Practice time question

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Silly Moustache

Hi Wrighty,



I admire tour playing and your dedication, but this is a hobby.



Why not just play what you like when you like, and just enjoy the experience?



I do remember the great Tim O'brien saying something to the effect that it is better to play for 15 minutes every day than two hours once a week.



On the other hand I recently watched a video about the singer Tony Bennett (94) who has Alzheimers.



He has his pianist visit twice a week and he sings his whole repertoire just to keep them in his memory.



Here's an idea - why not play each number once a week then play a "concert" (whole current repertoire) in the kitchen, lounge alone or to your wife, dog, cat, goldfish once a week or so?



Another tip. When there is always a flub/fumble in a piece don't play the whole thing through again as you might be practicing errors - Stop and play that difficult piece over and over until you beat it, then play al the way through. It is too easy for us to practice errors!

Great to see you over this side of the forum divide Andy, didn’t know you hung out in this here sub forum!

Of course, you’re right - it’s all just a bit of fun. I just felt I was throwing away my knowledge and felt I ought to try harder to keep some :-)

Keep well.

[redir]

I do think that everyone has to kind of find out what works for them personally. I find that when I am having a hard time on on particular piece or even just a section of it the best thing I can do is put it down and do something else. I come back 3 days later and sometimes just execute it perfectly. I never could understand how that works but it does... For me.

The other thing I have done is created an approach. The first thing I do when learning a piece is go thorough it slowly with the sheet music and just iron out what the left and right hand positions and fingering are going to be. I'm not even thinking of being musical at this stage, just figuring out the technique. Then I begin to separate out the voices and make it more musical sometimes I will simply play the melody over and over again to help that be more strident when adding in the other voices. Then I reach the point where muscle memory has all the fingering down, I have worked on the musical approach, where there will be some rubato, accent, softness and so on. Then I try and polish it up so I can perform it and play it error-ish free.

So that's essentially 3 stages.

1) study the music, the mathematics of it
2) Work on making it musical
3) polish it up

So while I am doing stage 1 I also am working on two other pieces in stage 2 and stage 3 respectively.

So it's like a rotation. I am always introducing a new piece, working on one, and polishing another one up.

Then I always make time, usually at the end of a practice session, to stay current with the old stuff.

Another good suggest in any given stage except perhaps the polishing up one, is to start learning a piece from the end first. If you start from the beginning then you will play the beginning a hundred times before you get to the middle and the end will always be neglected. If you start at the end then go to the beginning it's a pleasant surprise when you work your way to the end of the piece and already know that part.

[Gitfiddlemann]

Originally Posted by redir

Another good suggest in any given stage except perhaps the polishing up one, is to start learning a piece from the end first. If you start from the beginning then you will play the beginning a hundred times before you get to the middle and the end will always be neglected. If you start at the end then go to the beginning it's a pleasant surprise when you work your way to the end of the piece and already know that part.

I do that. This method gets knocked around in some circles, but I find it works well for me. For the very reasons you state. Also, learning the measures in the same way you would play it, complete with accents, dynamics, ritards etc...
Admittedly, it works in some pieces better than others, depending on the structure, but it's always the way I go about it first.
I learned about this from a David Russell interview, and it's a practice he recommends.

[RodB]

Originally Posted by AndreF

I do that. This method gets knocked around in some circles, but I find it works well for me. For the very reasons you state. Also, learning the measures in the same way you would play it, complete with accents, dynamics, ritards etc...
Admittedly, it works in some pieces better than others, depending on the structure, but it's always the way I go about it first.
I learned about this from a David Russell interview, and it's a practice he recommends.

One of the first things I do with a piece of music, before I pick up the guitar, is to identify the sections. Sometimes repeats with just small variations, or different harmonies. I then learn the individual sections concentrating on the most difficult, before playing through. That achieves similar and a great feeling the 1st time the real-time ‘comp’ takes place.

[OKCtodd71]

Well you're 100% correct that you should spend the majority of your time working on things that need work, but that doesn't mean that you have to abandon what you've already accomplished. Continue to play through pieces you already "have" maybe once a day or alternate even every other day while practicing new material. This can be applied even to new pieces that you're working on as you probably already know. After you've worked through a piece there's often a few difficult spots where you stumble or haven't fully learned. Circle these spots on your sheet music and spend most of your practice time on just those "holes". If you have a technical glitch in mm27, don't start over at the beginning, work specifically on just that issue, then start from mm26 till it's fixed, then play frommm26 to mm28 until mm27 is at the same level as mm1 - 26.
Not that you asked, but......another good device is after you can get (mostly) through a new piece is to play the last measure or phrase, then go back one measure and play to the end, then back another mm and so forth until you get to the beginning. This help prevent the common problem of knowing/mastering the first half of a piece better than the second.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by OKCtodd71

Well you're 100% correct that you should spend the majority of your time working on things that need work, but that doesn't mean that you have to abandon what you've already accomplished. Continue to play through pieces you already "have" maybe once a day or alternate even every other day while practicing new material. This can be applied even to new pieces that you're working on as you probably already know. After you've worked through a piece there's often a few difficult spots where you stumble or haven't fully learned. Circle these spots on your sheet music and spend most of your practice time on just those "holes". If you have a technical glitch in mm27, don't start over at the beginning, work specifically on just that issue, then start from mm26 till it's fixed, then play frommm26 to mm28 until mm27 is at the same level as mm1 - 26.
Not that you asked, but......another good device is after you can get (mostly) through a new piece is to play the last measure or phrase, then go back one measure and play to the end, then back another mm and so forth until you get to the beginning. This help prevent the common problem of knowing/mastering the first half of a piece better than the second.

Good advice - thank you.

[Bob Womack]

I run my practice/playing time in "tracks:" Whatever music I've been given to go in in this week's recording sessions goes onto the fast track. Pieces that I am working up go on the medium-fast track. Pieces I have worked up before and want to keep alive go on the medium track. I actually keep a Christmas track alive so I am not continually loosing my Christmas repertoire.

And finally, there is my playing for personal gratification and catharsis. Unless session work is pressuring me, I actually value this track the most highly. I reserve time for it in my practice sessions. It's a no-pressure time that includes practicing soloing and dropping into "the zone" for soloing. When I emerge from this time I always find the world a happier place. Funny, huh? This is the time that causes my wife to say, "Go play your guitar. You need it!"

Bob

[Gtrfinger]

Gerald Klickstein's book, The Musicians Way, transformed my musical world some years ago when a mate of mine loaned it me and I subsequently bought it. (Must have worked for him as well as he now plays with The Pogues and is in the George Ezra band.)

It's about dividing the music you have into different categories. They require different strategies of learning, depending on where you are with them.

https://www.musiciansway.com/

Since last year, I've been combining these ideas into trackers which I write into a bullet journal. It sounds like a lot of work but it really isn't, it takes minutes to set up, and then you know where you are with all your pieces. It's similar in fact to what David Russell used before he goes on tour.

[Dogsnax]

Practice is such an individual thing and it varies depending on discretionary time available, specific interests/goals, and the all-important "fun" factor. I'm 61 years old and have been playing most of my life and I still look forward to picking up the guitar each and every day. It's important to enjoy practicing.

I have about an hour to play each weekday, more time on the weekends. I have a set of exercises (scales, arpeggios, tremolo, etc) that comprise my practice every other day. I work on existing and new pieces on alternate days. For me, it's all about developing and maintaining the neural pathways that result in a piece I play correctly and in its entirety. New pieces are often slow in development, a few bars at a time. I try to play my completed pieces at least three times each week, while working on a few measures of a new piece on "song days".

We all develop our own practice strategy, so there's no right or wrong. Some practice days are great, others are a struggle, but it's all part of the journey. For me, it's all about enjoyment and keeping my cognitive skills sharp.

[Wrighty]

Originally Posted by Gtrfinger

Gerald Klickstein's book, The Musicians Way, transformed my musical world some years ago when a mate of mine loaned it me and I subsequently bought it. (Must have worked for him as well as he now plays with The Pogues and is in the George Ezra band.)



It's about dividing the music you have into different categories. They require different strategies of learning, depending on where you are with them.



https://www.musiciansway.com/



Since last year, I've been combining these ideas into trackers which I write into a bullet journal. It sounds like a lot of work but it really isn't, it takes minutes to set up, and then you know where you are with all your pieces. It's similar in fact to what David Russell used before he goes on tour.

That’s super interesting, I’ve been toying with improving my practice quality and my journaling of it (from a simple note of time/piece played)

Did you design your own trackers? Care to show me what they look like?