In the years that I have been teaching, it is pretty common to find out that students usually equate “practising” as “playing through”. I’m sure that music teachers out there will agree with me. This is a misconception that is all too prevalent in students of all ages and it is the teacher’s role then to correct it. Plus, the teacher’s job is arguably to cultivate students to learn independently outside of lessons and be their own teachers in future.
During lessons, it is easy for teachers to see how (or if) a student practised during the week. The kind of practising produces the kind of results – you reap what you sow.
Thus, playing through an entire piece over and over again during your practice session, with the same mistakes happening over and over is not practice! Often, the result of this kind of practising manifests itself in the lesson such as in cases where the student fumbles over the same old problem areas, transitions not fixed etc. In short, it is all too obvious and I’m not going to spend too much time listing all the cases out.
We also always hear “practice makes perfect” and if you don’t get it, just keep trying again until you succeed. These have been discussed previously in many articles that I have come across regarding practising the instrument and the consensus reached in them is that practice does not make “perfect” but rather, practice makes “permanent”. Only perfect practice makes perfect. That explains why articles often talk about how difficult it is to break a bad habit and in more extreme cases, some say it is better not to practise at all if in doubt! So now you know, playing through your pieces is just a matter of reinforcing your mistakes! However, it must be made clear that playing through is important to see how well everything fits into place and to identify areas for improvement. It is also to make sure that you can play the piece in its entirety before you present it for a performance or exam.
So what then should we be doing during practice sessions? In short, solving problems. The articles I came across also talked about “deliberate practice” and I will include them right below for anyone who is interested to read more. Ideally, one should be identifying specific areas/spots to work on. Know what you want to achieve and how you want it to sound like. Then play it and be as critical and honest as you can with yourself in identifying the problems e.g. an out of tune note, a bad shift, poor bow distribution etc. It is a good idea to record your playing as well. After that, pick one problem, think of ways to solve it, and test your solutions to see what works best given the context of whatever you’re working on. It is important to narrow and break parts/phrases down – to one or two notes depending on what the problem is. After you have come up with a solution, you should be focusing on making that a habit. Repeat this and also make sure that you can integrate the isolated parts back into the entire piece. This should help to make practising more efficient.
It may not seem all fun and games and deliberate practice can be very mentally draining. The experts and best violinists often said not to practise more than an hour at one go and take breaks to ensure maximum focus. The consensus seems to be a maximum of 3-4 hours of total practice time in a day and the brain will not be able to absorb anymore beyond 5 hours. Quality, not quantity. You should have time to relax and have fun outside of the practice room and it is always better to keep the practising consistent i.e. practising everyday at shorter intervals vs practising for long hours once a week.
I hope this helps and continue to enjoy making music! Meanwhile, am looking forward to seeing all my students in person soon. This is slated for phase 2 of the easing of the circuit breaker measures.
I’ll also be sharing more articles on my pages and updating the blog whenever I can. Stay safe everyone!
As always, do leave a comment to let me know your thoughts.
~Vanessa
The articles for further reading:
Kageyama, N. How many hours a day should you practice?. Retrieved from https://bulletproofmusician.com/how-many-hours-a-day-should-you-practice/
MacKenzie, A. (2018). 10 tips to help you practise more effectively. Retrieved from https://www.classicfm.com/lifestyle/wellbeing/musician-practice-tips/
MasterClass. (2019). Violin virtuoso Itzhak Perlman’s tips for practicing violin. Retrieved from https://www.masterclass.com/articles/violin-virtuoso-itzhak-perlmans-tips-for-practicing-violin#4-ways-to-establish-good-violin-habits