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Date Posted: 12:19:16 01/26/05 Wed
Author: Frank
Subject: Practicing: When and What

I've always had a hard time getting motivated to practice everyday or even every week until I looked in the woodwind anthology of the Instrumentalist.

Alan Goodman, a bassoonist of course, gave this sort of time frame/practice schedule:

5-10 min. on Attacks and Long Tones
5-10 min. on Interval excercises
15-20 min. on Scales and Chords
20-30 min. on Etudes
15-20 min. on Orchestra/Band Excerpts
15-20 min. on Sonatas, Concertos, or Solos

If followed exactly, this gives you an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and 50 minutes of practice time a day.

I was wondering if anyone else would find this helpful or if they think they have an even better schedule.

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Replies:

[> Re: Practicing: When and What -- Dr. O., 07:05:12 02/02/05 Wed [1]

This looks like a good schedule to me. I would just add that practicing is most efficient when it is goal-driven. By this I mean that you need to have clear and specific goals each time you go to the practice room. I'm not talking about generalizations like "I want to play better today", but really specific goals. I.E.: "Play the b minor scale in eighths at a tempo of 120". Then next week play the scale at 128, then 136, etc. You might also play other scales more slowly. In working on a Sonata or Concerto, your goal might be at first to read through the work, identifying the biggest performance problems. Then you would isolate those problems and practice them very slowly, gradually building the technique to play the isolated passage. You would have specific goals as you practice each passage, and eventually integrate them into a phrase or a section of the entire work. You would gradually build the entire piece in this way. Having goals makes practice more interesting, lets you know how you are doing (provides reinforcement), and provides motivation to do the practicing. Generalized ideas like "I want to be better" do not.


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[> Re: Practicing: When and What -- Heather Gosche, 14:56:56 02/08/05 Tue [1]

I agree with Dr. Owen's response to this. The practice schedule looks great, however we have to know what we are practicing. We have to focus on particular scales. Do they apply to the music we are learning? Are the interval exercises ones that we will find in our current repertoire? Remember, perfect practice is the key! Know what you are setting out to rehearse, and apply that to your repertoire.


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