1. Warm Yourself and Your Instrument Up
- Start with some long tones to warm up your instrument and to get your air going
- Play your scales on long tones to work on scale memorization for your quarter playing tests
- Think about these things:
- Do I like my sound? Is it warm and full?
- How is my posture?
- (For Winds) Am I breathing deeply and blowing a steady stream of air through each note?
- (For Percussion) Am I only using my wrists when I play?
2. Spend Time on Scales
- First, play your scales slowly to solidify your understanding of the notes
- As you get more familiar with the notes, start working on speed and memorization
3. Practice In Front Of A Mirror As Much As You Can
- Check your posture
- Is your hand position correct?
- How does your embouchure look? Is it correct, centered, without tension and no puffy cheeks?
4. Practice Your Concert Music & Lesson Book Exercises
- Find spots in the music that are tricky and focus on them first-Have a plan on what you want to improve
- Practice your trouble spots slowly at first to make your notes and rhythms accurate
- Once you're able to play a trouble spot 5 times without mistakes, you're ready to go faster
- Do things one at a time and really work to improve on them
- Think big/small/big when practicing: * Play a big chunk, determine what needs to be improved and how to do it *Break it down into small pieces to work on individually * Lastly, put it all back together into big chunks
- Work for accuracy and make sure to use techniques like counting, sizzling, and fingering to make your practice even more detailed
5. Think! Be Conscious Of Your Playing
- 10 minutes of thoughtful practice is better than hours of playing on 'auto pilot'
- Make sure you think about what you are doing and how you can continue to improve yourself
- Ask yourself questions about your playing--it will help you become better faster!
- Record yourself practicing--use GarageBand so you can listen to yourself and identify trouble spots that you may not have known exist
6. End With Run-Throughs and Fun Music!
- The end of your practice is the perfect time to run though entire pieces of music that you have been working on to see any progress that was made during your practice
- The end of your practice is also a good time to play something just for the fun of it! Ending with something you like will allow you to end your practice on a high note :)