Efficient Practising
Practising is an activity which involves the body and the brain, preferably
simultaneously. Mindless repetitive actions can build muscle and muscle memory,
but are a poor use of time. Thinking about what you’re doing will enable you
a) To find more physically efficient ways to do it
b) To imagine different musical ways to do it
Even familiar warm-up exercises – scales, long notes, vocal arpeggios – will benefit
from aural vigilance, as you LISTEN closely to make sure you’re doing what you
should be doing. Are those notes absolutely even? Is that crescendo perfectly
graded?
There is no point in practising when either your body or mind is tired. An hour of
razor-sharp concentration will achieve more than four hours of dull routine. If your
body is tired but your mind is not, you could THINK about your pieces, imagining
different sounds, more subtle phrasings. If your mind is tired but your body isn’t,
you could go for a walk or a swim, and recharge your mental batteries.
Practice session goals include:
a) Technical progress. Start with familiar warm-ups, and move on to new
physical challenges, using your mind to devise new exercises based on tricky
corners of your pieces, and working out the most efficient way to master
them.
b) Learning notes. A good deal of preliminary note-learning can be done away
from your instrument, simply by reading the score. There are hints on Score-
Reading in Course Content on the Classical Resources Blackboard site.
c) Working out fingerings. Remember, Rule 1 is ‘write them in’ and Rule Two is
‘change them’, as you discover a better idea – which you’ll only do if you’re
constantly thinking about what you’re doing.
d) Experimenting with new phrasings and new sounds. The latter can only be
done at your instrument, of course, but a lot of musical progress can be made
just by keeping your pieces in your mind as you go through your day. This
will also help with memorising.
e) Trial performances. A ‘performance’ requires a different mind-set from
practising. You need everything in place – you need to know all the notes,
and how you’re going to play them; all the musical gestures you want to
bring out of the piece; the emotional and intellectual effect you want the piece
to achieve. It’s worth getting all that in place before you put yourself into the
mentally very demanding ‘performance mode’: otherwise, you’re just leaping
off the same cliff again and again, with the parachute still not properly
packed.
So, how much should you practice? If you’re an oboist or a trumpeter, you’ll know
that you must be careful. But you can still get a lot done by thinking. Practising for
more than three hours at a time is very rarely efficient. Only a few instruments,
notably the piano, are physically undemanding enough to make more than three
hours a day possible. Be careful not to make the mere possibility a trap to waste time
in. Many great pianists have recommended practising for no more than four hours a
day.
Managing our time is an important skill in every aspect of life. Efficient practising
will help you make better progress, more quickly.
