You may be practising daily, but if you aren’t practising well that might not matter. Here’s everything you need to know about how to practice more efficiently.
Have you always dreamed about being able to play the piano, the drums, the guitar, or another musical instrument?
It’s simple enough to sign up for piano, drum, or guitar lessons and get started. But if you’re going to turn yourself into a true musician over time, you’re also going to have to learn how to practice in between your lesson times.
Check out some of the things you can do to make sure your practice sessions are as efficient and as effective as they can be.
Understand the Importance of Practice
You’ve heard the saying, “Practice makes perfect,” hundreds of times throughout the course of your life. It has pretty much become a cliche at this point.
But you shouldn’t allow that to stop you from buying into the importance of practice!
Many people will tell you that it takes 10,000 hours to master a skill. It might not take quite that long to become, say, a skilled piano player. But you will need to put in a lot of hard work to see results when you practice.
That all starts with realizing that you need to prepare yourself to practice your instrument a lot at home.
Set Up a Dedicated Practice Space
More than 50% of American households have at least one person who plays a musical instrument living in them. Many of these households sacrifice an entire room inside their house for the sake of creating a practice space.
No matter which instrument you choose to play, you should have somewhere in your house where you can go to play it. You shouldn’t have to worry about you bothering everyone else or everyone else bothering you.
That might mean sticking a violin in a spare bedroom or grabbing drums and throwing them into the garage. A dedicated practice space will give you the freedom to practice at any time.
Find the Best Way to Schedule Practice Time
One of the main things you’ll need to do when you’re figuring out how to practice an instrument is put together a practice schedule for yourself.
Those who are starting off with a new instrument should spend about 20 minutes every day practicing. Those who have some experience with an instrument should up that to about 40 minutes every day. And the most advanced musicians need to spend at least 60 minutes, if not more, practicing.
But that doesn’t mean you should simply sit down and start playing your instrument until your time is up. Instead, you should work on the specific skills that your music teacher taught you during your last lesson.
You should also consider using either blocked practice or interleaved practice.
Blocked practice calls for you to work on your skills for longer periods of time. It would look like this if you were practicing with your guitar:
- Minutes 1-6: Practice G major scale
- Minutes 7-12: Practice G minor scale
- Minutes 13-18: Practice G blues scale
Interleaved practice, on the other hand, calls for you to work on your skills for shorter periods of time. But it also calls for you to practice them at several times throughout your session. It would look like this:
- Minutes 1-2: Practice G major scale
- Minutes 3-4: Practice G minor scale
- Minutes 5-6: Practice G blues scale
- Minutes 7-8: Practice G major scale
- Minutes 9-10: Practice G minor scale
- Minutes 11-12: Practice G blues scale
- Minutes 13-14: Practice G major scale
- Minutes 15-16: Practice G minor scale
- Minutes 17-18: Practice G blues scale
As you can see, you would still be working on all of your skills the same amount. You would just be dividing the work up in a different way.
People respond differently to block practice versus interleaved practice. Give both of them a try to see how well they work for you.
Knowing How to Practice Will Turn You Into a Better Musician
The only way you’re going to get better at playing the piano, the drums, or the guitar is by practicing, practicing, and practicing some more.
Make sure you know how to practice before you get started so you can make the most of your sessions. You’ll notice a difference in the way that you play when you make practice a big priority.
Contact us today if you would like to start taking music lessons and turn yourself into the best musician you can be.
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