Let's Practise

Perhaps you have a half hour lesson once a week, a mere thirty minutes in seven days. This means that for the vast, vast majority of your time you are not having a lesson and you are responsible for your own music-making. Although there may be many important things learnt in a lesson, the greatest improvements are made between lessons.

So, you see, the reason why teachers ask us to practise is because this is the way we make progress; we solve problems, develop our musical ability and think about the music.  Owing to the variety of different things that happen in a piece of music and the on-going rhythmic beat of the music pushing us onwards, learning to play an instrument is often characterised by a scrabbling, hope-for-the-best, out-of-control sort of approach.  So we need to have a system that allows us to work at a speed at which we can comfortably work with our ears, fingers and intellect clearly and together in unison. It is a time when we are responsible for improving and developing. No one else can do it for us. 

It is the quality of practice that is important, and not the quantity. If you have forgotten to practise all week and try to cram all your work just before you go for your lesson you may get away with it by playing your pieces well enough.  But it is yourself you have cheated. Have you really improved? Can you really play that really horrible bar perfectly every time, or did it just about work in the lesson? Playing through your pieces is not the same as practising.

Any normal student will want to get away with as little practice as possible! You want to be ready for your next lesson, but, if you take notice of the practice tips in  this book, you will not be focussing on how long you need to practise for, but how and what you are practising.