Every music student has, at some point, experienced the frustration of “hitting a wall” during practice. It could be a technical hurdle (a scale that’s just a little too fast to handle), a physical issue (discomfort), or overall confusion as to how to proceed during a practice session.
There are a lot of things that can get in the way of productive, enjoyable practice, and it would be impossible to cover them all in a single article. Nonetheless, it’s worth taking a look – not only at possible solutions to common problems – but more broadly at what practice can be for you.
What Should Practicing Be Like?
First and foremost, practicing should be engaging, and it should also basically feel good: mentally, emotionally, physically. Now that doesn’t mean that frustration or boredom are completely avoidable – negative emotions are inevitable in life – but they should be recognized quickly and be treated as learning tools.
How Can Practice Be Mentally Engaging?
For practice to maintain your attention, it should neither be too simple and therefore boring, nor too complex and therefore overwhelming. That means that the improvement you set out to make should be achievable – within a minute or two. Literally. Yes, it should be that small! You’ll have to experiment to find the sweet spot – not too easy, nor too hard.
Imagine that you are working on a melody of 6 bars. Even if you can play it adequately well, chances are that you’ll need to reduce it to a much smaller “chunk” to make a lasting improvement within a small time frame. Equally important: you should have a clear intention of which one or two qualities you’d like to improve (for instance, tone and dynamics) and how to implement the improvements. Can you make a real change with 3 notes? Then that’s what you should do! Once the change has been made, set it aside and work on another part of that piece, or something else completely.
How Can Practice Be Emotionally Engaging?
Many students spend a considerable amount of time and concentration on just “playing the notes” (getting the rhythm, pitch, dynamics, and every other element in order), it can be easy to lose sight of emotions and expression. When do they come into the process?
The answer is fairly simple: at pretty much any time. The question is not when, but to what degree. Let’s return to the example of that 6-bar melody. Even if you are playing it under tempo, even if you can only string together a few notes, you can still add emotion.
How? The key lies in your voice. Sing that “chunk” of melody. It doesn’t have to sound polished. Just casually sing it until you feel just a little bit of an emotion: tenderness, excitement, sadness, whatever it conveys to you. Then play that “chunk” and see if you can bring yourself that same emotion with the sound of your instrument.
Congratulations! You are now on the path to personal expression.
How Can Practice Feel Good Physically?
If you’ve ever taken a yoga class, you may have learned that the heart of the process doesn’t lie in a particular number of poses, but in your experience of them, and the process of getting to know your body and yourself better.
While learning an instrument certainly has some big differences from practicing yoga, the approach to the physical aspect of it is similar. Playing an instrument should feel “right”: for your arms, hands, fingers.
To get in touch with your body and re-sensitize it to its experiences, try going through the same playing motions away from your instrument. If your right arm feels tired when playing a string instrument, try “air bowing” – meaning without the bow – just your hand. (When first trying this, give your left arm and hand a break.) “Air bow” as if you are really playing a passage, with the sound and feelings in mind. Direct your awareness to different parts of your shoulder, arm, hand, and fingers: what’s comfortable and what isn’t?
Alternatively, if you are playing the piano and your fingers feel tense, try playing on a table, just as you would the real piece. Be conscious of what you’re feeling and try to make adjustments – for example, in your finger motion or finger shape – and get more and more physically comfortable.
Being Your Own Teacher
Even if you have a teacher, most of your time with the instrument will be time spent alone, so it’s important to develop a degree of independence and what’s known as meta-cognition, or self-awareness, to help best direct your own practice. As a basic principle, when we step back from a situation, whatever it may be, it often becomes clearer.
How does one develop that ability, as it applies to music study? Here’s one answer: writing, or journaling. Record on paper not only what your goals and practice plan are, but what experiences and thoughts come up during your practice session.
Ask yourself: What did I most enjoy? What was frustrating? What should I remember to ask my teacher about? Do I want to keep working on this piece? For how long? Was anything physically uncomfortable? What do I want to sound like? You can take notes before, during, and/or after your practice session, depending on the content – experiment!
You may not feel like journaling every practice session and that’s fine, but keep returning to it as needed. You’ll soon find that you are becoming more and more involved and satisfied with your practice as you become more and more aware of each aspect of it: the mental, the emotional, and the physical.
Dinnerstein Music Studio 