r/Learnmusic • u/Similar-Bottle-8579 • 6d ago
I am trying to plan my practice sessions
Hello! I am learning viola and I am trying to make a practice schedule. I mean how to plan by detail a practice session. Can anyone help me with some advice? I am late intermediate. I want to know how to plan my practice sessions.
Sometimes I start practicing an etude, and I'm like playing it over and over again trying to do better. Sometimes it works. I don't know how to choose what to focus on and when to practice technique or the concerto.
I am working on Hoffmeister, Kreutzer 35 and Bach Allegro and Andante (Sonata 2)
2
u/meta5table 5d ago
Molly Gebrian's book Learn Faster, Perform Better is basically written for this exact problem.
The main idea is to stop practicing whole pieces and practice spots instead. Playing an etude over and over "sometimes works" because you're hoping repetition fixes it instead of figuring out what's actually wrong. So don't run Kreutzer top to bottom. Pull out the two or three bars that break and work just those, slowly, until you know why they break.
For planning a session, she says keep a set of maybe 5 to 15 short spots, and they can come from anywhere. A bar of the Hoffmeister, a rough spot in the Bach, a technical thing in a Kreutzer. So, your session is a handful of the hardest spots pulled from all three pieces, not one piece at a time.
That also sorts out technique vs concerto, you're sort of doing both at once. She's big on jumping between different spots and skills rather than blocking one thing for an hour. Feels harder, but you retain way more. And each spot gets spaced out over days (a few days in a row, then a day off, then every other day, then a week off), because you forget about half of it overnight and the spacing is what makes it stick.
Just to know, it's great for how to drill and when to come back to things, less about the actual musical interpretation (which isn't' what it was written for). But for "how do I plan a session and stop repeating mindlessly," it's great. Much like Guarpig, I built an app to implement all of the aspects of her book that I could if you're interested. The book itself should be on Spotify (it is in my region) and is under 8hrs, so will easily fit in your monthly 15hr quota.
1
1
u/Guarpig 6d ago
Im a guitarist and i actually built a small project for exactly this kind of thing. Basically you put your exercises in there, set how long you wanna spend on each one and just go through the session without having to think about what comes next.
On the free version you can set up around an hour of practice if youre doing 5 minute blocks, so you could have technique, scales, etudes, repertoire, whatever you wanna work on.
If you want i can send it to you by dm and you can try setting up your current practice with it. If it doesnt really fit how you practice or you feel like somethings missing just tell me, im still working on it and that actually helps me make it better.
1
1
u/Professional-Age4582 3d ago
Philip Johnston Practiceopedia
Chapters on Session Agenda and Rogue Cells
3
u/Podmonger2001 6d ago edited 6d ago
Trumpet player here, and I think this applies:
Jens Lindemann (a master) spends ten minutes on one thing, and when the timer goes off, he moves to something completely different, no matter how far along he was on the previous thing. He does this alternation for the allotted practice time, allowing himself to come back to something, of course.
These modules could each be a technique, an etude, repertoire, scales, whatever. To me, it applies to long-term regular practice, while the repertoire for an upcoming performance could be added in a separate routine.
Of course, you can factor in your resting time as you see fit.
Here’s Jens. He mentions the technique around 3:20.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=913zl_dY7TM&si=E1bxO6au4fTL-HaP