No matter which instrument you are learning, you will progress faster and more effectively:
1. Treat your instrument like a good friend and maintain contact!
This is the most important prerequisite for mutual success. Only together are you a team and you have to work together to achieve musical success!
2. Practice awake!
If you sit down tired at your instrument, to put it mildly, nothing will stick in your head!
3. Make practicing a fixed part of your daily routine
such as meals and other regular activities that you would never do without.
4. use a practice plan
and enter when and for how long you practiced. At the end of the week, you will be proud of how much you have achieved. If you are taking lessons, your teacher will also be pleased to see that you are staying on the ball.
5. set yourself small daily goals
according to the motto: less is more. Practicing a specific part will help you progress faster than trying to practice everything at once.
6. practice according to the parameter principle
Think about which topics (parameters) you can work on individually. E.G: Tempo, dynamics, independence of the hands, articulation, individual musical lines, singing, rhythm, posture, memorization, transitions, technical difficulties, etc.
7th role play: Be your own teacher
Try to listen with the ears of a master and correct your posture and movements with the eyes of a teacher. Look for suggestions for improvement, remember your last lesson, be self-critical and praise yourself for small successes.
8. practice with exaggerations
Automation takes place in different areas of the brain. If certain movements still don’t work, practise in slow motion and move from large, exaggerated movements (gross motor skills) in slow motion back to small movements (fine motor skills) at a faster pace. Exaggerate with dynamics, deliberately set contrasts, accents….
9. prick up your ears
Listening carefully while practicing is half the battle! The information that passes through your ears while you are playing reaches your brain in a fraction of a second. This is where an assessment of the success or failure of your exercise should take place and a call to improve and continue practicing should be made. (Cf. with point 7)
10. Practicing flying blind
Leaving out one sense, in this case sight, strengthens the work of the other senses (touch, feeling, hearing) Have fun practicing certain areas with your eyes blindfolded or closed. It becomes particularly exciting when estimating interval or chord leaps (especially for pianists).
11th card trick – practicing at random
Make practice cards of your piece of music and turn them into a practice memory. For beginners: cut out 1 to 2 bar sections that belong together. For advanced students with longer pieces: division into phrases. Shuffle the cards and pick one, which you then practise. Completed cards are placed in the mastered pile, all others are placed in the to-do pile. Once you have practiced all the cards, try to put them together in the correct order. Advantages of this method: “Darned” places no longer slip through the cracks. You get out of the bad habit of practicing from front to back and get to know the whole piece more quickly,
12. the pencil trick
3 pencils are lying to your left. You set yourself the goal of completing a note three times in a row without making any mistakes. If the spot folds, place a pencil to the right. If it doesn’t work the next time, put the pencil back to the left. Don’t lose your patience! If all 3 pencils are on the right, rejoice, praise yourself and switch to another practice position.
13. care the end
Change direction when practicing! Practice from back to front and you’ll also catch those bars that you haven’t even looked at yet. Aha effect! (grin)
14. speed booster
Technically demanding passages that can already be performed at a slow tempo can be brought up to a faster tempo through rhythmization. For example, you can play individual groups of notes at a faster tempo, but have regular pauses for breath on “waiting notes”.
Example: In runs with 4 chains of 16th notes, the first 16th note is stopped and the other 3 16th notes are played at a fast tempo. This is also the case with the 2, 3. and 4th sixteenth. Or: 4 semiquavers fast tempo, 4 semiquavers half tempo alternating. Then use a metronome to check how quickly and confidently you can now master your passages at a faster tempo. With scales and runs, you can always “add” one more note to the tempo until the passage is complete. Once again, less (speed) is more! Reach your pace goal on a safe, continuous path.
15. Become free and courageous in your musical expression. Feel like a great artist.
Let your imagination run wild while practicing, let the music speak and invent a story to go with your music. Everything is allowed – music is something magical, from sunsets to brave superheroes! Put all your feelings into your interpretation! Be a storyteller or a magician.
16. feel inside yourself
How does your body feel when you practise? Are you tense? Are you breathing regularly, are you holding your breath with exertion or are you already gasping for breath? Are there any blockages? Then put the instrument aside for a moment, take a deep breath several times and relax your muscles. Check your hand, arm and body posture.
17. explore your piece of music like a building
What is the architecture of the piece? Where are there target points, highlights, repetitions etc.?
18. do not practice for too long at a time
After 45 minutes at the latest, you get tired, your concentration wanes and your muscles tire. A break is required.
19. rejoice in accomplishments
Sometimes progress is slow. It is then all the more important to be happy about what has already been successfully achieved.
20 Make practicing as interesting and varied as possible. Try it out and you’ll see: This makes practicing even more fun and helps you reach your goal faster!
Yours, Iris Wirth-Halbherr