One way to keep a Practice Journal

[Gtrfinger]

I hope you dont mind me leaving this here -

I've refined my way over the last year of incorporating the structure of music practice within a dotted journal. Dotted or bullet journals have become very popular though I've no use for these prettily covered things - its simply a tool, nothing more. It is actually much easier in principle than it sounds here.

It's an expansion of an idea I heard about from David Russell the classical guitarist.

I have used for many years the "Practice Zone" concepts originated by Gerald Klickstein in his book The Musicians Way. New pieces, pieces in Development, Performance pieces, Technique pieces. These all need a different method of approach as outlined in Mr Klickstein's book. There should only be really about 3 pieces in the 'New' section, and Mr Klickstein recommends the same for Development, though I have pushed that a little over the years, often having 7-9 in the Development Stage.

There are three trackers;

a) the New/Development pieces,
b) Performance
c) Technique

The system is clearly customizable, but essentially on the X axis, across the top of a two page spread, there is the date. I don't fill in all the dates, I just put the date in when I practice. I know I should practice every day, and I would love to, but work gets in the way.

I suppose I could fill out every day but it'd waste paper. But then again, maybe, it would motivate me to practice technique everyday?

In any case, on the Y axis, one writes in the names of the pieces.

In the New/Dev tracker I give each segment 2x2 squares. This gives more space to enter info. There are symbols I use for, eg.
More work needed (a triangle)
Fingering problem (F)
Memorise these bars (M)
Can play fine with score (S)
Tempo played at (NUMBER IN A CIRCLE)
Etc.

However, and this is the important bit, more often than not, my review of this little practice session on that piece, where it's failing and how it can be improved, can not be filled in on a 2x2 square, (with only 5mm per square), with a bunch of symbols.

In that instance, I draw an arrow to a page number within the journal where I can freely write with no constraints on space, what will become my 'Playing Notes'.
The journal can be used solely for this purpose or not. It makes no odds, because it's indexed the same.


This means that if I have still not learned the piece fully (so that it's transferred to Performance) and I've been practicing other pieces for a few weeks, when I return to the unlearned piece of music I can look back over the tracker, where the playing notes for that piece are all succinctly indexed within that journal (and other journals).

This means I'll never be lost or forget that I used my middle finger instead of my ring finger for example on certain bars. Or what tempo I played the piece at the last time I practiced it. Or which were the problem bars, because there's no point repeating the bits one already knows.

I can see that on a certain date I was able to play a particular set of bars, or the whole piece at 72bpm, a week later, at 90bpm, and that I'm aiming to work up to 110bpm.

When a piece passes from New to Developing, because these pieces are all on the same page, I put a marker on the title on the left hand column, either with a highlighter, or put a square around it.

When a piece passes from Developing to Performance, in the segment where I last practiced it, I put an end sign (the musical symbol, and an arrow to the Performance tracker page).

The Performance tracker works similarly; however, I only use one square per practice segment per day, obviously because there are much more pieces within this section than any other.

I can see which pieces need more work, what tempo they were played at etc. If the Performance pieces need further playing notes (and they shouldn't really, otherwise they should be returned to the New/Dev tracker) then I indicate with a coda symbol, that the playing notes will be found on the above date along the X axis, (because there's no room to enter an arrow and page number on a single 5mm square).

If the Performance piece is played fine, then I just enter a tick in the relevant square. Some performance pieces are memorized, others can only be played with the score. In that case, the title of the piece itself down the left hand side on the Y axis is labelled somehow, either by putting a square around it, or with a highlighting pen such that I can see immediately which out of the many dozens of pieces I play need memorising more fully.

For the Technique tracker, I've been using exercises from Kitharologus for a while, and these are easily listed on the Y axis. I tend to fill in tempo in a single square.

However you can use whichever Technique exercises you see fit. Tarrega exercises are good for cross string picking, Guiliani exercises are freely available online and are excellent for the right hand.

However, whilst going through the New/Dev pieces, there are invariably passages that are more tricky than others. We can break these down. More often than not the difficulties with certain passages are not because of a whole sequence of bars, but rather with a single, or couple of fingering problems, whether left hand or right, in only one or two bars.

Where this occurs, I've been marking on the left margin of the journal an indicator, I use a crotchet with an arrow attached to the top, to mark this as a technique issue. I write the troublesome bar out, fully, in the journal. This will of course be indexed in the tracker as to the page it's on. It only takes a minute to write out a bar of music in a dotted journal.

These 'hard parts' of the pieces I am learning, can then become technique exercises.
And thereby be transferred to the Technique tracker. This then becomes ones personalized technique tracker, honing the problem areas in the New and Developing pieces section, expediting their progress to the Performance section. Which is what it's all about.

For example I can play pretty much all of The Entertainer, but there's one part, one single change, that's troubled me for years. I don't need to reference it specifically because I know it's the only problematic bit. So on the Y axis of the Technique tracker, I can just write Entertainer, and I'll know which part I'm referring to.

However, the Yama****a arrangement of Gnomus by Mussorgsky, presents five problem areas.
These are just entered separately on the Y axis, as 'Gnom (a), Gnom (b)...' etc.

Sometimes, the technique passage should be tracked individually during a practice session. In this case, I go to my current day in the journal and fill out accordingly.

I just fill out a mini tracker for that one passage in that single practice session
The bar (s) is played through once. Very slowly. If it's played correctly I can mark in one square the tempo. If it's not, I place a cross, lower the tempo and try again till it's right. You then have the starting tempo. I will work across the whole line and then maybe another line until I can start raising the tempo.
And this page of course, is indexed back in the Technique tracker with the symbol in the correct square denoting where in the journal I'll find what I practiced, and how.

I know this all sounds quite complicated, but in reality, it's very simple and has increased my productivity and progress immensely. Sometimes I can get away with 10 mins technique practice a day, other times when I've more time, I can spend several hours working on New pieces. It's totally customised to your music progress.

[Matthutch]

This is indeed a lot of info but has given me a really clear starting point of reading the book. Thanks!

[rmoretti49]

Yes, the idea seems interesting, but it is too difficult to try to "see" it from the description. Image examples would work a lot better, if you have the time.

[rllink]

You've certainly put a lot of thought into it. I'm glad that it is working for you.