Part III – The Practice Routine

Part III explores the actual make up of a practice routine and what order to play its components.

Why new routines? These came out of me analyzing my practice for several years and being frustrated with my level of playing. My scales were great! I could play lots of very cool exercises and do some really neat left hand tricks at high speed. But I was no where near ready for an audition or recital.

I was really frustrated! I had put in lots of time. Day after day. Month after month. Year after year. So why didn’t my hands have a large repertoire of literature ready to go? For me it came down to blindly honoring the standard formula.

Why didn’t I question the formula? Comfort, familiarity, and ease. It was a routine that felt comfortable since I’d always done it that way. But I’m a music teacher and am usually ‘warmed up’. Why did I bother doing more warm ups?

Most of us use a traditional practice routine consisting of warmups -> exercises -> etudes -> excerpts -> solos.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with this approach and it works well with younger and developing students. It creates a solid routine and plan to cover the needed elements of development. However, as the musical demands intensify on advancing students, it’s time to rethink the approach. Rather than ‘well there’s nothing inherently wrong with it’ we can rebuild the routine to be ‘inherently right’ or at least better!

As with all methods, suggestions, and systems I encourage you to try it out, change it, mold it, tweak it, and truly make it your own. Then it will be much more beneficial to you and your progress.

Definitions

First, let’s define some terms I use.

Superset – In weightlifting a superset is doing two different exercises back to back without rest.

Musical parallel: our brain is freshest at the start of each practice session.

Reverse Pyramid Set – Starting the heaviest weights and working down rather than the commonly used opposite approach. Starting with lighter weights and increasing the weight of each set means your muscles are the most fatigued at the heaviest point of repetitions.

Cell – A tiny unit of musical structure. Much smaller than a phrase and generally even smaller than a motive or motif although in some pieces could be the motive.

Priority Focus – Highly zoomed in focus on one particular weak point. A shift, rhythm, vibrato between two notes, string crossing. The exact weak link from Priority piece #1

Beam + 1 – A group of notes beamed together as part of a beat and adding one note.

The example below shows several ‘beams +1’. The overlapping boxes indicate how to practice each beam+1 and then combine them into a cell, small musical unit, or phrase.

mahler_beamed

	Traditional Practice Routine	New Option A (warm up needed)	New Option B (already warm)
	Warmups Scales, Arpeggios, Shifting work, Bowing / Sevcik Etudes Excerpts Solos Current ensemble music to practice	Warm ups (could be scales / arpeggios or an easy passage from your current ensemble) Scales, Arpeggios – relate to current needs Etude related to High Priorities High Priority #1 Excerpt A Priority cell / focus #1 with Priority cell #2 Superset High Priority #2 Excerpt B Repetition & Velocity/Speed work* Other (Jazz, ear training, transcription work)	High Priority #1 Excerpt or Etude High Priority #2 Excerpts Repeat above as needed Scales / Arpeggios with specific focus on a deficiency Repetition / Velocity work (can do before scales if you like) Other

Pros	Easy for young players to maneuver through skill acquisition and literature	Utilize beginning / mentally freshest part of practice session for most difficult tasks Alternates tasks to reduce boredom and stay focused Supersets between two spots to keep brain focused / recharge muscles / give certain fingers a break	—>

Cons	Saves most challenging literature for the end when we are mentally and physically fatigued

*Doing ‘warmups’, velocity and repetitions last can use fatigue to our advantage. As we are mentally drained this is a good time for repetition work that requires minimal mental horsepower. Physically, our muscles may be too tired to be tense so we can use that to keep our technique relaxed as we work up speed and velocity.

Other Options

Alternating Days

This plan is often needed when you have a lot of music to prepare – as college students do. These are not listed in practice order.

A	B
Warm Ups
Simple finger exercises Long bows
Exercises
Shifting Intonation Sevcik Double-Stops	Vibrato Zimmerman Bowing Coordination / Speed / Velocity
Solos / Literature
Bach Suite Gavotte Flight of the Bumble Bee	Czardas Humoresque Concerto Bach Suite (different one)
You can put a priority excerpt / solo on both days
Excerpts
Mahler Otello Kije Ginastera Pulcinella Mozart 35	Beethoven 5 – II & III Don Juan Mozart 40, 41 Brahms 2 Ein Heldenleben
Etudes
Storch-Hrabe	Sevcik Slama
Other
Sight Reading Transcribing Jazz

Practice Menu Mix & Match / À la carte

Each session choose from each category.

Warm Ups	Exercises	Etudes	Excerpts	Solos	Other

‘Rondo’ Form Practicing

A B A C A etc

Putting the most difficult piece / high priority 1st, 3rd, 5th and working on other categories 2nd, 4th, etc.

Conclusion

If you’re putting in the work but not seeing results, remember the adage, “If you keep doing what you’re doing you’ll keep getting what you’re getting.”

Experiment with your routine. Mix it up. Try something new. Do everything in reverse order. Try a random order. Take notes on what works and what doesn’t work so you can create something that produces the results you want.