How long should I practice?

Practicing Incentive Program

What should I practice?

Tips for effective practicing
 
  Tired of practicing? Try this!

  Practicing is the single most important part of becoming a successful musician. Students who do not practice regularly will most likely not be successful. Those who do practice regularly will do well.....even if they are not "naturally gifted" musicians. ANY STUDENT can learn to play an instrument, with a little hard work and dedication.
 
 

    How long and how often should you practice? Well, that depends on you and how well you want to do. What I suggest here should be considered the absolute minimum that you should be doing. 4th grade beginners should start out by practicing 10-15 minutes a day, MOST days out of the week (everyday is better, but sometimes not possible.) By December or January you should move that amount up to 15-20 minutes. By June you should be trying to get to 25-30 minutes on at least some of your practicing days. 5th grade students should be practicing between 20-30 minutes most days out of the week. If some days are occasionally shorter, that's OK. But, you should try for at least 20 minutes.

    If you want to do better and move faster, practice more! Two exceptions to that rule - 1) Beginners should NEVER practice for more than a half hour at a time for the first few months. You get tired easily and start to fall into bad habits which will be hard to break. 2) Practicing more than 1 hour at a time is rarely useful for any student at the elementary level. Again, bad habits creep in.
 
 

Incentives

    Every year I run a practicing incentive program. The focus of this program is to encourage effective use of practice time. Although many teachers focus on "how many minutes did you practice?" I have found that this is often not the most useful goal. Instead, we focus on the results of that practice time. Students receive stickers for performing lesson or ensemble music with accurate notes and rhythms, as well as good tone quality and other musical symbols and technique. When students earn stickers (or when the teacher judges a legitimate effort has been made, even if the goal was not completely accomplished that week) students may choose and item from my "goodie box."
 
 

What to Practice

  What each student should practice depends on their level and what they are working towards. All students in grades 4 and 5 have a lesson book assignment to practice each week. Sometimes assignments may be repeated for a week if not all material was covered, or if we worked on something different that day. Once band and orchestra rehearsals begin, students have copies of all music being prepared, and they are responsible for practicing that as well. When pieces are just being learned, students may choose to work on one piece during each practicing session, or they may choose to work on more difficult parts of each piece. That choice is up to the students. Lesson groups or individuals who are moving quickly through the book, or who are well prepared for the concert, may be given solos or small ensemble pieces (duets, trios, etc) to work on in preparation for other performance opportunities or "just for fun." Students will also sometimes have worksheets to finish as part of their homework, and time spent on these may also be included in their practicing time.

    If students are finished with the material they are supposed to work on, or would like more of a challenge, I encourage the purchase of "outside" music, as well. Many companies sell arrangements of childrens' songs, folk songs, movie music, Disney songs, etc. for instrumental students. See the "Links" page of this website for some companies that sell this music.

    Finally, if students want to exercise their creative side, they can practice improvising (making up on the spot) songs using notes they already know. Or they can even try their hand at composing their own songs. Music manuscript paper is available in many music stores, you can google "music staff paper" and print it at home, or the music teacher will be glad to provide some.
 
 

Tips for Practicing

  Every student develops their own practicing style. As time goes on, you learn what things you need to spend extra time on. But, to begin to learn how to practice, I suggest the following steps:
 

1.  Name all of the notes first. Actually take your finger, point to the note and name it ..... out loud! This will help you learn your note names very quickly.
2.  Finger all of the notes. With your instrument, practice finding the fingering (or position) of each note while you think or say it's name.
3.  Check the rhythm. Make sure you know how long each note is supposed to be played. With longer or more difficult rhythms, count and/or clap the rhythms before you try to play.
4.  Play through the song. Try to play the song (or section, if it is band music) without stopping, even if you have to go very slowly and end up making lots of mistakes. Try not to repeat notes, stop or go back to the beginning.
5.  Work on the hard parts. - Think about which measures or note combinations were difficult or where you made mistakes. Instead or spending time on the whole song, work on just those hard spots until you can get them right.
6.  Play the song again. Work on playing those hard spots right, or closer to right this time. If you played very slowly the first time, then try it just a little bit faster this time.
7.  Repeat steps as needed. If you have trouble remembering the names, go back to step 1. If you keep forgetting fingerings, go back to 2. If you have it all figured out, then just go back to 6.

    Each time you practice, go through these steps. As you get more advanced, you may be able to leave off steps 1 and 2. (although I still use finger practicing myself, after all the years I have been playing. It's a good practice technique....especially if there are people or babies SLEEPING when you want to practice!) The rest of the steps are part of good practicing habits for the rest of your musical career.
 
 
 

Tired of practicing? Then just PLAY something! Try some of these activities instead!

• Play "old" songs that you really like
• Play for your dog/cat/hamster or any pet you can get to sit still long enough
• Play for your stuffed animals or action figures. I guarantee they will be a polite audience!
• Have a little concert of songs YOU like for your family
• Teach a grown up how to play some notes on your instrument (wash your mouthpiece first!)
• Have a "Playing" date with a friend or two. Bring your instruments and play some songs together.
• Write your own songs! Yes, you can be the composer. Need staff paper? Click here.

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