Practice Techniques, a.k.a. Stop Banging Your Head Against the Wall

It has recently been highlighted to me that a lot of students don't actually know how to practice. Specifically, they haven't been taught how to fix the bits that just aren't working.

Remember the 'head, meet wall' analogy? *smacks head into wall "That hurt...I think I'll do it again!" *smacks head into wall "That hurt...I think I'll do it again!" *smacks head into wall...

This, my friends, is not progress. But so many students practice as though 'it's going to work someday...maybe next time'.

Also remember that practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent. The more times you practice it wrong, the more you are reinforcing the wrong-ness. There will come a point where it will be almost impossible to break the habit.

Tempo Control
I hope you own a metronome, or at the very least an app that does the same job. If not, you're going to need one for this exercise.

This is good for passages of constant notes, transitions between different note values (e.g. a passage of semiquavers followed by slower rhythms) and tricky rhythms. It can be tedious, but it is worth every second you spend.

1. Find a passage you just can't get right, or up to tempo. Reduce the tempo a large amount, even half speed. Choose a speed you know you are going to get it right at.

2. Play the passage at that speed with the metronome. Once you get it completely right without any sense of fumbling, bump up the tempo, usually between 5 or 10 beats per minute.

3. Keep moving through this process, never moving the tempo faster until you have got it perfect.

4. Always make sure you practice a passage like this slightly faster than your intended final speed at least a few times. If you intend to perform the piece, you never want to be performing at maximum capacity. If you are playing with a pianist or orchestra, you cannot control the exact speed they will play on the day. Additionally, adrenalin and anxiety will often have you playing slightly faster in performance than you would in practice. Be prepared!

Chunking part 1
Think of chunking like musical surgery. We are going to remove the diseased part, fix it up, then put it back in. Chunking is great for passages where you will require muscle memory (unfamiliar jumps, too fast too read, etc) or sections where your fingers are simply fumbling.

Identify your problem passage. Play it through slowly, then identify exactly what the problem is (work on one at a time).
Let's use this Stamitz as an example (mostly because I was using it with a student recently in this context). The problem was the constant reading of quavers in this passage. The student would get overwhelmed by about 5 notes in and not continue to read accurately.

We broke it down into groups of notes as dictated by the rhythm and separated them, so it wound up looking like:

We fixed up the problem spots within each group. Now, time to link them back up. Slowly, slowly! We don't want to work old habits back in! We linked the groups of three notes to the first note in the next group, like this:

Once this became easy, we could put the whole thing back together.

Chunking part 2
The following method is best when you realise there is just a small section that is messing the whole lot up. Let's use the Stamitz again. We will pretend for this exercise that we are having trouble getting into the first full bar. Our issue is the falling A to E, followed by the G and F#.

Let's isolate just those notes.

Then, let's progressively add notes on either side of this 'cell'. Do not add another note until you can play the previous combination perfectly. Your progression might look like this:

Change up the rhythm
Can't get the hang of notes in a run? Change the rhythm!

A lot of these practice techniques are simply us finding a way around the complexity that is our brain. We can learn 'hard' passages by convincing our brain that it is much easier than it looks. The rhythm technique actually in some ways does the opposite of the above techniques - it makes the brain realise how easy the original passage was by making it harder! It also gives you the chance to play certain combinations of fingers at different speeds than you were originally meant to.

Take this example:

The notes are not hard, but on some instruments, the finger combinations are not pretty!

We can turn it into this:

or this:

or even this:

Not only will you gain renewed flexibility in the passage, it might even make learning it more fun!

Hopefully this will make your practice more meaningful and efficient. Happy practising!