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Re: help in practice schedule

Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-09-02 17:04

How old are you? What else do you do during a "normal" day?

Long practice time is not necessarily a key to improving. Shorter but targeted practice time will do more to improve a person's playing than long hours with nothing more specific than "get better" as a goal. Regardless of your age (you may not like this advice) a knowledgeable teacher can do more to guide you toward realistic and well-sequenced goals than people on the web who can't hear you play and don't know your background or personality.

Any book that contains music you will practice should be useful. A book filled with music that bores you or is too difficult for you at your current stage of development so that you don't want to play it is useless. The standard ones are standard for a reason - but useful advice will depend on where you are developmentally.

When you practice scales, the first goal has to be to learn the notes with the correct fingerings, starting out with the ones with the smallest key signatures and moving forward.

In my own opinion (often to my students' frustration), scales ought to be learned from memory. I don't even like the initial learning to be done from printed scales. Learn the key signature, play slowly, and play the scale by ear and by structure (if you can sing a major - do-re-mi - scale, you have a framework already in your ear). As you work through it, you will gradually start to transfer from thinking through each scale to muscle memory. The scales you practice should always be played with the best tone and legato you can produce. Later, after the notes are learned and your fingers are under control, you can add varying articulation (tonguing) patterns, dynamic variations and other musical effects to make the basic scales more flexible and varied.

But, again and above all, find a teacher whose playing you respect and who seems able to communicate suggestions and advice specific to your playing strengths and weaknesses.

Karl

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