Practice is the key to progress as musicians, but what do we mean by the word? If you tell a young student to work on their music with little guidance, we know what happens. It is helpful to remember that practicing is a learned skill. For efficient progress, students need thoughtful guidance and encouragement.
What to practice?
Young students will likely focus on their band music, region band etudes and scales, and perhaps solo and ensemble music. All of this music is intended for a performance or audition. Unfortunately, unless the band’s curriculum is expertly crafted, or the state or region has a sterling developmental syllabus for young musicians built into its honor band auditions or solo and ensemble events, this may not be the best way to develop fundamental skills.
Nearly all students are familiar with method books. Most band programs use them in the beginning stages of development and quickly abandon them for performance repertoire. While upcoming performances are great motivators, using method books beyond those earliest years can be a great way for students to continue working on individual technique and musicianship in bite-sized, developmentally-appropriate chunks.
Method books with three or more volumes can keep students going into late middle school and beyond and help build healthy practice habits for the future. Once method books are exhausted, students can move on to the first standard etude books and repertoire at grades 1-3.
Above all, keep students from playing their all-state etude exclusively for three months. They may be able to perform the piece with ease, and even earn a chair in an ensemble, but they probably will have learned little else. Instead, every student with aspirations on their instrument needs a healthy diet of pieces that speak to them and present appropriate technical and musical challenges.
Students will need help to determine what they should focus on during practice sessions. Experienced players can forget how overwhelming learning a complex skill or piece can be to a student. It helps to give less experienced players a simple checklist for any musical assignment:
Tone: Did I play with the most beautiful, even sound possible?
Time: Did I play exactly in time, with accuracy down to the smallest subdivision of the beat?
Technique: Did I play all of the right notes?
Intonation: Were all of my notes in tune, individually and with each other?
Interpretation: Did I play all of the articulations and dynamics accurately? Am I thinking about adding shape to the line?
A Variety of Performances
Find creative ways to mix up the concert routine. Consider a solo and ensemble night for students, detached from any upcoming district contest. A performance for friends and family offers a calmer goal for students and is a good opportunity to introduce them to the concepts of long, medium, and short-term planning.
A performance, approached appropriately, can involve a series of small and large challenges. The long-term goal might be the performance or audition, but there are many intermediate steps along the way. Short-term plans are the day-to-day goals. It isn’t enough to say “I want to be able to play this piece.” It isn’t even enough to say “I want to play this phrase.” Every practice session should have a specific and achievable goal.
For example, instead of planning to learn a particular phrase, students could have an achievable metronome marking goal for the end of a practice session. Even better, they can identify specific areas where they wish to improve in the phrase. Suggest that they think about technical passages, specific articulation challenges, missing dynamics, or whatever is the most pressing item in the section.
Triage
Triage is an important step for students. Teachers advocate learning all of the musical components in a phrase together (rhythms, notes, dynamics, articulations) as it is difficult for the brain to add material later. However, isolating individual challenges first can make this goal far easier. If a student identifies the trickiest bit in a difficult phrase and focuses on that first, it may save considerable time.
After a practice session, remind students to reflect on how it went:
• Did you achieve your goal for the session?
• What might be an appropriate goal for the next session?
• Did you learn the goal quicker or slower than you thought you would?
The answers to these questions may lead to adjusting short- and medium-term goals in future practice sessions.
Helpful Tools
A metronome and a tuner/tone generator are helpful tools for a successful practice session. Twenty years ago, these were clunky, stand-alone pieces of equipment that might cost more than than $100. Today, there are fantastic combination tuner/metronome apps for just a few dollars.
A metronome trains players’ rhythmic sensibilities, identifying inaccurate or imprecise rhythms. However, it also helps organize practice sessions. Without a metronome, musicians have little idea of how close they are to the tempo and technique goals of a particular section. The lack of a metronome can lead to inefficient practicing.
To use a metronome while practicing, students should use their daily goal-making to identify a specific passage that they want to improve. Then, they should find a tempo on the metronome that will allow them to play the passage accurately and correctly. This may be very slow, and they may have to start with a very small section. However, they must not fall into the trap of rushing through this stage: Impatience leads to missed notes, rhythms, and musicality later.
Once they have identified an appropriate passage and starting tempo, they should play through the passage, focusing on the checklist above. If they can successfully perform every component, they should repeat the passage twice. If they are able to perform the selection accurately and comfortably three times in a row, they can then increase the tempo. It may be helpful to use buttons or coins as a counter for successful performances. If they make a mistake at any point, they must start over again. If they find themselves starting over a second time at a particular tempo, they should consider decreasing the tempo.
Some may want to make a large leap in tempo after some progress, but our brains and muscle-memory will not respond well to this, and mistakes will result. Similarly, dialing up the metronome by a click or two at a time will lead to frustration. A good guideline is to change the tempo by five or six clicks upwards at a time. This will sustain momentum in the practice session while ensuring that the brain can process the new tempo appropriately.
Intonation
Modern instruments are some of the finest ever made, with substantial improvements in ergonomics and acoustics. However, each instrument is filled with compromises, and none will have perfect intonation on every note without appropriate adjustments by the performer. A tuner can help in determining an instrument’s tendencies on specific notes. A tone generator can catch notes that are out of tune in a passage. By setting a tone generator to a specific pitch and playing through the line slowly, players can strive for a perfect meeting of their note with the reference.
Duration of Practice
We have all heard of legendary musicians who practiced eight hours a day. Consistency and focus are far more important than length of time. Fifteen minutes a day, five days a week can be perfectly appropriate for a young musician as long as they have a plan and stick with it.
As musicians grow and mature, practice sessions will lengthen. For example, an aspiring music major should practice two or three hours a day to meet their goals. While more practice time than this may be appropriate in certain circumstances, too much practicing can turn into aimless wandering and create physical and mental difficulties. A reasonable amount of time, properly planned, can lead to great progress. Then, students can go out into the world to have experiences that make their lives and music making better and richer.
Consistency is key. Just as regular studying is far more effective than cramming right before a test, regular, moderate, practicing is light-years better. The brain needs time to acclimate to new tasks and slowly build muscle memory. The all-at-one-time approach often leads to performances filled with missed notes, inaccurate rhythms, and very little true music-making.
Teaching Practice
To communicate these techniques to students, explain and demonstrate how to practice in class using lines in the method book or a new scale. Start by practicing a new concept as a group, using techniques they can use in their own practice.
Find a comfortable tempo on the metronome and play the new exercise as a group. Ask the class to reflect and suggest which musical elements need work. Tell students to choose one area to improve and perform the exercise again. Repeat the process of asking the class for thoughts on their performance. When appropriate, move the metronome up by six bpm and repeat the exercise. Ask students for feedback on what happened at the faster tempo. Students may respond that they missed a note or neglected the dynamics when focusing on the new tempo.
While working towards incorporating all of the elements of the music right away, students often find that shifting their focus to the articulation or increasing the tempo will negatively affect another element. Reassure them that this is normal, and they should keep going and trust the process As you teach students how to practice, clearly explain each step so they can replicate the process outside the classroom. When asking for their thoughts on how the exercise went, explain that they are reflecting on their individual performance and its importance in practice.
Another way to emphasize practice is through student-run chamber ensembles. Split students into groups and guide them step by step through checklists for each rehearsal, but let them run their own rehearsals. While students are rehearsing you can circulate and make sure groups are on-task and assist when needed. You can also have each group turn in an assignment at the end of the rehearsal, describing their goal for the session, what they worked on, how they worked on it, if they met the goal, and what their goals are for the next session.
Introduce the concepts of efficient and productive practicing to your students from an early level. Mastering this skill will help them avoid frustration and make faster progress and ultimately better music-making.
For stubborn practice problems, review Andrew Allen’s article Alternate Practice Strategies from the October/November 2021 issue of The Instrumentalist.
