Music Practice Tips

The first in a series of posts looking at reasons why we might not want to practice, we look at how practice is something that we do every day, with no breaks. Right?

If we think like that, that we have to do it every day, then it is a daunting figure. That’s 365 days of practice a year. That’s 5478 days in 15 years (which is what I’m approaching in my playing years). That’s a lot of time. However, it doesn’t need to be this way.

“Normal” people, in their normal jobs, generally work 5 days a week, for 48 weeks a year. No matter what, they generally get 2 days off, which keeps them going on Friday - they know that Saturday is a day off where they don’t have to think about work. The Violin soloist Midori once commented that she treats playing the violin like her job - she would play for 8 hours a day. In this setting, taking a day off is necessary to keep the mind fresh and allow the body to relax and recover.

In combating this reason for not wanting to practice, you could schedule into your schedule days where you don’t have to practice. You might want to have Saturday off each week, or maybe you’d like to work on 8 day weeks (practice for 8 days, and then take a day off). Remember, you don’t need to practice on your day off. You might find that you want to pick up the instrument and have a bit of a play, but there is no compulsion to do this. You might just pick it up to play around on it.

You might also want to schedule in holidays. For example, if your family is going on a one week holiday, you might decide that it’s a good time to take a short break from practicing. Now remember, it would depend on the situation. If your family was going away for a week, and the day after you got back you had an exam, then you most certainly would be wanting to practice during that holiday. However, if there were no pressing demands, then taking a break can be most refreshing.

Often you’ll find that taking a short break will actually help things along, as your mind and body have time to adjust things to let them develop. I like to use a weight-training analogy. When you lift weights, you’re not actually building muscle. The process of lifting weights actually tears muscles, it’s the time after you stop lifting weights that muscle starts to build when the body sends the various cells required to repair the tears. That’s why it’s recommended that you only lift weights 3 times a week, to allow the body time to repair and build the muscles. If we transfer that to our practice, we need time to process what we’ve learnt and allow our mind and body the time to digest it and really process it into our playing.

Do you take days off in your practice? How often?