How best to practice
Here we will learn what are the best ways to practice, be that learning a musical instrument, how to sing or how to deliver your lines if you are an actor.
The three main aspects of a practice session
Plan Place Patience
To get straight to the point . . Have a plan of what you are going to practice.
Have a place you are going to practice with everything ready and close to hand , of all the things you might need during the practice session.
Have patience during the practice session with the major thing being practice slowly the thing you are practicing then speed it up later . . . The "slow to grow" maxim. We will look more closely at each of these points and more but these are the main points to remember.
Let's look into each area now more in depth ...
Plan
A brief overview of the planning stage . . .
You know what you are going to do. You have a structure beforehand, you know what you are going to practice and for how long , you have your practice log at hand and you are ready to go !
So what does all this mean...
Before you start a practice session it is better if you have decided beforehand exactly what it is you are going to concentrate on in the practice session. For a practice session to be effective you need to attend the session with focus and a concentrated mind set, in other words you need to give that area you are studying focussed attention, whilst still maintaining a relaxed state of mind with out getting stressed when things go wrong.
A tricky balance, focused concentration and remaining relaxed at the same time. So how do we best achieve this?
Realization and surrendering: By realizing that progress will only be made by making mistakes, learning from these mistakes and surrendering to the fact that progress will take time , we have adopted a good mindset. This good mindset in turn will enable us to remain calmer through out the practice session.
The point being that even before we plan a practice session if we go into it realizing mistakes will be made , that we will learn from them and get better, that focused attention will have to be applied to make progress and that it will be frustrating at times but by surrendering and accepting all that mentally; we are far better equipped to make better progress in our practice session.
Mindset I would say is the first aspect of planning, get the mindset right and the rest follows . . . as the saying goes. I will now list the other aspects to planning.
Print Prepare Period Parts
Print . . . By print we mean write down both what you are going to practice and then afterwards make a few notes on how the practice session went , as way of feedback, what you did well, how you can improve and what you have learned. In short this is a practice log. By writing down these things we are activating more of our mind as well as making things more objective, the very act of writing things down giving us objectivity and causing us to review things at a deeper level and not just passively going about things.
Prepare . . . By prepare we mean preparing where you are going to practice and preparing yourself mentally. It's much easier to practice if you have a specific area to practice in and all the things you need are close by and you don't need to go searching for them.
Preparing yourself can be as simple as sitting comfortably in a quiet place, closeing your eyes, taking a deep breath, relaxing your body then visualizing your practice session going well, seeing yourself focusing with ease and learning the piece or pieces to the best of your ability . . . You can do this in both ways , seeing it as if looking through your own eyes ( subjectively) and as if looking at yourself watching yourself (objectively). This need not take long even five minutes of this before the practice session can make the session so much more effective.
Period . . . Know before you practice how long the session will be for. This does two things it helps you focus and motivates you to get on with things. How long you practice will depend on what you are doing but a good rule of thumb is thirty minutes and then take a break. It also depends if you have all day to practice or just a short period of time like an evening. If it is all day then the practice session could be extended to forty five minutes or if you don't have the full evening then ten minutes can be even useful to go over a tricky bit you need to learn, for example. It also depends on you, how well you can focus and for how long and other factors . . . any practice is time well spent
Parts . . . In short, what are you going to practice. Know what you are going to do before the practice session. This is closely related of course to the print and prepare sections of the Plan stage but because this will be an ongoing process we are going to talk about this separately. As we learn anything we see ourselves make progress, and we then move on to more complex things to learn. By thinking through the process of what to learn next we are actively involved in our progress more objective about it and more able to make wise decisions. So it benefits us to put aside some time to think through what we are doing and why . . . What do we need to concentrate on to make the best use of our time and progress? It might be that it suits you to put aside twenty minutes on a Sunday afternoon for example and think through "What kind of warm ups, parts, pieces or things should I concentrate on the coming week ahead?"
For other more in- depth ideas relating to this area of planning please check below in the "Specifics" section . . .
Place
Place . . . We mentioned above in the prepare section of the planning stage how it was important to have a place to practice and have all that you need close at hand. So we won't say much more here. Ideally of-course you want an area that is quiet and confortable. It might suit you best to have a more deliberate and concentrated set up such as joining a group, or getting a teacher or a coach, this will aid in concentration and feedback ( it can give you perspective as to how you are progressing) , as well as many other benefits. You might at first prefer to " get-yourself-up-to-speed", as it were, at home. Or you might just want to practice on your own. The main thing is to have a place which suits you and is accommodating too, and compatable with an excellent practice session.
Patience
Patience . . . Why is patience a major category ? If you've practiced anything in life you'd really like to achieve you will understand the role patience plays in learning anything. You have the motivation but also you experience the frustration of trying to make progress . . . the tricky bits, be that a musical instrument, singing, acting or pretty much any skill you wish to acquire. This is where mindset and a good attitude really plays its part and more often than not it simply comes down to slowing down. "Deep breath, calm down, and let's try again . . . slowly this time". How often have we heard this but it's true and it works. So next time you are struggling with a piece try the master skill of patience. Slow down. Or to make it that wee bit more involved. Close eyes , deep breath, calm down and try again . . . Slowly this time.
Specifics
Let's now get more specific about things and give you other ideas for you which will help . . .
Print . . . You might wish to have separate notebooks or a ring binder with separators or dividers to keep your "What I will practice" and "What I have learned parts" separate. If you do a search online with the terms like "notebook" "ring binder" and "ring binder dividers" or "ring binder separators" you should find what suits you best. Also of course you can add parts to your binder which suit you, like "Pieces to learn", and use a divider to keep that separate. The thing is to be organised and use a system which suits you best that's easy to use and easy to refer back to.
Prepare . . . Whole books have been written on this topic especially with regards to the mental aspect, but the main thing is to have a positive mindset. Yes easier said than done, but must be done all the same. It's actually easy for ourselves to be hard on ourselves, it takes effort, mental effort, to correct our thinking; this must be done none the less. Be nice to yourself like you would be to a good friend. If you mentally say to yourself something like "I'm no use!", stop, cancel out that thought by saying "No!" or "That's not so . . " and replace the thought with something positive like "Can do . . . others have and so can I."
Visualization. Again many books have been written on this topic, and it pretty much comes down to this.
Get comfortable, preferably in a seat (so you don't fall asleep) , relax, once deeply relaxed visualize yourself doing the thing you are trying to achieve very well, once done awaken yourself out of the relaxed state.
That's it in an overly simplified way maybe but basically that's the way to do it. It's good if you can do twenty to thirty minutes doing this, to get well relaxed could take five minutes or so. To do so start at the top of your head saying something like "My scalp is relaxed I feel my scalp relaxing, my scalp is relaxing now" , or words to that effect. Then just work your way down your body relaxing each main part or area all the way down to the toes. You can condition in this relaxed state by saying, when you are deeply relaxed, something like, "Anytime in the future I wish to enter a relaxed state like the one I am in now all I need to do is close my eyes, take a deep breath and silently on the out breath say "relaxed" and I will reach as relaxed a state as I am in now." . . . [ This is useful in the future if you want to reach a relaxed state quickly for example when you don't have much time for a practice session. You can still do a quick visualization before the practice session. What you can do is get comfortable in a sitting position, undisturbed, and then take a deep breath in ,or you can make it three deep breaths, and with each out breath say silently into yourself say"Relaxed", then imagine a slow wave of relaxation pass through you and carry on with your vizualizsation from there. After the quick session awaken yourself with your awakening statement. An awakening statement along the lines of . . . "I am now going to count from one to seven at the count of seven I will open my eyes, be wide awake and carry out my practice session excellently ". . . You could do a visualization session even if there is only five minutes available, better if there was more time but better still to do this even if there is little time . . . don't over complicate this , just do it. ]
Once in the relaxed state visualize yourself looking and seeing through from your own eyes, and also visualize watching yourself as if you were someone else, watching yourself, doing the very thing very well that you want to achieve. This covers all options and helps cement in the visualization into the subconscious mind. You can do both parts separately ( from your own eyes, subjectively, or from someone else's perspective, objectively ) , or you can chop and change from subjective to objective as you visualize you doing the thing very well. Experiment to see what works best for you or for how you are feeling at that time will work best for you. Let's call this Programming , as we are programming in consciously that which we want to be and how we want to be, at a deeper subconscious part of our mind and being.
Pauses . . . Yes another "P" and frankly quite a vital one. Pauses are the moments during your day where you aren't doing anything, for example waiting on a bus. You can take advantage of these moments to practice in a virtual sense. I've heard of recorder players practising their fingering techniques using a pen or piansts tapping out their pieces on a coffee shop table. Sing out the score (silently if need be) and visualize it in your head at the same time. Listen to an audio of the piece you are learning .You get the idea where and how can you take advantage of these monents during your day. Get creative and apply this idea to your area of study . Do a visualization session on a bus . . . just don't fall asleep and miss your stop!
Purpose . . . Why are you practicing ? What is the purpuse of your practice session and indeed the big picture of what you are aiming to achieve? For a practice session it might be to learn the difficult sections of a particular piece, big picture wise, globally speaking it is most likely to become excellent on that instrument, or at that song, or in that scene if you are an actor. These may seem obvious things to say but to actually take time out and consider these things we gain greater objectivity, focus and a clearer picture of what we need to do. Be positive about this too, don't get down on yourself, this is not a time for self doubt, see how far you have come and know how far you could go. Even if you are starting out you can notice progress quickly. How quickly we can forget how much we have achieved. Make space in your practice log for a purpose section and write these things down.
Play . . . As in , have some fun. Remember not to get stressed out with it all and make time to just have fun learning your instrument or singing your song, or acting out that scene. Put aside the time to just have fun. Yes we do need to focus on the mechanics, for example, practicing scales, but to learn such things well we do so at our best by having relaxed concentration. Overly focusing stresses us out and hinders our progress. Fun and doing joy filled and joyful things aid our state for relaxed concentration.
Prompts . . . I'm going to list all the "Ps" here you can use as prompts or reminders of the things you need to be aware of when practicing. I suggest you put them, or the ones you like the most, on a post it note and stick it to the wall near your computer, or where you work the most where you can see it. You can also put another one in the place where you practice on a wall where you can see it, it will help you keep on track. Please pick and chose that ones that resonate best with you.
Plan Place Patience Print Prepare Period Parts Programming Pauses Purpose Play Prompts Perspective Positive