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Thread: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

  1. #1
    Registered User zak borden's Avatar
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    Default Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    As we head into the colder months, a lot of students have been wanting to really focus their practice time. So I wrote up a list of a few primary strategies I've used over the years.

    I'd love to hear from folks on the forum about what works for you! Have at it.

    My list:
    8 WAYS TO GET MORE FROM YOUR PRACTICE TIME

    Happy Pickin'!

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    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Well written. I like your style of explaining.

    My only comment is what I learned from bitter experience. A too organized too too proscriptional practice time just doesn't get it done. I have found that a practice regime that is 70% effective but do-able and fun, is much better than the 100% effecient effective regime that I try and just get through. The clue if I am watching the clock.

    So now I have settled on a one thing at a time routine. So for example, after warming up, I might work on a tune I am trying to learn, noodle some, and then finish with something I know real well. Then tomorrow, or next practice, after warming up I will work on those arpeggios and scales and finger busting exercises, from some method book usually, then noodle some, and then finish with something I know real well. Next practice after warming up I might work on strumming and right hand stuff, then noodle some and play something I know real well.

    The deal is I don't try and do everything in one practice, as long as I know it will all get done. Its like a sandwich, where the meat is the one thing I focus on, between warming up and noodling. And I always cool down with something I know real well, for dessert, so I walk away feeling good about my playing.

    The only rigor involved is that a day doesn't go by that I am not behind the mandolin.
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  5. #3
    Registered User zak borden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Thanks Jeff D. Your point about trying to do everything in one session is well taken. Excellent point. The daily activities list was just meant as a loose example of how you might break up your time. If "noodle for a while" works for you, there's one of your activities. And I agree that you gotta mix it up and keep it fresh. So these tips are not intended to be too strict or regimental. Rather, just a few ways one might bring their attention back to the moment and really savor and digest each activity completely. And for goodness sake, yes: "have fun." That goes without saying. It's music after all.

    Thanks a bunch for the feedback. I appreciate it.

    -Zak

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    Well written. I like your style of explaining.

    My only comment is what I learned from bitter experience. A too organized too too proscriptional practice time just doesn't get it done. I have found that a practice regime that is 70% effective but do-able and fun, is much better than the 100% effecient effective regime that I try and just get through. The clue if I am watching the clock.

    So now I have settled on a one thing at a time routine. So for example, after warming up, I might work on a tune I am trying to learn, noodle some, and then finish with something I know real well. Then tomorrow, or next practice, after warming up I will work on those arpeggios and scales and finger busting exercises, from some method book usually, then noodle some, and then finish with something I know real well. Next practice after warming up I might work on strumming and right hand stuff, then noodle some and play something I know real well.

    The deal is I don't try and do everything in one practice, as long as I know it will all get done. Its like a sandwich, where the meat is the one thing I focus on, between warming up and noodling. And I always cool down with something I know real well, for dessert, so I walk away feeling good about my playing.

    The only rigor involved is that a day doesn't go by that I am not behind the mandolin.

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Good seasoned advice! I can relate to the slow it down part. Into my second year and wanting to play everything faster without spending the effort to work it in first. Even tho I've used my tuner app now and then - I just got a metronome to sit/stay where I practice and it tells me I need to revisit a lot of what I thought I'd learned. Slowly this time

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    I love the "slow it down" advice. Even after all the time I have been playing and practicing I forget that part. It's critical. If you can play it perfectly slow, the speed will come. It isn't a race, so take your time! Thank you, Zak, for a well written guide.

  8. #6

    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Nice list of points to consider, Zak! Thanks for posting it -- I would add that each of us needs to adapt any approach to practicing so that it fits our individual life. You give an outline of times that suggests a person has an hour of solid practice time. For some that's not realistic and so for them perhaps a half-hour wisely used will work better instead of stressing about having to find a full hour free.

    But your outline and list of points is something we all would do well to remember.

  9. #7
    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Well explained. I especially like #4
    I also do the analytic slowing-down approach for zooming in on clams that normally rush past too fast to comprehend.

    My major deviation lies in #3 - if I devote 1/3 of the time in learning a new tune, I learn it alright, but I destroy ten other older tunes on the way (I do ITM where many tunes share similar phrases, and the danger of derailing into another tune in mid-play grows with the square of the number of tunes you know). I have come to let a new tune trickle in over days, sometimes weeks by doing a few measures of it for, say, 5 minutes and then return to similar older tunes for half an hour to keep them intact.
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    Registered User David Smith's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Emory Lester once told me "speed is earned".
    "A man is rich in proportion to the number of things he can afford to leave alone."

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    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    And I always cool down with something I know real well, for dessert, so I walk away feeling good about my playing.

    The only rigor involved is that a day doesn't go by that I am not behind the mandolin.
    I do the same thing. There have been many nights that I've gone to bed frustrated or mad because I was working on something difficult all the way to the end of my nightly mandolin time, and ended up feeling like my evening was a failure because I didn't get any sense of satisfaction at the end. So I learned that I'm a much happier mandolin player if I do the difficult stuff about mid-way through my practice time, but then end it with a few tunes that I know well and are fun to play.

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    I think that I have played two to four hours every day since purchasing my first reasonably good mando roughly eleven years ago. It is now a habit and I do learn new techniques. But the one thing I do not do is schedule "practice time". That, for me, would become a chore, like washing dishes. Instead I may select tune which suggests a particular rhythm or technique which I may feel deficient in and focus on that tune until I feel I am competent. And once I feel competent I will use that technique as tunes demand it. I find even the term "practice" offensive, so if I use the term "play" and the term "want" as opposed to the term "need".

    As an amateur my leaning is a matter of desire, not duty or obligation. And that is how I like it. Granted it is an inefficient learning technique but it works for me and that is the way I like it.

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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Quote Originally Posted by Tobin View Post
    There have been many nights that I've gone to bed frustrated or mad because I was working on something difficult all the way to the end of my nightly mandolin time, and ended up feeling like my evening was a failure because I didn't get any sense of satisfaction at the end.
    They say eating and boozing too close to bedtime gives you bad dreams. I guess the same applies for practising.
    the world is better off without bad ideas, good ideas are better off without the world

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    btw Zac - Enjoyed reading your blog.

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    I just love that music has so much irony, that regimentation leads ultimately to improvisation, that the freedom we feel when expressing a phrase is the result of locking ourselves away in a room to practice. Thanks Zac et. al., I'm going to buckle down now and be free!

  17. #14
    Registered User zak borden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Thanks for all the good feedback and for joining in the thread folks. JDH touched on a really good point. There is **freedom in limitation**. I'm always reminding myself and my students of this. Ideally, creating a focused practice time shouldn't be about strict discipline, being tough, difficult or hemming yourself in. It's the opposite. Hopefully you just give yourself a clear chunk of focused quiet time to listen to what's really happening with each activity. If we stumble into each thing we practice already "talking" then it's hard to hear what's actually being said. That's all.

    As my mom used to say when I was a teenager: "I wish you could hear your tone of voice right now." : )

    Just a thought. New video on improvisation coming soon!

    -z

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    Quote Originally Posted by jdh View Post
    I just love that music has so much irony, that regimentation leads ultimately to improvisation, that the freedom we feel when expressing a phrase is the result of locking ourselves away in a room to practice. Thanks Zac et. al., I'm going to buckle down now and be free!

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    What works for me is not to become too rigid. I do some scales, some improvisation, some songs I like, some right hand technique. Sometimes I devote an entire practice session to a particular aspect of my playing. One day it could be double stops, the next it can be picking techniques, etc.

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Here are my three suggestions, as rules suck. I've found they really help to get through plateaus.

    1. Fifteen minutes a day every day is better than a single three hour stretch on Saturday.

    2. Better to practice with the TV blaring than not to practice at all.

    3. When you're too tired to practice, pick it up and fall asleep with it in your easy chair.

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    Mando-Accumulator Jim Garber's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Thanks, Zak! nice perspective... Re: #1... do you have any specific suggestions for warm up exercises?
    Jim

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    I am behind the mandolin every single day. I don't "practice" every day. I have two jams a week and one or two group practices (OT Charlie Poole band and/or quartet), during the week. The days I don't jam or practice with a group I do my own woodshed practice, as described above. I probably do that twice or three times a week.

    My only rule that unless there is a DGR (darn good reason), I am behind the mandolin every day.
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    Registered User Petrus's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Just reiterating some of what's been noted above. Music is very analogous to learning a foreign language. You have to put it into practical use frequently or you get rusty. A little bit regularly is better than a lot of practice with long stretches of nothing in between.

    I have several different instruments, not just mandos, and I frequently switch back and forth to make practice more interesting. Most of my instruments are tuned GDAE so that basic fingering and chords remains the same across instruments.

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    Registered User zak borden's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Quote Originally Posted by Jim Garber View Post
    Thanks, Zak! nice perspective... Re: #1... do you have any specific suggestions for warm up exercises?
    Heya Jim,

    I do a mix of things. I had a big breakthrough a good while back with technique by just spending solid time everyday with Mike Marshall's "Fingerbusters." I highly recommend this book. His thinking is that you start with non-musical exercises that just get your hands limbered up and in sync with each other. Lots of good crosspicky things. There's a lot of repeating 2 notes back and forth too: G A G A G A - A B A B A B etc. This really keeps your picking and fretting hand in sync. Then you can focus on economy too. I tend to like playing chromatic stuff (every half step) - making sure you have the right fingering: generally 2 frets per finger.

    Then I also really dig just playing a simple melody - fiddle tune or standard - nice and easy and super clear. And just work on listening - checking in with tone and relaxation.

    Hope that helps.
    z

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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Zak I think what you are providing is just the right tone. Very useful when one wants to hear it.

    I understand that not everyone has the same commitment or the same goals, or the same starting place or the same unstructured time. And its good that there are resources like your column for to help folks figure out how to proceed. Whether they do or not.

    But I have to share how gigantic regular practice is. Just commiting to getting behind the instrument every day, and some small steps in the direction of working on the trouble spots, it makes an astounding difference. Not a small difference, a huge difference. My experience is that the gains in raw technical ability that result from just the decision to take it seriously and just do something useful every day, even if its not the perfect effecient effective thing... the results are ALL OUT OF PROPORTION to the effort invested. It is crazy addicting when one starts to see results. Crazy.

    It feels like you are on a train when it just starts moving. There is even this little panic, I am serious, that little panic that says: this motion is not going to be easily stopped, I hope the rest of my life is ready to accomodate - for this train is moving and we are trusting that as this thing picks up speed, track in front of us will be clear.
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    but that's just me Bertram Henze's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Quote Originally Posted by zak borden View Post
    G A G A G A
    I think I can see where this is going...
    Sorry, couldn't resist

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    It feels like you are on a train when it just starts moving. There is even this little panic, I am serious, that little panic that says: this motion is not going to be easily stopped, I hope the rest of my life is ready to accomodate - for this train is moving and we are trusting that as this thing picks up speed, track in front of us will be clear.
    I feel like this often when I start leading a set in a session (not just a train, make it a rollercoaster) but never while practising. I wish I could get my daily dose of adrenaline that easy.
    Last edited by Bertram Henze; Oct-13-2014 at 1:41pm.
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    Middle-Aged Old-Timer Tobin's Avatar
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    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Quote Originally Posted by JeffD View Post
    But I have to share how gigantic regular practice is. Just commiting to getting behind the instrument every day, and some small steps in the direction of working on the trouble spots, it makes an astounding difference. Not a small difference, a huge difference. My experience is that the gains in raw technical ability that result from just the decision to take it seriously and just do something useful every day, even if its not the perfect effecient effective thing... the results are ALL OUT OF PROPORTION to the effort invested. It is crazy addicting when one starts to see results. Crazy.
    That was stated very well, and I agree 100%. It is why I make myself play every single day, unless there are serious mitigating circumstances. Actually, the term "make myself" is inaccurate. I love to play. What I mean is that I have to make room in my schedule to play every single day.

    I can tell a big difference when I miss a day. It is like any other finely-honed skill; it requires dedication and upkeep. Both mentally and physically. And like you said, the results really do speak for themselves. Taking a casual approach to playing the mandolin is going to yield only acceptable results. But taking it seriously as an avocation, and being dedicated to it, will pay off huge. It's still going to take years and years to master, of course. But daily exposure will have exponential results in terms of hand-eye-ear coordination.

    In other words, a guy who spends 1 hour a day, for 1 year, will be much farther along than the guy who spends 1 hour every other day over 2 years.

  30. #24

    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    I can finally call it "practice" now. For years it's actually been Sanctuary.
    I'm also in the "every day" club. Not mentioned so much, but if you're going to play in public, it behooves one to also rehearse, or essentially practice (closely simulate) playing as one would in public. Obviously, if one is just learning how to run said instrument, this comes later. But don't hide your lamp under a bushel for too long.

  31. #25

    Default Re: Ways to Get More From Your Practice Time?

    Zak great link!

    my teacher Jordon taught me the same-listening carefully when one practices, a perfect quarter note, played in perfect time, with perfect tone and sustain/decay, etc.

    it IS highly effective

    and I do this now-and the tortuous slow metronome, which I find a lot more difficult than trying to play at 220 BPM.

    I find that the routine makes me far more mindful and focused,
    the 'simple' warm up routine helps me leave all the other thoughts and distractions floating around in my head.

    and then, the execution /practice becomes ingrained. It is NOT free thought time, it is focus time, but I always enjoy it.
    Its like anything, you have to do it to get it.

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