How to Practice

Practicing Right

A lot of people do not understand how to practice a musical instrument. The temptation is just to practice as fast as you can until everything just sort of falls together. The problem with that technique is that you then practice the piece "wrong" and full of mistakes, adding unnecessary time to the process. Remember the old adage that you have to do something 21 times to make it a habit? That means 21 times perfect! If you play it wrong you will have to unlearn those things later. So rule #1

Play a new song or technique as slow and as clean as possible. Try to make it musical. If you try and practice a piece too fast and play it sloppy it will not sound like music. On the other hand, it will not matter how slow you play it, if it is accurate and in time it will sound like music! The best way to get fast, is to practice slow and in a musical fashion!! Once you can play it slow then begin to speed it up.

Timing

Timing can be a very challenging thing to learn. Just like we are all born with different gifts, strengths, and weaknesses some people are just born with "time". But fret not. It CAN be learned, and improved. The best way to improve time is to play with a metronome. Start with 1/4 notes (everything on the beat), then progress to 1/8 and 1/16th. To further stretch your time have the metronome act as a drummer and count every beep or tick as 2 and 4. That means you have to count the 1 and 3. So you say 1 and then the metronome beeps 2, then you say three and the metronome beeps 4 It's a little tricky at first, but when you get the hang of it, it is really cool.

Not only does a metronome improve time, it also gives a very practical way to chart progress. Example-if this week you can play a C major scale at 60 bpm and next week you hit 80 bpm that is real progress! I read once that 15 minutes of practice with a metronome equals and hour of practice without one. I believe it.

Duration of practice

Duration of practice routines varies from student to student, depending on their age and objectives.

For a young beginner I usually recomend 15-20 min practices 4-5 days per week. You WILL see progress with this amount of time if it is maintained.

If you are more advanced or have goals of being a rock star :) I would recomend between 1 and 2 hours per day 5 days per week. Remember you get out of it what you put into it!

Playing with other musicians

One of the best ways to improve your craft is to play with other musicians. There have been times where I feel I made more progress playing intense sessions over 3 days than I did with months of practice. Plus playing with people is just plain fun!!

Listen

Listen to music! Listen to lots of it! You could not learn to use the english language if you were never exposed to it. In the same way if you want to learn to play and feel music you must listen to it!