music.

[JeffD]

Excellent point. That sports are competitive has a huge impact on how excellence is achieved. "At all costs" is a common phrase. Music, while it has some competitive aspects at some levels, really isn't competitive in that way. There is not just one way to win, or one way be successful, or one criteria to measure it with.

More thinking.

[Bertram Henze]

Music is not a competitive sport.

Some day, when everybody will have reached that wisdom, those useless and silly music competitions will end and music shall be free for everbody.

[barnacle]

I really like your article. I will likely be revisiting it often.

One other thing I've done that's helped me is to keep a practice log. I just have a moleskin and pen that I keep in my case. I often plan out my practice when I get started. And then log out tempos, extra songs/exercises.

It give me a bit more motivation to focus on my practice time, and it helps me remember what I've done on certain things and where I should pick back up.

[Relio]

I think the best advice is to find software to slow down music and learn by ear.

[Gary Flye]

I have practiced every day for an hour since acquiring my first mandolin about 2 years ago. Seldom did anything get in the way, and I made real progress. Then my first grandchild was born out of state and I was away from my mando for almost 3 weeks. Not only did I terribly miss my mando, but when I returned home, it took a while to get back to where I was before. I found the perfect solution (MAS). I now can play when I visit my grandchild! A day without my mando is like a day without sunshine