1.) Eliminate Distractions
In order to have a good practice session, this should be one of the first steps you take. Go into a room by yourself with no TVs, Video Games, or Computers to distract you. I am tempted to say leave your phone in your case, but since so many of us use our phones as metronomes or for tuning, I recommend putting it in Airplane Mode or silencing it. Our brains are already hard at work with multiple tasks when we are playing the violin, it doesn’t need any distractions!
2.) Get the Necessary Items
Get a pencil, your musc, rosin, a metronome, and a tuner ready BEFORE you start practicing so you don’t have to break the concentration by leaving to get something that you could have gotten before.
3.) Set Small Goals
Have you ever looked at a new piece and been so overwhelmed that you don’t know where to begin? When I started the Barber Violin Concerto I remember looking at some of it and thinking “there is NO WAY I will be able to play that fast!”. Playing the violin is hard enough, don’t overwhelm your brain by taking on everything at once. For example, split your piece into sections so that you can pick a place to learn the notes of on Monday, work with a drone to play it in tune on Tuesday, and work it up to tempo on Wednesday (just as an example!). Succeeding with small goals will help inspire you to continue practicing!
4.) Isolate the Sections that Give You Trouble
This goes right along with setting small goals, but it also helps to avoid playing the things we’re already good at over and over and hardly touching the hard stuff. It’s easy to do, and I know very well that it feels good to play something you’re good at, but you’ll learn the tougher passages much quicker if you isolate them and work on them BEFORE playing through that part you love.
5.) Practice Different Rhythms, Bowings, and Dynamics for Tough, Notey Passages
I have no scientific evidence to prove that this works or why it works, so you’re perfectly within your right to take this with a grain of salt. All I can say is that for me personally, these three tips helped me quickly learn a LOT of orchestra rep when I was in college. For those pages that are filled with mostly 16th notes, anything you can do to help train your muscles where they need to be and when will help. For the rhythms and bowings, I use a lot of the variations for Kreutzer’s 2nd étude. I show my students some of these as well!
6.) Practice Slow Enough That You Can Play the Entire Passage at the Same Tempo
Teaching young kids will teach you a lot about your own tendencies as a musician. I have seen all of my students do this at one point: They’ll play what they can play well at performance tempo then slow waaaaayyyyy down for the hard stuff. They have sayings about karma, and all I can say is whenever I have to take out a metronome with my students and explain to them how much they just slowed down, I am reminded of all the times my teachers have done the same to me. It sucks to slow things down when you just wanna go fast, but it’s important. You’ll end up never learning how it feels to play everything at tempo if you don’t slow it all down, or you’ll always play the hard parts poorly.
7.) Use a Metronome!
Seriously, if you’re not practicing with a metronome, it will show. If you have a tendency to rush, or slow down a section, you’re not even giving yourself a chance if you don’t practice with a metronome. You can get free apps on your phone that work great, so there’s really no excuse not to use one. Using a metronome should be a regular part of your practicing.
8.) Record Yourself
Have you ever played something for your teacher thinking you’ve knocked it out of the park just to have them give you a list of things you hadn’t even thought of? Sometimes when we learn something, we spend so much time and effort learning which note comes next that we don’t listen to things like intonation, dynamics, if we have enough bow pressure, etc. We do so much when we play that it can be really hard to pay attention to it all. That’s why recording yourself when you practice is so beneficial. The recording will never lie, it’s going to be extremely obvious if you’re playing out of tune or with a poor tone. Again, you can do this right on your phone, so there’s really no excuse to not do this one, either.
9.) Take Breaks
This is SO important! You are not Superman. Your body cannot handle hours on end of repetitive action without taking breaks! When I was a freshman and sophomore in college, I would practice for 4-5 hours at a time with no breaks, which led to pain that still bothers me 5 years later! I completely understand the anxiety of not having enough time to practice and feeling like you need to do as much as possible whenever you have the chance. It’s helpful to remember that if you mistreat your body, you risk not being able to practice for a really long time. The 50:10 rule worked really well for me. Practice 50 minutes, rest for 10. Talk with your teacher if you need help setting up a practice plan that works for you.
10.) Listen to Multiple Recordings
Ideally this should happen during breaks or outside of your practice session, but this is a really important part of learning a piece. You’ll get an idea of how it sounds in your head, and listening to multiple people play your piece will help you have an idea of how to make it your own. It’s also inspiring to watch professional violinists play!
What do your practice sessions look like? Feel free to share anything I missed!
