Practice Tips |
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The Sirrah Group |
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Because the world is listening... |
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Notations Music Studio Keeping it all in tune... |
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Strategy: Scales-Scales are the key to unlocking your full potential as a musician. Knowing them in your head, as well as your hands and fingers (and feet for the Organists out there), will give you far more ability to understand all the complex things like chords and improvisation. Always start your session by practicing scales and use your warm-up time to learn scales that you are unfamiliar with.
Fingering Exercises-There are many different exercises to build fingering technique, but they also tend to be somewhat ignored, kind of like the armchair athlete and stretches. I should add feet and arms for Trombonists and Organists.
Focus On Improving-Most of us have a tendency to stay with things we can do easily. That is great, but it needs to be balanced by focusing on improvement. Choose the piece that you want to work on and then don’t let yourself move on until you have gained some headway. Parents, this means that you may need to monitor your child. Are they playing the same song and then quitting when they struggle? Have them go to a “tough” spot and then let yourself go “WOW” as they begin to conquer it.
End on a winner-At the end of a great practice session, the musician always needs to go back to something that they enjoy playing and play well. Sometimes that is not one and the same piece of music so let the “enjoy” overrule the play well.
We hope that these few tips help you to make your practice times (or your child’s) profitable and enjoyable. Just one last note for parents, it is very beneficial for parents who are non-musical to learn along with their young musicians. Nothing spurs interest like having Dad or Mom playing along with you.
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