Music Practice Tips

Setting goals and targets for pieces can sometimes be easy. You’ve got to have it learnt by the next lesson, or ready for performance in two months, or whatever. The thing is, once you’ve set that, you need to set more milestones so that you know whether you’re going to be ready or not. The beauty of milestones is that not only does it tell you how far you’ve got to go, but they also tell you how far you’ve come.

So you’ve been given a piece, and you need to get it ready for your lesson in two weeks time. Excellent, so we’ve got a deadline. Now we need to place some markers to know how we’re going along the way. So you’ve got two weeks to learn a piece. Therefore, in one weeks time, you should have learnt half of it. Which means in 3 days, you’ll have wanted to learn about a quarter of it. Now we’re getting into the periods of time where we know what we’ve got to complete each day so that we’re on track.

Something you might like to consider for performance deadlines is to have it performance ready earlier than the deadline. For example, You’ve got a Concerto competition in 3 months time, and you’re going to present a brand new concerto that you haven’t seen yet. So, going by the above schedule, you’ll want to have half of it at performance standard in one and a half months. However, you don’t want to be brushing the last bit up to performance standard on the last day. No, what you’ll probably want to say to yourself is “This piece is going to be performed in 3 months. I want it at performance standard in Two and a half months.” That way, you can set your milestones to know how you’re going, and if it’s not getting there, you can work harder, and still know that you’ve got a couple of weeks up your sleeve, just in case. And, if it is performance ready at the time you’ve set, you then have a couple of weeks to cement it, and rest on it so that it’s right and fresh on the night.

As I said, one of the great things about milestones is that it not only tells you how far you’ve got to go, but how far you’ve already come. So instead of thinking “man, I’ve got so much to do still” - think instead “Wow! I’ve already done all this, I’m well on the way to having this ready in no time!” - which should hopefully energise you and keep you inspired to practice!