Posts Tagged practice
Practising Music – What To Do Outside Your Music Lesson
Practice makes perfect. These three words are heard every day and time after time these words are ignored. But why? Music is such a vast subject that for anyone, even the professionals, mastering it is near impossible. With years of work one can be very knowledgeable in specific areas of music but it would take more than a lifetime to fully understand every aspect of an instrument or music theory.
With that in mind hopefully people should start to understand that having a one hour lesson once a week is not even close to enough to gain substantial progress and development on a musical instrument.
This series of articles offer tips on practicing music which will hopefully demonstrate the benefits, enjoyment and fulfilment that can be gained through practicing music.
1. Goals are key. It is human nature to take pride in reaching a goal whether a promotion at work or winning a competition. If you have a set goal to reach you will be more willing to put in the work required to achieve it. Some examples of goals could be to learn the latest song you’ve fallen in love with, to be able to sight read in a certain key, to develop faster, more technical playing or to reach a certain exam grade before a certain period.
2. Little often is better than a lot occasionally. One key point to remember is that repetion is the quickest way to learn something due to your brain and muscles ability to develop and store a so called ‘muscle memory’. It will take a substantially longer time to learn and retain your new knowledge if you practice for a long period but only occasionally. See tip 3 on how to easily incorporate regular practice sessions into your daily routine.
Another benefit of practicing a little often is that your concentration levels are kept up throughout your practice session. Brass players will understand this the most – after playing a trumpet or any brass instrument for approximately an hour your lips start to feel numb which in turn begins to restrict your playing abilities. The knock on effect of this is that the longer you practice without a break, the more harm ultimately you will cause yourself – both mentally and physically – it will knock your spirit and could even do damage to your embouchure. Obviously this applies to all instrument groups; as is well documented repetitive strain injury is common among musicians. The primary cause of this is improper technique but as the name implies too much repetition through a movement can create serious effects. Therefore if you are practicing for longer periods be sure to take regular breaks – 5 to 10 minutes for every 50 minutes for adults and 10 to 15 minutes for every 25 minutes for children.
3. Routine. Imagine this – every morning you wake up, maybe make a cup of coffee or sort through the post and eventually at some point you will go to the sink and brush your teeth. Now most people do this without any thought – it is just something that gets done. This is the effect of getting into a routine. If you set aside a time each day to practice, away from distractions if possible, you will get into this routine making it much easier to practice, it becomes a part of your day to day life.
4. Practice with a partner. Most humans love competition – especially if you know you are the winner – and by tapping into this you’re making your practice session less of a chore and more of a game. Set challenges between you both and find some reward for the winner. The other benefits are that you gain an outsiders opinion and criticism on your playing, the opportunity to practice duets and you will have some company rather than being locked away in your bedroom.
This is just a glimpse at the different methods you can adopt to improve your practice and in the next article I will demonstrate some more music based tips to help you improve; using a metronome to develop your internal body clock, a fun method for scales and arpeggios and how and why you should be incorporating sight reading and music theory into your practice sessions.
For now just focus on your desires and on the reasons why you started music and give the tips above some thought.
Tags: lesson, music, practice, practicingHow to Practice the Saxophone
One of my saxophone teachers in college told me this story/joke: A man was walking in New York and was headed for Carnegie Hall. He was lost, and stopped to ask directions from another person. He said, “Hey, do you know how to get to Carnegie Hall?” The person thought for a second and replied “Practice man, Practice”. This is good advice. You have to practice if you want to be good.
First let’s talk about a time to practice, and then outline the procedure. I view practice as an open-ended assignment. You can never be done with practice. There will always be something else to learn. This is what keeps people playing music their entire life. I like to setup a specific time to practice, and then stick to it. For kids in school, make it right after school, so you won’t forget. Just set aside the time and do it. When you practice, always have a purpose; something you want to get done.
Here is a sample: First, warm-up with long tones. This will get the air moving through your body and instrument. EVERYONE ALWAYS sounds better after playing long tones. Practice these LOUD!
Next, work on something for your technique. This means something to get your fingers working well. This can be scales or technical exercises, anything to develop coordination.
Next work on your tongue. The only way to develop a fast tongue is to practice using your tongue. The tongue is just a muscle, and needs to be “worked-out” if you want any speed and accuracy.
Next, I’d work on Sight-reading. This means your ability to play things that you are seeing for the very first time. You should have a lot of music at your disposal. Play anything that you can. If it is music, you can play it.
Next, I’d turn my efforts to what ever I happen to be working on at the time. If I have a solo in school, or I need to play for a family party or whatever the case maybe; that is what I’d practice.
After that, work on something for fun. If you want to try to play a song by ear that you heard on the radio, or work out of book of solos from you favorite movie, just have some fun! Music stores have all sorts of music in any style that you can imagine- get something you like and go for it! Remember that practicing doesn’t have to be boring.
Here is my favorite pointer on practicing things that are difficult: Slow makes fast, and fast makes slow. If something is not working for you, slow it down until you can play it. I believe that you can play ANYTHING if you play it slow enough. Something magical happens when you play slowly. If you tell your fingers that they need to repeat a certain passage over and over in the exact same way, pretty soon they will figure out how to do this on their own! It is truly amazing how many times I have a student play something ten times slowly, and then have them try it fast; it just pops right out of their sax! Slow makes fast, and fast makes slow.
The next pointer I love is the method called Whole-Part-Whole. First you take the passage you are working on- say four measures. You can’t play it. Concentrate on the first measure until you can play it. Then concentrate on the second measure. Now, hook the first and second measure together. Whole-Part-Whole. Now move to the third measure, then the fourth, then hook them together. Now hook all four together. It will work wonders.
The old saying of “practice makes perfect” is only partially true. A better saying is “perfect practice makes perfect”.
Tags: practice, saxophone