| How to Practice | | | | but not difficult and use different pieces on |
| Set Practice Times. | | | | different days. Keep it interesting. Music should be |
| There are two golden rules here: | | | | fun:) |
| 1. Practicing often is more important than having | | | | Work on the difficult bits NOT the easy bits |
| lengthy practices. | | | | THE biggest mistake students make (and yes I |
| 2. The better you are, the more you have to | | | | used to do this also) was play through the music |
| practice to improve. | | | | from beginning to the end and then tell yourself |
| If you are a beginner then aim for 20-30 minutes | | | | that that piece had now been "practiced". |
| a day. | | | | If you do this you are never tackling the difficult |
| Set aside the same time each day to do your | | | | passages and your fingers will never learn the |
| practice. | | | | correct patterns and so you will be tripped up at |
| Have a day off each week, but try your best not | | | | exactly the same place EVERY TIME. I can't |
| to have more than one day off as you will start | | | | stress this enough as this really is the biggest |
| to lose any improvements you have made. | | | | cardinal sin in practicing! |
| The more experienced you become the more | | | | Following on from this point is: |
| practice you should do. But don't forget the first | | | | Don't practice it wrong! |
| golden rule! | | | | Don't play wrong notes, leave notes out, or play |
| Warm Up | | | | wrong rhythms. |
| Singing and playing musical instruments are | | | | This just teaches you to play it wrong. If it's too |
| physical activities, and warming up is just as | | | | difficult to play right, slow it down enough that |
| important to the musician as it is to the athlete. | | | | you can play all the notes in rhythm, correctly, no |
| After the physical warm up, it's time to warm up | | | | matter how slow this is. When you can play it |
| on your instrument. Warm-ups may feel like a | | | | correctly slowly, start speeding it up, but never |
| waste of time, but you can turn them into some | | | | practice it at a speed that you can't handle. |
| of the most productive minutes of your practice. | | | | If there's something you just can't play at all (a |
| Not sure what to play for your warm up? | | | | high note, for example), make it part of your |
| You can play scales (always a good idea as all | | | | warm-up. Find an exercise that makes it easier to |
| music is based on scales) but this can soon get | | | | get to that note and do it every day the easy |
| boring so find a piece of music that is fun to play | | | | way. |