Teaching Students How To Practice

Session Title:

We tell our students to go home and practice, but do they know how?

Session Description:

Do you spend too much time rehearsing the same passages day after day? This session will show orchestra teachers an arsenal of practice strategies that can help students become motivated, confident, effective, and autonomous practicers. A variety of technology tools will be demonstrated and shared via an online resource.

Notes

“Your attitude, not your aptitude, will determine your altitude.”

– Zig Ziglar

Essential Items Every Student Needs

• Adequate space
• Privacy
• Adequate lighting
• An uninterrupted, quiet environment
• Chair
• Music Stand
• Pencil
• Tuner & Metronome (free apps!)
• Instrument stand or wall mount
• Mirror

Why do we need to think about HOW to practice?

• Students are usually only concerned with the outcome, not the process
• Students don’t naturally know how to practice.

What do students do? (Bad habits)

• Start a new piece near the performance tempo
• Slop through getting half of the notes correct
• Go back to the hard spots, slowing only a little
• Repeat mistakes in the hard spots, developing bad habits.  The brain “learns” mistakes and the psyche allows mistakes to happen.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)

• Is your music too difficult?  If so your students may feel as if the end goal is unattainable.
• We must provide students with experience that will be positive.  Attainable goals are very important.  We want to have our student reach, but there is a limit.

Time is the enemy; progress is the goal

• Students are crunched for time more than ever.
• Students need to be able to make good use of their time.  Most of the time, this must be TAUGHT.
• “If you are practicing and sound really good, you are practicing the wrong parts”
• “Are you SPENDING TIME with your instrument or PRACTICING your instrument?”

Playing vs Practice

• Attitude is important.
• Playing is great, but that’s not practicing.
• Turn a portion of a rehearsal into a mini-practice session (for everyone).

Practice Logs/Assignments

• Logging of minutes doesn’t promote healthy practice
• Forcing “minutes” can have many negative effects

Building good habits

• Building good takes time and breaking bad takes time.
• The Power of Habit:  1. Cue, 2. Routine, 3. Reward
• Cue starts the habit, Reward motivates to continue
• One study states that building a good habit of everyday behaviors took an average of 66 days.
• Practicing must be scheduled.  Are you a morning person?  Night owl?

“Slower is Faster” strategy

• We all play too fast!  
• Start with a tempo that will allow near perfection on the first try.
• The first playthrough can be compared to the first sled run on freshly fallen snow.  On subsequent runs, you will follow that original path.
• Going slower is actually the faster way to learn!!

Identify

• Identify problem areas prior to practicing.  
• Write in music, bracket problem areas.
• Loop learned problem areas.  
• Brain and muscles need consistency and repetition for success

Backward Practice

• This strategy is perfect for descending passages, generally harder to grasp technically and hearing descending intervallic relationships.

Find repetitive sections

• Save time!
• Identify repetitive areas and don’t re-practice them
• It can help students understand certain forms.  
• Sonata-Allegro Form – Exposition, Development, Recapitulation
• Rondo Form – A, B, A, C, A, D, A, E, etc.

Eyes Close & Play Softer

• Close your eyes.  Play small passage with sheet music in view, then play it without it.
• Repeat
• Also, playing softer can help students relax and shift focus more to memorizing and internalizing.

Audio Recording

• Self-assessment
• Address: tone, intonation, rhythm, articulations, adherence to set tempo, phrasing
• Listening to recordings helps students better understand how they really sound.

Record Video

• Check posture, bowing technique (bow hold, bow angles, etc.), left-hand technique (position, shifting, vibrato, etc.)
• Video can be slowed down and analyzed.
  • Check out “Coach’s Eye” app

Write It Down!

• Pencil on stand at start of each rehearsal or practice session.
• Students should mark:
  • Tempo markings for practice and performance
  • Key signature changes/mistakes
  • Fingerings/shifts, etc.
  • Phrasing (length, climaxes, etc.)
• Stop and mark music immediately.  Don’t wait!
• Mark music BEFORE practicing (phrasing, etc.)

Rhythmic Variation

• Change rhythms to create short “bursts of speed” and place the “faster” parts between different notes

Use Your Voice!

• You don’t have to have a good voice!
• Internalize pitch, rhythm
• Inflection / Phrasing
• Articulations
• If you start kids singing early, they won’t think it is a big deal.

Shadow Bow / Air Bow

• Isolate skills
• Eliminate left hand
• Sing through while bowing

Find a Model

• Have students search and find a great model to follow.
• Find on social media, YouTube, etc. 
• Become obsessed with that person and their music-making
• Or compare two or more models and have students determine what they like better in terms of sound, vibrato, etc.

Model for your students

• The teacher provides a live model for students
• The teacher records video of excerpts and post for students to use during home practice
• Post to YouTube or Google Classroom
• Handy when students are absent

Back to basics

• Remove all markings from music and play, then slowly add back in
  • Slurs
  • Ties
  • Articulations

“Pizzi-Arco”

• Have students play difficult arco sections as pizzicato and vice versa
• Have students isolate bowings, string crossings, whatever is problematic with RH
• Can help with rhythm, ensemble timing/attacks.

“Target Notes”

• Help student organize confusing passages by hitting “target notes” at certain points within it.

“Add a Note”

• Show students how learn a difficult passage by building and get timing out a difficult passage.

Practice Journal

• Goals
• Performance Material
• Fundamentals & Technique
• Ensemble Material
• New & Developing Material
• Reflection

What to do…

• Don’t require students to practice for a specified amount of time
• Use class time to discuss practice techniques and strategies. Students won’t just figure it out. 
• Allow them to learn the material on their own after you guide them on some ways to learn it.  
• Provide students with sample practice plans
• Demonstrate practice strategies during class time in rehearsal.  Ask students to use it in home practice.
• Assign students to complete a journal or log and use that as the basis for grades (instead of practice minutes)
• Assign students the task of creating their own weekly practice plan on their own and use that for a grade (instead of practice minutes)

Make Practice Meaningful

1. Schedule times/days to practice
2. Develop a practice plan integrating specific practice strategies
3. Practice
4. Reflect

Favorite Practice Tools/Apps

• Tempo – Metronome with LOTS of features and subdivisions
• Tonal Energy Tuner – Tuner/Audio Analysis, will play with pure intonation
• Coach’s Eye – Video recorder and video analysis, feedback
• Anytune Pro+ – Slows down audio for analysis, exports slowed down audio

Session Slides

Download session slides (PDF)

Book References

• The Musician’s Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and Wellness by Gerald Klickstein (Oxford University Press)
  • Also see companion website: https://www.musiciansway.com

• Maximizing Student Performance: Practice & Reflection in Band/Orchestra by Wendy Barden (Kjos Music)

Website References

• https://www.npr.org/sections/deceptivecadence/2013/09/03/216906386/10-easy-ways-to-optimize-your-music-practice
• https://bulletproofmusician.com/research-tested-practice-strategies-that-will-help-you-learn-new-pieces-faster/

Article References

• Duke, R. A., Simmons, A. L., & Cash, C. D. (2009). It’s Not How Much; It’s How: Characteristics of Practice Behavior and Retention of Performance Skills. Journal of Research in Music Education, 56(4), 310–321. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022429408328851
• Henley, P. T. (2001). Effects of Modeling and Tempo Patterns as Practice Techniques on the Performance of High School Instrumentalists. Journal of Research in Music Education, 49(2), 169–180. https://doi.org/10.2307/3345868
• Miksza, P. (2005). The Effect of Mental Practice on the Performance Achievement of High School Trombonists. Contributions to Music Education, 32(1), 75-93. Retrieved January 23, 2020, from www.jstor.org/stable/24127237

Session first presented at Georgia MEA, January 2020.