How To Practice Pt. 2

Ahoy!

Last week I gave you three tips that could help shape your practice routine. Today I’ll wrap up the discussion with three more tips that have helped me over the years.

1.      Listening counts as practice, and is VITAL!

I’ll say this again…LISTENING COUNTS AS PRACTICE! Now, to clarify this, it counts as practice IF you’re listening to the things you’re working on. This doesn’t have to specifically be the piece(s) you’re working on, but it can be. The key is active listening to whatever genre you’re performing. If you’re a classical musician the brunt of your listening should be in that genre, and should be centered on the time period of the pieces you’re performing. YOU WILL SOUND LIKE WHAT YOU LISTEN TO. I can’t stress this point enough. You can’t learn to speak French fluently if you never hear people speaking French. You also won’t ever sound like a natural jazz/classical musician without thousands of hours spent listening to that style of music.

2.      Have fun with the music!

Putting in so much time in the shed and doing a lot of active listening leads a lot of young musicians to stress about progressing and completing assignments. If you put the time in, and can check off a list that you are working on all the things you need to work on, your job is done. In these moments it’s important to remember to have fun. First and foremost, have fun with the music. After an intense session on a piece, run it as if you were in a performance. Sure, you’ll probably have a few mistakes but you’ll get the big picture sense of what the overall piece sounds like. This is a good check of how much progress you’re making on a daily basis. Another option is to just play free. Sing a melody and play it back. Freely let whatever music is in YOU flow. Don’t be restricted to only playing notes on a page. 

3.      Get outside!

With all there is to learn in music and how many hours it truly takes, you have to remember that music is not all there is to life. This is easily my biggest fault as I love to hole up, practice, and ignore the world. However, you’ll find that if you schedule your practice time and consistently get to it, you don’t have to focus on it when you’re not in the shed. As a result, you won't have to be thinking about music when you're hanging with friends. This then impacts the music you make as you have more life to bring to it. Music and life feed each other.

One final bonus point, more about life than music: if it’s communal it’ll probably be more fun. Find a group of musicians to go through this process with. Have listening parties, practice together, learn duets with random combinations of instruments, have a water balloon fight, play video games together. If you’re all striving for the same goals and pushing each other in healthy ways you WILL grow. Progress will simply be a natural byproduct of the way you live your life.

Until next time,

Heard

HAVE YOU HEARD?
Anderson .Paak- Malibu

Despite having been out for more than a year now, Malibu is a somewhat recent find of mine. I discovered it this past summer and immediately took a strong liking to it. This is the album that helped me understand how to "groove." The pockets are deep, as they typically are in R&B/Hip hop, and I've spent many an hour jamming along with this record. While the lyrics are aren't exactly PG they still possess much more tact and tell far better stories than most main stream hip hop. Like Coma Ecliptic, Malibu ranks very high in my record collection and is a must have in yours.