Practice Chart: A Practical Guide All Music Students Need to Know
A student’s ability to practice well is important to their success on any instrument. The practice chart below helps young musicians know what level of practicing ability they are at and what they must do to improve their practicing skills. It is important to know that this chart is only a guide and is not “one size fits all”. Depending on age, level, how long a student has been learning, and individual goals, some things may be slightly different, like the amount of time one should spend practicing each session (a 6-year old beginner will very unlikely have an hour worth of material or patience to practice everyday whereas a 13 year old intermediate should be able to handle 1 hour of daily practice). Continue reading for more details about each category.
The Practice Chart
Frequency
The amount of time a student should practice for each session will vary depending on age, level, and goals. Instructors should be able to provide an estimated time for each student to aim for. However, no matter what age, level or goal, all students should aim to practice as frequently as possible without large gaps. It is always better to practice a little bit everyday, rather than a lot on only one day.
Distractions
There are distractions everywhere, even in places you least expect. Common distractions found at home when practicing are people talking, the tv, ipad, computer, or phone. It is best to practice in a place and time where there are little to no distractions so that a state of flow can be achieved.
Goals
What are specific and achievable goals? They are small goals you set that can be attained within one practice session. Of course, larger and long-term goals should always be planned, but when it comes to sitting down at the piano and practicing everyday, we need to make sure we break down those large goals into realistic ones that can be met by the end of your practice session. Some examples include: practice with a metronome for measures 1 – 8, play section A with correct dynamics, practice right hand only, count while playing, start playing hands together for measures 1-10 slowly, focus on correct fingerings in left hand only.
Warming up
Before playing any piece, you should always warm up your fingers with some kind of exercise or scale to get your fingers doing what you want them to do. Just like with physical exercise, warming up to get the blood flowing and the muscles stretched before diving into the harder exercises will prevent injuries and make the workout much easier. Warming up will essentially help with building strength, speed, agility, control, and endurance on your instrument. It is wise to choose warm up exercises that relate to your goals. For example, if you are playing a passage with a lot of octave leaps, you can find an octave exercise in a technique book or play the D major scale in octaves.
Improvements
Reflecting briefly after each practice session helps you identify what you have achieved and what needs more work. If you are carelessly practicing, you may create bad habits or make new mistakes that were not previously there. For the improvements you did make, remember to take a moment to be proud of them and perhaps treat yourself for a job well done.
Purchase “The Practicing Chart” as an ink-friendly printable pdf here.
