Whether you're a beginner, aspiring pro, or a card-carrying superstar, save time and boost your success with these simple and very powerful practice and rehearsal super-tips.
Each is time-honored and practiced by more successful music-makers than there are notes in a Charlie Parer Solo! 1.
Practice at the same time each day.
Let it become a habit.
Work other commitments around your music.
2.
Playing through song after song is not rehearsing; it's playing.
Real practice involves hammering away on weak passages or sections until they shine.
3.
When all is said and done, learning and mastering songs will do more for your musical ability and success than scales or exercises ever will.
4.
Play strong and hard! It will improve your tone, help with speed, eliminate mistakes, and improve your confidence.
5.
A cassette or mp3 recorder is one of the best practice aids there is.
Record, listen to, and analyze your playing.
In time, you will get used to having it on.
6.
If you make a mistake while practicing, don't waste time by starting over.
Fix the mistake right away.
Then go on.
You can start over later.
7.
Strive for improvement, not perfection.
Perfection is over-rated, impossible to obtain, and has no place in the arts.
8.
Don't waste time "practicing" what you already know.
Focus your efforts on those measures, sections, or pieces you can't play yet.
9.
When practicing, spend no more than seven or eight minutes on the same section.
Progress wanes after that.
Come back to it later if you need to.
10.
There is a specific number of times you must play something before it is mastered.
If you can't play it correctly yet, don't criticize yourself.
It simply means you haven't reached that number yet.
Don't give up.
11.
Most musicians go from "fast and wrong" to "fast and right," spending a lot of time correcting mistakes (aka: "learning it over").
Instead, go from "slow and right" to "fast and right," by simply speeding up an already-correct passage.
12.
Play with purpose, fire and passion.
You'll sound better, play better, and everyone will notice.
13.
If you make a mistake, don't get upset and end up making more mistakes.
Just say "oops," fix the problem, and get on with it.
Be nonchalant about your mistakes and you will make far fewer of them in the long run.
14.
There is such a thing as over-practicing.
You've over-practiced if you find yourself sanitizing each and every note to the point when the thrill is gone, when the piece offers nothing more than tedium, if stupid mistakes crop up in a piece that was perfect last week.
At the very least, give an over-rehearsed song a few days' off.
15.
Pauses and hesitations are symptoms that we are practicing a piece too fast, too soon.
Slow it down, no matter how slow it needs to be, until the pauses are gone.
Then, gradually speed it back up.