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Author Topic: "Golden Rules" for practising?  (Read 8354 times)

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Rob Phillips

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"Golden Rules" for practising?
« on: December 26, 2017, 10:47:49 AM »

First off, I know that many of us don't practise. We play for the joy of playing. Practice takes time and can get in the way of other things. But some of us (maybe especially people like me who aren't naturally gifted as musicians) find that practice helps.

A week or so back Brian Field started the thread "Can you practise too long?"  There have been some fascinating answers as well as a thread drift toward playing for different types of morris. As a morris musician myself I found that fascinating too.

I wondered about the optimum length for practice   ---   and, indeed, if there is such a thing. For example, is it the same for a child learning the recorder and for a professional concert pianist? Or one of us learning a Scandinavian tune that's well outside our comfort zone? I doubt it very much.

Coming clean about the day job, I'm an educational psychologist. That means I should know about ways of improving learning and overcoming the things that block progress. My work is supposed to be "evidence based". That is to say, I don't rely on assumptions however common sense they might seem. However, Brian's question threw me   ---   music wasn't covered when I trained as an EP! I made an online search (rather than watch Christmas TV...... ).   What I found took me away from the question about the possibility of practising for too long. I came to a complete halt when I found a website about rules for piano practice:

https://www.key-notes.com/blog/efficient-piano-practice  (I'm not going to list them here. Click on the link if you want to see the full article).

OK, it's about playing the piano, not the melodeon   ---   and there are assertions made without evidence. I can forgive this, though, if it helps me improve. I'm especially bad at not focusing on one task at a time. (This is me in general, not just when it comes to playing the melodeon). I certainly don't keep a practice journal   ---   that seems over the top to me. I try not to allow myself the "luxury" of accepting mistakes but I do.

Maybe there's material for New Year's resolutions here or maybe I should just give a nod toward the list and carry on as I am. What do others think?

« Last Edit: December 26, 2017, 06:39:04 PM by Rob Phillips »
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Phil Howard

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #1 on: December 26, 2017, 10:58:28 AM »

Referring to “the luxury of mistakes” reminds me of various comments about “practice doesn’t make perfect, it makes permanent” - which seems to me to happily overlook that mistakes are just that, we don’t want to make them (and if we never made them, we wouldn’t need to practice!)...
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george garside

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #2 on: December 26, 2017, 10:59:41 AM »

just pick and mix from the   wisdom (or otherwise) set out in the long thread started by Brian.

george
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Winston Smith

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #3 on: December 26, 2017, 11:08:44 AM »

I too have been fascinated by the answers to Brian Field's question.
However, it seems to me that practice regimes depend on where you want to end up, like anything where a skill is required. Top sportspeople practice all the time (or so it seems), professional musicians also seem to spend a great deal of their lives in practice. To excel requires a lot of it!
For the likes of me, playing constitutes practise, as I'm not particularly interested in excelling, only in having fun in managing to play tunes which are recognisable as the tune they're supposed to be, and that any friends listening can enjoy them along with me.
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Bryan Field

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #4 on: December 26, 2017, 11:25:43 AM »

i am so glad that my question sparked such a lot of discussion, though it eventually got sidetracked and started to go over my head! I have really enjoyed reading the posts as a lurker and am happy to now be participating in this awesome community. Having read the suggested blog post I've decided I don't want my practice sessions to be efficient. I bought my box to have fun with it. The blog post makes practice sound like drudgery.
I do have a practice routine now. I play through all the tunes (10 of them so far) i have learned. Then I'll use .ABC to learn a new tune and then diddle around trying to pick out tunes. I did do scales for a while, then decided I didn't know why I was doing them, so I stopped.
The key point I picked up from the thread I started was that you stop practicing when you stop enjoying it.
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george garside

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #5 on: December 26, 2017, 11:29:09 AM »

playing tunes that are 'recognisable'  doesn't, for many people, take much practice.  However there is a world of difference between playing a tune that is recognisable  and one that sounds good and  if required is good to dance to.

Making that change is where the need for practice comes in to change a 'recognisable' rendition of the right notes into the right order into a tune  with good rhythm, phasing, dynamics and other  trimmings that make for musicality.

The right notes in the right order brigade are also often''tune hoppers''  - ''I know that one so ever onwards to the next and the next etc etc.  Rather than having an array of tunes that can be played in a mediocre fashion ( or even badly!)  spending time  polishing up and frequently revisiting tunes can be very satisfying  and    enjoyable form of practice

george


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Gena Crisman

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #6 on: December 26, 2017, 12:30:13 PM »

Maybe there's material for New Year's resolutions here or maybe I should just give a nod toward the list and carry on as I am. What do others think?

The blog post makes practice sound like drudgery.
...
The key point I picked up from the thread I started was that you stop practicing when you stop enjoying it.

I think it's going to depend a lot on how you are motivated, what kind of person you are, and what your goals are. Many people are motivated by the sensation of overcoming adversity, and achieving what is, for them, a difficult goal. Practice and training to accomplish those tasks is often not all that fun, though at least it is on the fringe of something you do enjoy, but, people are out there pushing themselves and taking the lows with the highs in as many fields as you care to imagine. Those people invariably will have goals in mind for themselves. They want to improve so when it comes time to be (in some manner) tested, that they are prepared for it and perform well. The people around them can see what they're doing but will most likely see it through the lens of their own current motivations, and feel anything from how non seriously taking it, how too seriously they're taking it, through to being impressed by their work ethic and dedication.

If your goal is to just have fun, then, perhaps you will indeed stop spending as much time at home with your instruments. Realise though that this could be interpreted as you still practicing, but with the goal of 'having fun only', having eliminated the things you didn't enjoy steadily until home practice went too. You do know yourself better than other people, but, always accept that you may be wrong about what you will balk at - you'll probably be able to perform better if you can push yourself to accept a little bit more bitter with your sweet in the name of staying dedicated and working towards a goal: you may just surprise yourself and get used to the taste.

So, I'd say if there is a golden rule, it'd be to have goals - some within reach, some rather more pipe dreams. Be that end goal is anywhere from having a fun hobby to spend with friends down the pub all the way to feeling within yourself power and mastery over an instrument - they're all valid goals, it's just about picking the ones that reflect what you really want.
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Bob Ellis

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #7 on: December 26, 2017, 01:31:52 PM »

In broadly the same area as the original poster, I spent most of my career analysing how people learn and trying to put the theory into practice as an A Level chief examiner devising new, methodology-based syllabuses, specifications and courses. While this was in a different academic discipline from music, nowadays I try to put that same educational theory into practice when teaching people to play the melodeon.

The two most important rules with all learning learning are, I think, patently obvious to most people, but that doesn't make them any the less valid - quite the opposite in fact!

1. It must be enjoyable. Practising is a form of learning, whether you are learning new tunes and techniques or learning to express better the tunes you can already play. For this learning to be internalised successfully, you need to be fully focused on it, and this will only happen if you are enjoying what you are doing. If you are not enjoying it, then analyse why not and find a different way of doing it that you do find enjoyable.

2.  Don't keep hammering away at the same tune, phrase or technique ad infinitum in the hope that it will eventually sink in. It is far more effective to play it a few times, leave it and then come back to it again later, and then do it again, and again. Frequent repetition is your friend, but only if there are breaks between the repetition sessions. For most people, 'little and often' is far more effective than 'long and infrequent', and this is true not just for practising music, but for any learning.
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malcolmbebb

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #8 on: December 26, 2017, 02:19:59 PM »

What is it with educational psychologists? Most people have never head of them, now I know four. Oh well.

I have a foot in two camps. Part one is playing for Morris, where the goal is clear - be able to play the tunes of two sides, solo, without dots. To be followed, in due course, with a selection of currently neglected session tunes.

Part two is just noodling at tunes I like. These may never get to a publicly playable standard, it's just for fun. But it's recreational. And still practice. Morris is recreational when I'm learning tunes I like (most, fortunately), less so on tunes I'm not so keen on. But I have to learn them, it's part of the deal. 

In general little and often works for me, do a bit, do something else, play a bit more, do something else, come back to it. And so on.

PS I should add that the difference in time and effort in getting between "good enough for fun" and "good enough for public playing" is enormous.
« Last Edit: December 26, 2017, 02:27:05 PM by malcolmbebb »
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #9 on: December 26, 2017, 03:02:22 PM »

i agree with the points made.
Little and often
Keep coming back to it, don't bang away until you're bored and fed up.
Both really work for me.

Something one of our esteemed players posted ages back is to play difficult pieces slowly and staccato picking out each note in the phrase. It is a tip I used to employ but have since let it slip recently. I need to remind myself to do it because for me it really works.

As I've progressed, I am finding it really good to go back over tunes that a while back that beat me and wouldn't flow. Now I'm finding that as my playing has improved I can get my fingers around them.
Therefore I suppose 'never give up' is another golden rule!
Cheers
Q
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

Rob2Hook

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #10 on: December 26, 2017, 05:25:12 PM »

I don't practice very much any more - so I don't progress.  Indeed I find that at sessions I hear a tune I used to play and can't for a while remember how to get started on it.  There are also tunes which I struggled to learn because a friend plays it and it taunted me when I couldn't play along.  Those are more difficult as I forget them quite readily - I guess I never had the incentive to learn them for their own sake.

Practice time varies according to how I'm feeling.  A short bash at something that's been on my mind quite often yields results despite my feeling sleepy.  On the other hand, I can spend an hour running through a playlist in preparation for a ceilidh and allowing myself to wander off into tunes that pop into my head  as I go.  But it's perfectly true that improvement often appears not immediately, but the next time I pick up the box.  I guess in the end the "golden rule" is not to stress, just concentrate on the matter at hand for as long as you are enjoying it.

Rob.
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #11 on: December 26, 2017, 05:55:25 PM »

Maybe there's material for New Year's resolutions here or maybe I should just give a nod toward the list and carry on as I am. What do others think?

Here's what I think about each point:

1 Get organized. Nah! Organisation of the sort described plays little, if any part in my practice sessions.

2 Focus on one task at a time. Yes. I do work this way. I tend to pick on particular things and work at them for a period, then move on to the next.

3 Only practice with full concentration! I certainly find myself "in the zone" when practicing. Can't really help myself.

4 Always warm up first!...I find that scales and arpeggios make for the best warm-up I never, ever, used to play scales, but I do now. I discovered how bad I was at them, after a recent discussion. Decided it was worth doing something about.

5 Practice slowly. Absolutely. Agree 100%

6 Don’t allow yourself the ‘luxury’ of mistakes. To be honest, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. I cannot learn how to do something withut learning how to do it, if you follow my drift.

7 Practice only short passages. I reckon the tunes I play only qualify as short passages, anyway. This is pretty irrelevant to me.

8 Schedule your practice sessions. I don't actually schedule them, but they do tend to be first thing in the morning and everyday, unless something stops this. They nearly always last about an hour to an hour and a half, because that's how long I get the house to myself for :)

9 Keep a practice journal. Not likely to happen. I'm sure it would help me plan, but I'm not planning on startiing planning.

10 Study away from the piano. Yes, do this, pretty much as described. Doesn't everyone?
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Anahata

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #12 on: December 26, 2017, 06:48:32 PM »

6 Don’t allow yourself the ‘luxury’ of mistakes. To be honest, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. I cannot learn how to do something without learning how to do it, if you follow my drift.

That's not what that advice means, though. It's related to the quote somewhere above along the lines of: "practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent".
So if you make a mistake (and especially if you make the same one often), isolate the bit that goes wrong and fix it before you get stuck in the habit of playing that part wrong.

There's also some value in occasionally going though a tune and resolving not to stop whatever happens, because that's a skill you'll need for a live performance, especially for dancers.
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Tone Dumb Greg

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #13 on: December 26, 2017, 07:54:40 PM »

6 Don’t allow yourself the ‘luxury’ of mistakes. To be honest, the more I think about this, the less sense it makes. I cannot learn how to do something without learning how to do it, if you follow my drift.

That's not what that advice means, though...So if you make a mistake (and especially if you make the same one often), isolate the bit that goes wrong and fix it before you get stuck in the habit of playing that part wrong.

I agree with you. Address mistakes and work on playing it right before the error gets ingrained. But, that not what the rule writer says. He (or she), says if you make a mistake it is probably because you are going to fast, so slow down. Or, you are tired. So, stop playing completely and end the practice session. Both of these have their merits, but they are not the only solutions.
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Greg Smith
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Thrupenny Bit

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #14 on: December 26, 2017, 08:05:20 PM »

I must admit, if I'm going a little too fast the mistakes come out.
Also at times if I've had a tiring few days then my minds not on my playing. I've recently started to stop and put my feet up by the fire rather than bash on regardless. I don't want to ingrain the mistakes so better to leave it alone that evening. Tiredness is a significant negative factor in my playing during the evenings.
Q
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I think I'm starting to get most of the notes in roughly the right order...... sometimes!

JimmyM

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #15 on: December 27, 2017, 02:42:28 PM »

I'm a big fan of practice time. Everyday for years now. I vary what i practice, tunes, scales, arpeggios... AND i record my progress.I think this is very important for me as it helps me to see progress and 'proves' to me the benefits of practice

I think it was Aristotle that said ' We are what we consistently do' - and who knew he could speak English?  ;)
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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #16 on: December 27, 2017, 04:03:57 PM »

I think it was Aristotle that said ' We are what we consistently do' - and who knew he could speak English?  ;)

“To be is to do”—Socrates.
“To do is to be”—Jean-Paul Sartre.
“Do be do be do”—Frank Sinatra.

Allegedly...
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Mcgrooger

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #17 on: December 27, 2017, 04:34:22 PM »

I sometimes think that the 'object' of practice is overlooked. I know people who say they're going to 'train' at the gym and I'm always tempted to ask what it is they're training for. Similarly with practising it's sometimes worth thinking about what your current goal is.
Personally, I only practise tunes.  I've never really practised scales, arpeggios, fast triplets or other fancy techniques although I'm happy to admit that I might be able to play more impressively if I did but there you go. That's not to say that I don't sometimes work hard on a tune, maybe on the fingering of a tricky phrase or experimenting with different left hand patterns, harmonies etc.
Melnet offers great opportunities for practice in Tune of the Month, Theme of the Month and Beginners Showcase. I've found on those occasions when I've taken up the challenge that knowing that I'm going to record the result gives me something to work towards.
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Jesse Smith

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #18 on: December 27, 2017, 05:23:37 PM »

I wonder how many distinguish (and segregate) practicing techniques and specific passages from more freeform exploration and experimentation. They are somewhat different activities, and I suppose depending on your goals for a practice session it might make sense to avoid drifting from one into the other.

Today I ran through the tunes I am working on polishing right now (Egan's Polka, Cock of the North, and Keel Row). I have been working on trying to make my playing more interesting and exciting, and in the course of practicing Cock of the North I basically found myself working out a fun variation using lots of right hand thirds to make a very chunky sound. I'm working on a "three times through" arrangement that starts with the version written in Mally's tutor book and then adds variations I learned from John Kirkpatrick's DVD and various YouTube performances (thank you TOTM!) and finally ends with this harmony variation.

But is that "practicing"? It's a type of practicing to be sure, but I suppose it came at the expense of working on technique in some other aspect.
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TomB-R

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Re: "Golden Rules" for practising?
« Reply #19 on: December 27, 2017, 05:56:23 PM »

The context was classical pianists, but I think this study gave me some of the best "background information" for "practicing," which is not to say this is what I always do!
Here's the link,
https://bulletproofmusician.com/8-things-top-practicers-do-differently/

but here's the crucial text (a couple left out as not so relevant)

1 Playing was hands-together early in practice.
3 Errors were preempted by stopping in anticipation of mistakes.
4 Errors were addressed immediately when they appeared.
5 The precise location and source of each error was identified accurately, rehearsed, and corrected.
6 Tempo of individual performance trials was varied systematically; logically understandable changes in tempo occurred between trials (e.g. slowed things down to get tricky sections correct).
7 Target passages were repeated until the error was corrected and the passage was stabilized, as evidenced by the error’s absence in subsequent trials.
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