I don’t know about you, but I’ve had a love/hate relationship with practising at various times in my musical life. It’d be wonderful if we came fully formed to our chosen instrument, but the simple fact is it takes time to build up skills. In his book Outliers, Malcolm Gladwell talks about the concept of needing 10,000 hours of practice at anything to become world class in that skill. He offers examples as diverse as Bill Gates’ computer programming skills and the Beatles’ time spent performing hundreds of concerts in Hamburg. This theory doesn’t take into account natural talent (which Gladwell notes is undoubtedly useful) but does reveal the importance of repetition in the process of honing any skill.
For most musicians the motivation behind practising isn’t to become world class. For some this is the aim, but the rest of us have other ideas…. Let’s take a look at some of them.
Why do we practise?
It’s important to have an understanding of your motivation when it comes to practising. After all, it’s usually a means to an end rather than practising for its own sake. These are some of the reasons I practise, but no doubt you’ll have your own motivations:
Improving my technique - for instance, speeding up a difficult passage or expanding my breath control.
To learn new repertoire - this one’s a big motivator. Life gets very dull when you perpetually stick with the same pieces of music.
Working on new skills. When I first went to music college I spent many hours improving my legato articulation, which in turn helped me to master double tonguing.
Preparing for a performance - this one’s uppermost in my mind right now, as I polish up tricky passages in readiness for a concert next week.
For fun! Yes, even practising can be fun and there are times when I’ll rip through unfamiliar repertoire just for the heck of it.
Always have a pencil handy when you’re practising and don’t be afraid to use it!
How to practise well
There are endless elements to practising, but if you want to make real progress the most important thing is the quality of your practice. It’s all very well endlessly repeating a passage, but if you’re not taking care to listen to what you’re doing with self awareness it becomes rather pointless. It’s easy for practice to be counterproductive if done in the wrong way.
Let’s look at a few of the strategies you can use to ensure your practice is of the highest quality:
How much practice is enough?
The simple answer is, it depends! A budding professional pianist, studying at a conservatoire, may need to do six hours a day - partly to learn the large scale repertoire, but also to build up the stamina necessary to perform big pieces by Rachmaninov, Brahms and others.
For an amateur recorder player, practising for six hours will probably leave you with very soggy instruments and diminishing returns! While at music college I regularly did 3-4 hours practice each day but, looking back, I realise I didn’t always practise efficiently and could probably achieve the same results in less time now. If you reach the end of an hour’s practice and can see improvement in the piece you’re playing that’s a good result. Quality of practice is just as important as quantity.
Practise efficiently
If you’re juggling working life with recorder practice it can be difficult to achieve everything you hope for. If you find you run out of time, try to practise in a more focused way. On days when you’re short of time, perhaps zoom straight in on the bits you find difficult and save longer run throughs for days when you have more time.
Don’t try to take on the whole world at once
Always listen critically as you play and be sure to stop and sort problems out as soon as possible. Rather than trying to work on huge quantities of repertoire, sometimes challenge yourself to really master just a bar or two with polish so the gains you make really last. Then you can return with confidence at the next practice session and add to that progress.
Are you working towards a deadline?
If you’re preparing for an exam or a performance that’s when you really need to knuckle down and practise effectively. If you don’t have a deadline in the near future don’t feel bad if you have off days - we all have practice sessions where nothing goes quite as planned!
Keeping motivated
Motivation is so important - without a clear desire and sense of direction it’s easy to get downhearted and lose your way. If you find yourself flagging, bear these points in mind:
Looking for new inspiration? Why not explore working from facsimiles of historical notation?
Don’t be afraid to try new things and explore. This might involve working on a different technical skill or reading through some unfamiliar repertoire. Have fun, trying something new and don’t be afraid to make a mess as you explore!
Don’t keep flogging a piece until you feel it’s perfect. Remember, perfection doesn’t exist - at least not for human beings! Sometimes you’ll reach a point where you have achieved all you can with the technical skills you currently have and that’s absolutely fine.
If you hit a wall with a piece of music, don’t be afraid to put it to one side for a while. Even when you stop working on something the music will continue to process in your subconscious. Countless times I’ve returned to a piece I worked on previously, only to find it’s improved in the intervening months - partly because my technique has improved through working on other things, and partly because it’s continued swilling around in my subconscious!
Ten tips for better practice
I’ll cover lots of these topics in more detail over the coming months, but here are ten quick ideas to help you focus your practice more efficiently.
Warming up. Don’t neglect this element of practising. Just as an athlete warms up their muscles, you need to limber up your fingers, awaken your diaphragm for deep breathing and relax your throat to make a truly beautiful tone. A few minutes spent on the fundamentals of technique can make a huge difference to the progress you make in what follows.
Scales and arpeggios. As a teenager I was a teacher’s nightmare - I hated scales with a passion and always left learning them until the last week or two before an exam! It was only as an adult I really learnt to appreciate what working on these simple patterns could do for my playing. If you’re not working towards an exam you don’t need to practise them in every key - instead pick the ones with keys which feature in the music you’re practising. Do you find them hard to memorise? Play them with music instead - at least then you’ll recognise the patterns when they appear in real music!
Choose repertoire strategically to focus on specific skills. That might be reading up an octave, playing music with a minim pulse or getting to grips with a new size of recorder. Pick a piece where you can really focus on one thing rather than trying to multitask all the time.
Don’t spend all your time at the bleeding edge of your capabilities. Sometimes it’s helpful to select a simple piece and focus on playing it with real polish. A slow melody gives you time to think about the beauty of your tone, or to concentrate on the quality of your finger movements.
Record yourself so you hear your playing as a third party. If you have a smartphone use the voice memo app to record a piece you’ve been working on. You’ll be amazed at the things you notice which slip past unheard while you’re in the throes of playing!
Keep a recorder out at all times (a plastic instrument is handy for this). If you have a particular weakness, pick the instrument up every time you pass by and spend 30 seconds working on whatever skill you’ve selected. This could be as simple as playing clean low notes, maintaining a relaxed throat or picking confident high notes out of thin air. Doing this several time a day can be a really good way to hone good habits.
Find a practice buddy. Then you can share pieces and explore duet repertoire. You’ll learn a lot by bouncing ideas off each other, and responding to one another as you play together. Challenge yourselves to work on different things and be honest about flaws you see in each other’s playing. You’ll each have different strengths and weaknesses.
Practise little and often. A short practice session (maybe even just a few minutes) will often be more effective than one big splurge once a week. Regular repetition of skills brings swifter progress. For many years I set myself the challenge of taking at least one new photo every day. Even on busy days, when I took just a handful of photos, this taught me something new and my photography skills improved more quickly than if I’d just got my camera out for holidays.
Find a routine. Think about how you work best elsewhere in life. Do you achieve the most in the morning? Then set aside a little time at the start of the day to practise, so it’s done before you get distracted by other jobs. Or maybe you prefer your practice to come at the end of the day as a respite from the stresses of life. There’s no single correct answer.
Structure your practice time. Good habits are developed through consistency and thoughtful repetition. Try building a regular pattern into your practice sessions - perhaps five minutes’ warm up, a selection of scales & arpeggios, followed by more detailed work on repertoire. This will help you build your technique efficiently.
Playing with others can be a great way to mix up your practice routine
Do you have to practise?
There’s no getting away from the fact that practice really does help you improve as a player. However, there will be times when you just want to get on and play. Many years ago a member of my class at a course boldly told me that she never practised. For her, playing with friends at her local Society of Recorder Players branch was enough and she had other ways she wanted to spend her free time at home. Who am I to say that’s wrong? Sometimes we all need some downtime, and if you have periods when you take a break from formal practice that’s fine!
Finally, remember this….
By definition, as an amateur musician you play the recorder for love rather than for a living. So your practice should also be a pleasure, not a chore! Yes, have clear aims for your practice when you want to really make progress. But equally, don’t be afraid to have fun too. Even the act of romping through some unfamiliar music in a rough and ready way will bring benefits and will blow the cobwebs away!
What are your practice conundrums?
In the coming weeks and months I’ll return to some of the points I’ve covered here, to help you become a more skilled practiser. Lots of you have already sent me suggestions and requests, but if you have a burning question please don’t hesitate to leave a comment below or drop me a line via email, and I’ll build them into my future blog posts. Equally, if you’ve got a top practice tip you want to share, please do leave a comment below - let’s see if we can all help each other!