Practice tips

Practice makes Perfect.....Practice makes Perfect.....Practice makes Perfect

A teacher's favorite phrase. The phrase that makes students everywhere groan. The phrase that is associated with long, dreadful hours of playing monotonous-sounding scales and exercises.

Think Again!!!

While practicing any musical instrument can take hours of your time, it doesn't have to, if you know the key to getting work done quickly. Here's how:

1. Always warm-up

Now, this seems at first like a contradiction to what I just said, doesn't it? After all, warming up is the 5 extra minutes at the beginning of practice time that seems to do little other than adding a seemingly unnecessary thing onto your timetable. However, warming-up your fingers/voice in the beginning saves you from mistakes later on in your practice. You 'work-out' your fingers or your voice by doing simple, basic exercises to get them ready for the harder stuff. Here are some things you could do no matter what your instrument of choice is:

• Scales- anything from Do, Re, Mi, to La, la, la
• Chords- (piano)
• Alternating notes- (voice) la, fa, mi, do, re, fa, so, la, ti, do, re, do!! *sings Sound of Music*
• A simple song such as 'Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star' or any Gavotte, Minuet that exercises simple chords, melodies, and harmonies

At the gym, you warm-up by stretching. It only takes 5-10 minutes, but is absolutely critical so that you don't injure yourself, but instead slowly get your body used to the motions. This is the same way with music-- it is critical to get your voice/fingers used to what you're going to be spending a chunk of time doing.

2. Attack repertoire next

Now that you're all warmed up, it's best to go to the songs that add on to what you just practiced. Depending on how much stuff your teacher assigned you and how long you have to practice, I'd say spend 1/2-2/3 of your time on this. These are the songs that you're really going to learn new techniques from. This will complement whatever other tasks you must do, whether recitals, accompanist positions, etc.

Here's some great repertoire books:

• Celebration series
• Suzuki method series
• Bastien books

3. Save performance songs for last

So why should you save this stuff for last? Well- b/c you're well warmed up by now. You've covered, and mastered techniques, spent time refining them, and learned theory. Put it all to work in these fancy, show-y, dramatic, emotion-tugging songs or tunes!