Practice Routines - first post

[Aurafjord]

Hiya, I've been lurking for a bit, and finally made an account! I've been a 'jack-of-all-trades, master of none' player for a while, trying my hands at guitar, upright bass, keyboard, and mandolin, but in the past couple of months have been practicing solely mandolin looking to improve. I got into bluegrass through jam-band music, moving into electronic, and recently, hoping to delve more into Irish folk and traditional (seriously searching for my roots).

I'd like to know what people's practice regiments consist of. I'm all over the place, usually going through scales, a few chord forms, and then working out the tunes that I know and improving muscle memory. However, I would love more consistency. What routines do you abide by? What advice do you have for a budding mandolin player in terms of practice, and how to improve most efficiently?

Thanks ya'll, Edward

[T.D.Nydn]

Well,ok,here's my routine,but I got to warn you I ain't normal.im dedicated to the bone and never deviate from my schedule.i see a difference in "practicing" and "playing".i wake up at 800 and by 830 I have a A model in my hands.i try to just warm up at this point and get it over with.my fingers don't work and my brain ain't connected yet.lasts about 30 min. I "practice " on and off all morning and afternoon.scales,pentatonics,vertical and horizontal patterns etc.the mechanical stuff.later in the day and at night I play an F model.thats when I play .write tunes and do a lot of improvising.my music is new York city syle free jazz.this is what I love to play and what people hate to hear.i used to play bluegrass when I was younger,then I discovered jazz and then went insane.but I notice people love my bluegrass playing.they start dancing and it makes them happy.i don't even know one tune,I just make it up.but lately I've been taking it a lot more seriously and I've been writing bluegrass tunes and working on a legitimate bluegrass feel.

[jshane]

My routine is also a bit different.

I base most of my practicing around specific aspects of performance pieces I am working on, or on keeping up-to-snuff on songs I already know. I really dont do much in the way of finger exercises/ arpeggios etc -- at least not anymore. (I probably should).

But, my wife-- who has only played a few years -- has a more traditional approach. She incorporates finger patterns ("fingerbuster" kinds of things), scale-work, and chord-mechanics in addition to working on specific songs. I'd guess that in a typical 45-min to an hour practice session, she spends:

-10 mins fingerbusting
-10 mins doing scales, modes etc
-10 mins just moving back and forth between chords-- usually focusing on specific chords/inversions that are involved in songs she is learning

-the remaining time she focuses on specific passages or portions of songs she knows or is learning-- you know, the problematic sections.

[JeffD]

I have gone through an evolution over this.

I once devised a very structured practice routine. So many minutes with this so many minutes of that, exercises, new tunes, scales, right hand, everything tracked on a form I devised. And I managed to drain all the fun out of it. All the clock watching, all the paper work, all the measuring of my progress.

Things changed when I found myself being a "bad employee". Trying to fulfill the letter of my law, so I could say I was doing it, cutting corners and sliming out of things.

So then I modified it to be 60% as comprehensive but 100% do-able. I also took some Chris Thile advice - which was (paraphrased) to ask yourself what you want to sound like, and work to sound like that; i.e. goal oriented focused practice, not just clocking time behind the mando.

I wanted to do it, not just be able to tell myself I was doing it.

I finally realized two things:

For folks with specific musical ambitions, professional or otherwise, a focused, structured practice makes sense. A lot of sense.

For the overwhelming majority of us, look:

just get behind the darn thing every day, work on the stuff you are not good at, (different for everyone), play with other people regularly at jams or in a band, and enjoy the journey.

So for the past many years that is what I have done. I took all the pressure off - I just play a lot, work on what's hard for me, and the only thing I am obsessive about is that I do something on the mandolin every day.

[JeffD]

Work on the stuff that most gets in the way of forward progress first. I think for most folks its a challenge just getting behind the mandolin every day. So hey, work on that.

[Mark Wilson]

I don't have a hard structure but these are weekly goal items

Learn a new song. Learn something in a different style now and again
Learn various backing rhythms and practice rhythm playing daily
Find another neck position to play your favorite chords
Learn something new music theory wise - a little here and there and you begin to piece it together w/o laboring over it
Learn new keys and progressions
Take time to learn to be as precise as you can be. Practice something slowly everyday listening for precision
Once you 'start' to get things up to speed remember that playing slowly and precisely is still the best learning tool(imo)

Find time to pick up twice a day if possible. Even if for short 20 min. late night or early morning. Or lunch time

[hucklebilly]

Work on the stuff that most gets in the way of forward progress first.

This is excellent advice, the problem is how to know what is getting in the way? Sometimes we think we know stuff better than we do, and sometimes we forget the things that we told ourselves we needed to work on. What's the solution? Well one thing I've found is ANKI intelligent flashcards. This sounds kind of geeky, but it really works. You can download the program for free and keep track of what you need to work on. It even has a record function so you can record a lick that you want to remember. But the best part is that depending on how well you do, you can set the card to come up again sooner or later, so the stuff you have cold won't be presented to you as often as the stuff you have to work on. So when a card comes up, let's say its an E7 argeggio in all positions. If I can nail that 3 times in a row flawlessly, then I hit "easy" and I won't see that card for awhile. If it's the lick in a fiddle tune I"m learning and I think I know it but I flub it the second time around, I hit "hard" and the card will come up again sooner. You can make various decks for various things you are working on, and as I said, it's free.

[Bill McCall]

One thought is to find a system, whatever it is for you, and at least stay with that. a lot better than 'new method of the week, month, etc.

[Darren Bailey]

I try to run through every fiddle tune and break I can remember most days for fear of forgetting some. I also try to learn something new every week - whether it's a break, just a riff, the chords to a new song - anything, but so long as I have new stuff I'm always excited to play. Sadly I'm up at 6-25 every day and don't get home until six in the evening so I don't have the time to spend on my playing like some of the above. I guess I should move to New York and improvise jazz!

[JeffD]

I had a lot to say on this, so I put it here.

[farmerjones]

Any instrument is so much like a language, here's my take:
You say you already play among others so that is taken care of. A language won't stick unless it is spoken.
Whatever the gang plays that sticks in your mind that is what you should pursue. Technique will come with the songs/tunes.
In the first twenty tunes there is only so much technique. But in the next 50, is where things gradually gel, yet it gels it context.
I personally do very few drills or repetitions. I do work on ruff spots but I don't dwell for long because that can lead to stopping. Stopping is a bad, bad habit. Lastly, don't feel bad about loosing tunes. It all counts.

[Shelagh Moore]

Another 5h45 to 18h00 worker in a demanding job here including commute. So my "practice" (such as it is) is working on elements of pieces that interest me. I have never practiced scales, etc. and have no inclination to do so (but have been playing 45 years by ear so I suppose have acquired an "approach" and technique naturally). What I prefer to work on is expression and feel of a piece. I think the most important element of any routine, whatever works for you, is to enjoy playing.

[jeromie]

I struggle with finding an effective practice routine, too. Part of my problem is that I lack a certain musical self-awareness. When I'm struggling with a particular song or exercise, it can be difficult to identify why I'm struggling. Is it because I can't sight read music fast enough to play at my current tempo? Is it because my fingers just aren't used to working in this particular key? Is there something about my fundamental approach to the instrument that is holding me back?

A good teacher can help with questions like these, of course, but I don't have one at the moment so I'm left to fumble through on my own. And when I get through a particular passage or exercise, I'm left wondering: did I really address the fundamentals issue that was holding me back or did I make mental/physical shortcuts that allowed me to fudge it for this piece? Will the work I just put in really help me be a better mandolinist?

My uncertainty around the efficacy of my exercises makes it difficult to stick with one thing long enough to really master it. For me to have discipline with a practice routine, I have to be sure it works.

Partly for this reason, my time with the mandolin is somewhat modular. I may or may not do the same thing each time I sit down, but here are some of the elements that frequently occur in my practices:

Scale / arpeggio exercises, with a metronome (currently from The Complete Mandolinist)
Working on chords / chord progressions
Working on a new tune (most frequently from the Fiddler's Fakebook)
Focusing on the timing / rhythm of a song I know (e.g. playing Bach's Prelude to Cello Suite I with a metronome and counting the beats aloud)
Noodling (I'm not sure how much better this makes me, but I do have fun and try to listen to the way certain intervals sound.)

[SincereCorgi]

I always think of an interview I read with fitness expert Jack Lalanne, who said he changed his workout every so often so he wouldn't get bored. I think that's a good approach to practice, too... you might always work on arpeggios, for instance, but there are a lot of different ways to work on arpeggios. Lately I use a reminder app on my phone called 'Balanced' to remind me of oddball things I wanted to work on in my practice. I'll do a few for a week (say, 'practice chromatic glisses with target notes') then change out the ones that have gotten better for something new.

[Toni Schula]

Hi Aurafjord,

Welcome to the cafe.

I found the following statement on clawhammerbanjo / brainjo - but it is universal for all types of instruments:

"The primary purpose of practice is to provide your brain the data it needs to build a neural network"

The idea is, that you need to feed your brain the right inputs and let it do the rest for you. I will start a new thread here to share the link.

[Aurafjord]

Thank you everybody. The only thing that I can really say as I explore what it actually consists of, is how much I enjoy practicing. I'm working in a garden in Quebec for the summer, and my mandolin came along for the journey. The finesse of the instrument, which I'm sure all of you can connect to and are probably grinning about right now, makes me feel like a craftsman as I run through fiddle tunes on the front porch. I'm not sure what I will get out of my practice down the road, how I will improve more as a player and as a musician, but for now, it is one of my favorite activities in the world. I suppose that I'm sculpting a ritual or a meditation, rather than a simple practice, something that I will be able to take with me as I grow older.

I'm looking forward to your thread Bauzl.

Cheers, Edward