Good practicing starts with good planning.
Whether you are squeezing five minutes of practice into a busy day, or
setting aside an entire afternoon, guidelines can help in sorting through
the thousands of details that music study and instrument playing entail.
There will certainly be adventures in the course of the work: surprises
to deal with, experiments to try, problems to solve. But you can be prepared
for them if you have a plan to help mobilize your attention and focus
your concentration.
When I speak of a plan, I do not mean
a lock-step sequence of action. Instead of presetting rigid lines of
action, seek out the natural patterns that can inform your endeavors.
For example, when performing music think ahead, play in the present,
and listen behind. The same goes for practice–though on a different
time scale: plan the future, work toward it now, and then look over
what’s been accomplished.
From that point of view, simply knowing
what you’re going to work on is a plan. Whether set up just before
starting or adopted from a program developed long ago, a plan will give
shape to your actions. Know what you’re going to do before you
begin, and afterward you’ll be able to gauge how well you’ve
done it.
Planning starts in the mind, but it
need not stay there. A written record of intentions and outcomes–of
what succeeded and what didn’t–can be a precious source of
insight and self-guidance.
Experienced teachers and players have
used these ideas throughout history. The literature of music pedagogy
is packed with written teaching aids: checklists of repertoire, progressive
learning plans, outlines of practice sessions, assignment calendars.
You can benefit from these advance labors, rather than reinventing them.
Hal Lepoff, a busy Northern California
freelance violinist and teacher, has an interesting approach to his
teaching materials. He uses assuagement sheets and charts with create-a-constellation
stars, as he says, "to try to put some organization into my students’
practice. For myself, however, I’ve only ever used blank paper,
usually in the form of a journal. Recently when I had many pieces to
prepare, I kept a sort of checklist just to be sure I made the rounds
on a regular basis." Blank paper is indeed the universal, all-purpose
form.
Barry Green, author of the enduringly
useful book The Inner Game of Music (Doubleday Press, $21.95),
has developed a (yet to be published) pocket-size Inner Game of Music
Lesson Journal for his students. In one
compact notebook, there are places for listing the student’s long-,
medium-, and short-term goals, plans for work, and Inner Game—oriented
questions about the pieces being prepared.
The late Elizabeth Mills, that dedicated
and industrious teacher who contributed so much to the Suzuki organization
Talent Education both in Southern California and nationally, may be
known to some readers as an editor of, and contributor to, In the
Suzuki Style and The Suzuki Concept, two influential books
that are still part of the canon of Suzuki teaching.
Years ago, Mills gave me some notebook
materials that she used in her teaching. Called Fruitful Music Study,
the pages are extremely thorough, with special allocations for the familiar
items: goals, assignments, practice records, repertoire lists, records
of performances given. But the whole package is given a warmth and living
unity by her use throughout of the organic metaphor of growing a fruit
tree. This image is traced in detail, from the preparation of the soil
(listening) and planting of the seed (beginning to practice) through
many stages of sprouting, ripening, pruning, and shaping to the bearing
of fruit (performance). This beneficent, organic image does much to
help develop the patient diligence so important to effective and rewarding
practice.
If you feel intimidated by the idea
of putting together your own practice planner and would welcome help
in getting organized, I can recommend three published planners currently
on the market. They are good examples of thoughtful, well-conceived
practice tools. All three are sturdy 81/2-by-11-inch notebooks, and
they share some thematic features, especially calendar templates of
one kind or another. But each has its own approach; there is no One
Great Big Plan that suits everyone.
The Musician’s Practice Planner,
published in 1999 by MoltoMusic Publishing (PO Box 20282, Oakland, CA
94620; [510] 464-1021; www.moltomusicbooks.com)
and already into its second printing, was developed by violist Stephanie
Railsback and her husband David Motto, an electric bassist. Based on
their combined experience as players and teachers, the $6.95 Planner
is efficiently designed for the important task of keeping track of assignments
and practice progress. The format is direct and useful: there are double
pages for 40 weekly assignment entries (two school semesters) and a
practice log, with three extra pages for musical or written notes. The
left-hand page–the Weekly Lesson Plan–is for the teacher’s
use. It has an eight-section grid, plus additional notation room at
the bottom. The grid provides spaces for assigning scales, warm-ups,
études, exercises, repertoire, and "other," with additional
spaces for listing specific goals. On the facing page–the Daily
Practice Log–there are entry areas for the student to log daily
practice priorities, metronome markings, time spent on each assignment,
and total time for the day.
Clearly the emphasis of this planner
is on managing time by making assignments, noting priorities, and keeping
track of practice–good purposes, all. Railsback says that several
teachers she knows are using the book successfully, adding, "It
can be livened up with colored pencils and stars for the little kids.
Adults can be more serious and use dark pencil or ink." No fair!
. . .
I want colored pencils and stars, too!
Practicing may be a serious matter, but it needn’t be grim; fun
helps learning.
If you are seeking something broader
than an intensive emphasis on time use, try The Musicians’ Practice
Log, which delves into the very psychology of the practicer. Author
Burton Kaplan is well known for his Magic Mountain Marathon Practice
Retreats and his seminars on practicing, which have devoted followers
all over the country. This log (available from PDT, 415 West Hill Rd.,
Morris, NY 13808, for $8.95) is one of the tools he uses in his teaching
of practice.
In addition to allocation of time (the
reusable Practice Time Management Sheet is quite handy), this book attends
to the practicer’s emotional relationship to the practice experience.
Moods, interruptions, ideas, and feelings in the course of practice,
and the sense of progress or lack thereof are important in the complete
picture; the book provides a systematic approach to recording and graphing
these themes.
The first 15 pages of the book give
clear directions on how to use the system. This is followed by 16 weeks’
worth of Daily Practice Logs and weekly summar-ies, followed in turn
by sections devoted to weekly and monthly reflections and graphs, technique
and repertoire achievement lists, and a performance record.
"During the eight years that I
was teaching practice at the Manhattan School," says Kaplan, "I
would make this agreement with my students: If they filled out the practice
log, they would get an A on that part of the course. Content was never
graded; they just had to make entries. It doesn’t take very much
time–just do it, and at the end of just a month the student might
have pro-vided himself with very valuable counsel."
The Musicians’ Practice Log
is part of a well-thought-out system, and anyone can benefit from using
it. In this short description the amount of record-keeping required
might sound formidable, but it’s not. It can be done little by
little, and it all works toward a better understanding one’s own
relationship to practice. That’s what counts.
The Practice Handbook: A Musician’s
Guide to Positive Results in the Practice Room, by Linda M. Gilbert,
is a very interesting work that accents an awareness of the components
of practice. It begins with a short essay, "The Basic Elements
of Practice," that deftly touches on such im-portant subjects as
body and posture, breathing (aimed at wind players, but string players–who
also breathe–can benefit too), physical care, focusing and concentration,
goals, and what you can do to learn how to practice.
The Handbook, which is available
from Damore Publications ([713] 523-2599) for $13.95, emphasizes two
major themes. The first is that practicing is a skill that can be learned
and developed, which I endorse with all my heart. The second is that
everything in the book is meant to be adapted to individual teacher-student
relationships. The included Daily Practice Organizer includes a 25-point
checklist of specifics requiring attention (including Articulations,
Bow Speed, Dynamics, and Intonation), a list the practicer is encouraged
to add to.
Because of their range of approaches
and reasonable prices, I encourage practicers to seek out all three
of these books, as well as others. This has been only a brief sampling
of some of the written planners musicians use to bring order and focus
to their practice. There are many other methods. The literature offers
a variety of useful ideas and promptings, and anything that helps is
fine: there are as many needs to be satisfied as there are practicers.
This kind of research can go deep,
but it is important to remember that any organi-
zer is a tool, not a task. All are
aids to the loving persistence that keeps practice moving, and that
best serves music and musicians.
