As the title says, what does everyone consider proper practise? Sometimes when I practise I feel I am getting nowhere within a few days.
How does everyone practise and what is your daily/weekly routine?
How do I get the most out of my practise?
All advice welcome!
Thanks PSL

Would refer you to the excellent advices from Mad Tom and dcmbarton here

i consider proper practice when i set myself to do a task which i accomplish. For example the aim of my practicing yesterday was to learn the finger for the diminished scales with both hands separately and together. By the end of my sesssion I was able to play that so i consider it a successful.

Today I'm having a day off - so if i manage to stay away from the piano I will consider that successful

sorry.
i can't help but do this...
Proper Practise is Practice.
*gets coat and leaves*

Always know what you want to accomplish before you start practising. And always plan for more than you can actually do.

Ie. By the end of this week I want my piece to be up to tempo. So, before I can get it up to tempo, what must I do? Make myself absolutely sure of the fingerings by tomorrow. What must I do in order for that to happen? Ok, so this session I'll just practice from bars 1-10 and just perfect that bit. Next I'll do bars 10-20. Last but not least put them all together and go from there!

For long pieces, I find playing from the start to finish over and over again is a complete waste of time. It's much better to just focus on certain sections each time you practice. Of course, you'll have to play the whole thing together from time to time, just to make sure it does not sound as if someone 'chopped' it up into many different pieces instead of being one piece. As in, make sure the music flows.

Scales. A word of warning, don't do what I say. I start learning them literally 1.5 weeks before my exams:P I get away with that during lessons as my teacher does not listen/teach them. He leaves them to me (and actually trust that I learn them well ahead of time *gasps*). It is actually possible to learn them all in such a short period of time, but I was darn close to a nervous breakdown when I didn't know how to find diminished 7th chords hours before my grade 8 exam. *shudders*

Talk about being lazy.. Again, don't do what I did for scales

scales. You don't have to do every single one of them in a day, but cover all aspects in a week. (e.g. for grade 8, Major scales and arpeggios one day, Minor scales and arps the next, inversions the day after etc...)



what jeans said for pieces.



Sight reading maybe?

This is a very good question...how to practice and how to do it properly, what goals to set etc..

Being a bit thick and never being quiet sure how to go about it I made some set timetables which I stick to, if nothing else it makes sure I have covered all the bases each and every day.

First thing I do an hour or thereabouts of scales and arpeggios, at the moment I go through all the Majors C,D,E,F,G,A,B, making sure that everything is even in tone and smooth in the fingers..I slur I tongue, I do a dotted rythym to get fingers and tongue going nicely together....I also tackle Bb maj, Eb maj Ab maj, Db maj in the same way...I aim to get as high and as low as I can on the isntrument (Oboe- in case anyone didn't know by now ) but still staying in the key I am playing in, this I find increases my ability to get up into the third octave and keeps the fingering supple and now I float quite easily all the way up and down...Long notes, chromatics, scales in thirds and fourths if I am feeling brave.

I then have break, tea and do some work till lunchtime then I hit the studies, Hinke or Ferling at the moment, also some James Brown ( yes I know I thought that too..."git up git on up ) they are the very devil for fingers so like a sour medicine they must be doing me some good...so I battle on with them, breaking them down bar by bar, phrase by phrase upping the tempo a little each time till they are sitting under my hands well and I am not having to think too hard about them.

Another break then I do pieces in the late afternoon early evening, again for an hour or thereabouts..I don't tend to do too many at the same time I like to concentrate on one at a time, that works for me. Maybe go over some old ground and discover what I once found difficult is no longer the case which is always encouraging...

Anyway thats what I do, not sure if thats the right way but it seems to work for me...

hope that helps

regards

Andrew

'Proper' practice is one that's spelt with a 'c', in this context!

Sorry - I just suffer from OCD in this regard and am a fully paid-up member of the Spelling Police - apologies but I just can't help myself !

Deepest Apologies Cyrilla, I have a new laptop and my typos have been legendary ever since, the keyboard isn't quite the same. I do accept that 3 c's in Practice isn't going to win me any medals.

Correction in place I hope, I have read through the rest of my post and cannot see any other glaring errors. I do accept that my grammer is a little shakey and my syntax non existant..Please don't stand me in the corner AGAIN...

Regards

Andrew

*tee hee* - no, I promise I will do my very best not to twitch again at misplaced letters!

Actually, it wasn't you, Andrew - it was just in the title of the thread, so it's PSL I need to apologise to...

Thank goodness...though I had managed to put 3 c's i practcice..really I did..I am so ashamed of my typo's at the moment, this new key board has been the very devil to get used to...

Hey Ho or is it Hay Ho or maybe Heigh Ho...who knows..

regards

Andrew

I prefer the latter... - the former is a bit too for me (old forums joke) - and the middle one is for happy horses???!

Apologies for going ...

well done C


very good tips in the book "Practice is a Dirty Word" - it makes a lot of good points and is encouraging.
And Paul Harris once said if you spend all of a practice session even on just a few notes, and they are 'right' or as you want them at the end, that has been good practice.

I have a diary where I write all my deadlines in first, then I plan a day in advance.

I write down my tasks in the first half of the page, and then on the second I write wether they are completed or not and whether they need to be carried over to the next day

I don't know if it will work for you, but hey works for me:)

micky

Thanks everyone for replying, very good replies. I usually do scales at the start of when I am practicing (?) to warm up my fingers and get used to playing. I do pick little bits in a piece to work at, for example bars 1-5 that I find tricky and that usually helps. Just I have found recently that my memory has gone really bad (I think it's something to do with iron) and I find it harder to pick up pieces, but hopefully with a wee bit of Iron and veggie meat my memory should increase






Hehe sorry Cyrilla, I always get confused with the word, and never know what context to use "practice" or "practise" thats actually quite bad that I'm spelling that wrong seen as when I was at school my spelling used to be amazing. To be honest, since I left everything I learn has went out my head Awch old age I guess!

Thanks guys! PSL



Sorry - "everything I LEARNT"

oh my goodness, what is happening to my head hehe
Thanks PSL

I count proper practice as practice which follows a schedule...I have every 5 minutes planned out for a 5 hour per day schedule so that I spend 1h25 on exercises, 50mins on etudes/caprices, 45mins on scales and the remained on pieces. Means EVERYTHING will improve to some degree every single day.

'Practice' if it's a noun.

'Practise' if it's a verb.

Easy!