When Is The Best Time To Practice What?
When is the best time to practice? Should you practice first thing, before you do anything? Should you practice in the middle of the day, full of energy? Or perhaps in the evening, when there is an opportunity to relax? Or how about late at night? It is the middle of the night, should I practice now? (headphones please!) And what should you practice? Scales? Songs? Reading? Performing? Exercises? And when should you practice them?
I am going to try practicing as the first thing I do when I awake so that my mind has not had a chance get cluttered with the day's activities. I am trading off that I will not be at any peak in energy (I keep waiting and waiting to experience that peak in energy!)
I am going to practice my technique specifically during these morning sessions. This includes scales, Hanon exercises and salsa exercises as well. These exercises will also be practiced in different keys. Variations will include introducing increasingly complex phrasing - such combinations of staccato, legato, forte etc - into the exercises. The metaphor here perhaps would be of an athelete training for a competition.
The Evening
I am working most days so can only really practice again in the evening. I am going to work on learning a new piece of music. It could be a new jazz standard, a solo from the Charlie Parker OmniBook or a Oscar Peterson transcription, a Stevie Wonder tune, preparing for a session, etc. And then transpose some of these songs into new keys too. The objective is to force the mind to keep learning new structures. Another benefit will be improved sight reading.
Missing from this regimen is actually making music! That is, practice performing and expressing music. This is the most key. In May, I will most likely be getting a steady gig 3 evenings a week (maybe even 6!) playing jazz in a duo and so will have lots of performance time then! In the interim, I have a few gigs here and there and must perform in the recording studio every couple of days.
Is there any methods/schemes out there already that consider these types of things? I'm going to look around.
...Chopin for breakfast?...
The MorningI am going to try practicing as the first thing I do when I awake so that my mind has not had a chance get cluttered with the day's activities. I am trading off that I will not be at any peak in energy (I keep waiting and waiting to experience that peak in energy!)
I am going to practice my technique specifically during these morning sessions. This includes scales, Hanon exercises and salsa exercises as well. These exercises will also be practiced in different keys. Variations will include introducing increasingly complex phrasing - such combinations of staccato, legato, forte etc - into the exercises. The metaphor here perhaps would be of an athelete training for a competition.
The Evening
I am working most days so can only really practice again in the evening. I am going to work on learning a new piece of music. It could be a new jazz standard, a solo from the Charlie Parker OmniBook or a Oscar Peterson transcription, a Stevie Wonder tune, preparing for a session, etc. And then transpose some of these songs into new keys too. The objective is to force the mind to keep learning new structures. Another benefit will be improved sight reading.
Missing from this regimen is actually making music! That is, practice performing and expressing music. This is the most key. In May, I will most likely be getting a steady gig 3 evenings a week (maybe even 6!) playing jazz in a duo and so will have lots of performance time then! In the interim, I have a few gigs here and there and must perform in the recording studio every couple of days.
Is there any methods/schemes out there already that consider these types of things? I'm going to look around.
posted by HatHead at 2:07 AM
2 Interludes:
Try "The Perfect Wrong Note" by pianist William Westney. Really well-written, thoughtful, great ideas on practicing and how to make it musical and actually get shit DONE.
Cool...thanks for the title - I will check it out for sure!!
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