Organizing My Practice Time - Using GiJM

[Jkf_Alone]

I just got Getting into Jazz Mandolin and John McGann's melodic variations book for Christmas. These books are my first jump into intermediate /advanced instruction, and I was wondering how best to set up my practice time to get the most benefit.

As I have 1 to 1.5 hours to practice a day i was thinking;

- 30 minutes Getting into ... - working systematically through.
- 30 minutes Melodic Variations - working 1 song at a time from bones to full
With Additional / Down Time a Combination of
- Singing and Playing - Practice for mid week YG worship music
- Working on old tunes , Learning new tunes
- Playing with CD's
- Sight Reading (Usually Hymns)
- Noodling (usually fooling around with tremolo and double stops)

Should I break this up? Only do 1 book at a time? It seems to me that both books work well together, and are different enough in approach to keep me interested.

[JeffD]

I would put a five to ten minute warm up at the beginning - it REALLY helps me - in two ways: one is I warm up on exercises and tunes I know, so I feel confident right from the start, and two I am more likey to start practice I start on something am confident on.

I would put 10 minutes noodling at the back end every time - just to end on a fun, confident note, and lick the wounds caused by the difficult stuff just gone through.

[Jim Nollman]

I have a worthy regimen based around an ipod that now contains over 400 tunes, with new ones being added and old ones being subtracted all the time. I continually make new playlists to confront current learning challenges. A new playlist may contain: tunes all in the same key, all in the same genre, or songs all in same time (waltzes, etc).

I only use one earbud so the free ear can hear what I'm playing on my mandolin in response. The nice thing about the ipod is that you can stick it in a pocket and move around as you play, but also quickly turn it on and off to nail a difficult part, or even rewind slightly, etc. I've been learning tunes at a much faster rate since I started using this method.

[Jkf_Alone]

JeffD
I've been using the ffcp as a warm up for a while now, so I figured I would continue that practice with the GiJM book, but add in some of the other exersizes included there.

Beluga
I'm not really looking to learn tunes, more technique, theory, and improvisational concepts right now. I probably only learn 1 to 3 tunes a month on mandolin, mostly with a combination of tab / sheet music / ear. I have an mp3 player, so I'll try your suggestion. right now I use my laptop with that slow down on windows media player.

[Mike Bunting]

Incorporating the metronome into the routine would be extremely beneficial.

[Jkf_Alone]

yeah, since i got one of those wind up metronomes, I use it a lot more. My electronic one was ok, but annoying. I should probably just use a metronome with everything during my practice time, so hard sometimes to turn it on

[Jkf_Alone]

My observations (1 night of using this routine)

- haven't used the metronome enough lately with single note playing. Also have a hard time playing 8th notes below 80bpm

- Should use the McGann book before the GiJM book. Play a few old tunes before getting serious.

- Should stop noodling when I get frustrated, It's not helpful.

- Should make Back-up tracks on guitar for the McGann Book


Observations about the books themselves

- GiJM a lot of great exersizes, arpeggios especially interesting so far. Hard work to make some exercises sound musical, but good for me. stretches in FFCP easier & more benificial if I warm up with something easier first (thanks JeffD)

- Melodic Variations What I've always wanted to know about melody and embellishment is very clearly explained. At first I thought that having the melody broken up over 4 pages would be an issue, but it forced me to learn the tune in phrases, as opposed to A part , B part.