Varying your diet ~ Practiceopedia by Phillip Johnston

VARYING YOUR DIET

Freeing yourself from dull, repetitive practice

Charlene wouldn't mind practicing so much if it wasn't so boring.

"It's the same thing every day... playing my pieces over and over again... I'd go crazy, except that practicing makes me too sleepy for that."

Her teacher doesn't understand this at all. "Who said that practice had to be playing your pieces over and over and over again? That doesn't sound much like practice to me - no wonder you're bored."

If that's not practice, then what is? What else can she try?

0~0

Practice actually means hundreds of different things. There's no single magic formula that will work in all situations.

Because you have all this choice though, if you're bored when you're practicing, it's your fault. It would be like standing at a buffet with hundreds of different foods...and loading up your plate with just one. 

Practicing the same way all the time means either that you simply aren't aware of other practice possibilities or you're actively choosing to ignore them.

Either way, you're not just boring yourself. You're crippling your practice, and your music lessons.

Variety? Such as?

Below are just some of the tasks that qualify as "practice." So if you're sick of the way you're working, you don't have to abandon practice completely - you can change how you work, so that practicing becomes a completely different experience.

Planning

This involves figuring out exactly what you should be practicing, and how it fits in with the bigger picture. Planning is about knowing how today's session will help you be ready for next week, and how next week can help you prepare for the end of the year.

You might not actually be playing your instrument while you're doing this, but planning will save you loads of unnecessary work - and absolutely counts as practice.

Locating trouble spots

You can't fix problems if you don't know they're there. This type of practice doesn't actually fix problems, but instead helps you create a comprehensive list of what those problems are. 

Diagnosing and prescribing

It's not enough just to know that a problem exists - you have to understand exactly what's causing it. In fact, being able to name why something is hard is often nine-tenths of the way to making it easy.

These causes are not always obvious though, so you'll end up needing a technique like *Clearing Obstacles* - covered elsewhere on this blog. 

Quality control

There will be plenty of passages that don't warrant the status "Trouble Spot," but could use some polishing nonetheless. 

Quality control practice is about turning good passages into excellent passages.

Tempo boosting

Getting pieces up to speed has to be handled carefully... and with it's own unique practice methods. For instance, set yourself up with a *Prototype*. (check blog for this topic) 

Pressure testing

Ok, so you've got the passage right once. But can you get it right every time? Pressure testing is about ensuring that you can deliver what's needed under a range of difficult circumstances, and under pressure.

Interpretation workshop

Practicing is not just about getting things right. It's also a creative process designed to help you discover the most compelling, credible, exciting and moving ways to perform your pieces. Look for techniques such as *Experiments* (check elsewhere on this blog)

Knowing the score

Most scores are packed with details, and teachers have to waste a lot of lesson time pointing out terms, signs and notes that students missed. You can do this for yourself.

Preparing for performance

A special type of practice that kicks in during the final weeks before a recital/exam.

Listening to recordings

This is practice you can do even when you're not in your practice room. A great way to get to know every last note of your piece. Check *Recordings* covered elsewhere on this blog.

Reflecting 

This is quiet time taken between practice cells, analyzing what just happened, and figuring out what the next cell should therefore be. Hugely important, even though it's yet another type of practice that involves no playing whatsoever.

Head games

With so much of performance being a confidence game, getting your head together is a vital preparation task.

Fitness training

(also covered elsewhere on this blog) This is behind-the-scenes skillbuilding - items you'll never show off on concert day, but which will positively affect all your playing. Includes your scales and other technical work, sightreading development and theory, improvisation skills and more.

And much more...

So if there is a reason that your practice is always the same, it's not because you're short of alternatives.

Setting up dedicated days

One easy was to help your practice feel fresh and ever-changing is to have different functions for each day of your practice week.

So Tuesdays might be dedicated to listening to recordings, and then some background musical fitness training.

Wednesday might focus on reliability testing, while Thursday might be all about speeding pieces up.

Friday, as the midpoint of your practice week, might always contain a Lesson Preflight Check. (see Preflight Check on this blog)

Those won't be the only things you cover on those days - you'll still have daily practice tasks to complete.

But the days will be heavily flavored by the Practice Type of The Day, helping prevent the awful feeling that all your days are identical.

Using the random element

Another possibility is for your practice type to be determined randomly from a list of useful possibilities. 

Practice rooms are now always very surprising places. It's easy to end up doing the same old thing in the same old order.

Play this 6 times. Learn that passage. Practice these scales. Turn that page.

*yawn*

It doesn't have to be this way. In fact, with a small change, you can arrange things so that you are always being surprised by what's coming up.

A humble pack of cards can do the trick.

What's on your practice cards?

Every time you practice, there are dozens of different useful instructions you could give yourself. Normally you would settle on one of these options, and begin.

When you're using practice cards though, instead of choosing one instruction, you're going to write down all those possible instructions. One for each card.

This means you will end up with a deck of cards that is a comprehensive collection of possible "what's next" instructions. No matter which card you chose, you'd be told to do something worthwhile.

You can randomize just about any practice element - segments in your piece, issues, tasklist items, daily quotas, experiments, technical work, etc.

When variety is missing

When your practice diet is over-looking  one of these key techniques, it's not just that you're making things boring. These key techniques... well, they're key techniques. If you ignore any of them, your playing is going to suffer.

It would be like a tennis player spending all their time practicing their serve, but ignoring their groundstrokes, volleying, strength and conditioning, flexibility, mobility, mindset and tactics.

It's not just that they're going to be bored when they practice. They're going to get flogged when they play... :-D

Recordings ~ Practiceopedia by Phillip Johnston

RECORDINGS

Using existing performances to supercharge your preparation

Ben has been struggling with learning his new piece – he’s making slow progress, and can’t see how the notes he’s muddling through are ever going to turn into something that people would want to listen to.

His teacher is telling him to have faith – that the finished version will be worth it.

If only there was some way of him being able to taste what that finished version could be like…

~o~      ~o~      ~o~

Ninety years ago, if a student wanted to hear how their piece was supposed to sound, there was only one way to find out:

     They had to ask someone – usually their teacher – to play it for them.

Picture their amazement if you told them that their grandchildren would be able to listen to any piece, anytime, anywhere. As many times as they liked. Right there in the same room that they practice in.

What would amaze them even more though is that despite the fact such devices are available, the majority of music students don’t use them to help their practice. Like most of the technological wonders we’re surrounded by – any of which would fill our ancestors with awe and wonder – we quickly take them for granted. Which means that often we end up ignoring them completely.

So sure you could play recordings of your pieces, any time you like, as much as you like.

But do you?

Recordings as a practice tool

Recordings are not just a way to preview new pieces. They’re a powerful practice tool in their own right.

Which means that if you don’t use them when you work, you’re making things much harder for yourself – and paying for it by having to do additional practice.

So how do recordings give you such a head start?

Let me count the ways…

1. Aiding repertoire selection

Instead of having to rely on your teacher to choose pieces for you, recordings allow you to discover repertoire yourself.

If you have a big listening library or pieces for your instrument, you’ll keep getting great ideas for pieces you’d like to work on.

2. Creating direction for the future

Sometimes you’ll discover a great piece, only to have your teacher tell you “yes, but not yet.” When that happens (and at some stage it will), your teacher can then tell you exactly what skills you need to be able to develop before that piece is an option…

…which is then a powerful incentive to make those advances in your playing.

So for example, a violin teacher might rule out a piece because it requires 3^rd position, which hasn’t been covered in lessons yet. Knowing that 3^rd position is the obstacle, if your teacher then gives you a book full of exercises that are all in 3^rd position, you’ll understand why, and won’t mind practicing them hard.

In this way, recordings allow you to create wishlists for the future – and shape today’s practice to help you work towards those visions.

3. Scouting

Recordings are one of your most important assets when you’re scouting a new piece. You’ll be able to follow the score along while you listen, and taking down notes, ensuring that by the time you actually start working on the piece, you already know it thoroughly.

4. Background absorption

In the first week with a new piece, one of the best things you can do is to set the recording to loop, and listen to it everywhere. In the car, while you do homework, as replacement background music for your computer games, as the music that wakes you up when your alarm goes off… wherever.

The key word is “immersion,” and it’s a type of practice you can actually do while you’re busy with other tasks.

Unlike scouting, it’s not active listening – you won’t have the score, or be taking notes. But that’s fine… your subconscious will be taking notes of its own.

5. Self-correction

Because the recordings will mean that you know exactly what the piece is supposed to sound like, you’ll always know straight away if you’ve played something that’s wrong.

So your teacher won’t have to point out wrong notes – you’ll be able to hear them for yourself.

This sort of early detection will then also save you from accidentally cementing wrong notes, so that they’re a permanent wart on your piece.

6. Rhythm mentoring

Sometimes the easiest way to master a difficult rhythm is to be able to hear it and copy it, rather than slogging your way through counting or te-te’s. Your recording is obviously a great “here’s how it’s supposed to go” resource, and can help you with even the most complex rhythm problems.

You still need to be able to read rhythms – apart from anything else, a recording won’t always be available – but if being able to listen to the rhythm means you work it out faster, then you’re simply wasting time by not using the help.

7. Assembling the ultimate version

If you’re lucky enough to have multiple recordings of the same work, then you can take big steps towards shaping your own interpretation by comparing the different ideas in each of those recordings.

In each recording, you’ll hear ideas you want to adopt, and others you’ll want to avoid – but in the process, you’ll learn plenty about your own vision for the Ultimate Version of this piece.

You’ll also often end up with a favorite recording, in which case you can reverse-engineer it to figure out what exactly it is about that recording that you like so much. You can then apply those values to your own playing.

Multiple versions are not always easy to find, but this technique is definitely worth considering if you’re ever learning a well-known (and usually therefore, much recorded) work.

8. Karaoke practice

Once you know your piece well enough, you can use the recording to play along with – not so that you’ll end up cloning that performance, but simply to give you the added pressure of being able to keep up.

It’s also a great way to rehearse cues for concertos and pieces with accompaniments. Just listen to the recording and come in each time when you’re supposed to.

9. Defining the gap

When you listen to a recording made by a concert artist, you’ll quickly realize that you don’t sound like that… yet.

Instead of despairing at the gap between what you’re producing and what you hear in the model version, spend some time defining exactly what the difference is.

That way you can go and work on bridging that gap.

For example, if you notice that the recording manages to maintain a ruthlessly controlled tempo, whereas yours tends to fluctuate randomly, then as soon as you’ve realized that, you can do something about changing it.

In that way, the recording acts as a constant reminder of what’s possible, and an incentive to polish your own efforts.

10. Keeping the prize in view

When you’re in the early stages of practicing a new piece, it will sound nothing like the version you’ll end up performing. You’ll be playing things at half speed, in small segments, and there will be plenty of wrong notes and dodgy rhythms.

When your piece is sounding rough like that, it can be hard to remember just why it was that you fell in love with this piece in the first place.

That’s where the recording can come to the rescue. If your practice now is the “before” shot, the recording is a mock-up of what the “after” shot promises.

A recording is your instant reminder of “why am I doing all this?,” while also reminding you that the ugly-duckling stage of your piece won’t last forever.

11. The time factor

Even if all the other practice applications for using recordings leave you cold, there’s one that no student can ignore.

When you use recordings, you’ll learn your pieces faster

In other words, you get a big fat discount on the amount of practice required to be ready for each lesson – and for your concert/exam – if you’re immersing yourself in recordings of your piece.

So unless you’re one of these rare students who just has loads of 'don’t-know-what-to-do-with-it' spare time every week, you’d be crazy not to make use of anything that can help you get everything done sooner. If somebody could prove to me that wearing a peg on my nose would help me learn pieces faster, then I’d do it.

Fortunately, recordings are not nearly as painful. J

Playing back demonstrations

Another use for all this is to have your teacher’s demonstrations at hand. If your teacher has their own recording facilities, they can quickly record the passage segment as they want it, together with any explanation they want to make.

Broadening your musical intelligence

Your listening shouldn't just be limited to your pieces and your instrument. If you’re trying to make sense of a late Beethoven Piano Sonata, then you should also be listening to his other late works.

Similarly, if you’re about to play some Bartok for the first time, then immersing yourself in Bartok recordings is a great way to give yourself a head start for some of the stylistic and interpretation decisions that you’ll have to make later.

Listening guilt-free

Students are sometimes told that they should avoid recordings, because it cripples their reading, and has them producing carbon copy performances of the original.

Neither of those things is true.

Listening while you follow scores can actually enhance your reading – helping you relate what you hear to what you see.

And if carbon copies were possible that easily, then the fact that I listened to so much Horowitz as a student should mean that I sound like him by now. I don’t. But those recordings gave me plenty of great ideas, and inspired me to practice harder.

Like every other practice technique, using recordings is not designed to be the only way you work. It’s part of a much larger team – it just happens to be one of your best players.

Lesson Review ~ Practiceopedia by Phillip Johnston

LESSON REVIEW

Ensuring last lesson is fresh in your mind while you work

Maria's teacher told her that there were Five Really Important Things To Remember about her new piece.

The problem is that she can only remember three of them... and she's not so sure about one of those.

Although Maria is far from being scatterheaded, this is not the first time this has happened.

Is there anything she can do differently... so that she's not always practicing only half of what's needed?

~ 0 ~   ~ 0 ~   ~ 0 ~   ~ 0 ~   ~ 0 ~

It might not always feel like it, but even the least busy lessons are packed with information.

Sometimes this information will only affect tiny moments in your piece:

          Consider using your 3rd finger instead of your 4th finger on this note

And sometimes it will be global:

You've ignored the key signature for the whole piece! You now have 243 B flats to insert.

At the time you're told these things, you'll nod, and tell your teacher "ok." It's not like the information is hard to understand.

But understanding the information is not the problem. The problem is remembering it. Especially when it's one of many, many things you were told.

The shopping trip

Let's imagine that you've been asked to do some grocery shopping. 

"Here's what I'd like you to get" you're told. "We need milk, eggs, cat food, broccoli, sausages, washing powder, beans, more pegs for the clothesline, butter, breakfast cereal and a frozen chicken."

Like the points made in your lesson, it's certainly not hard to understand. But remembering it all...?

If your brain is anything like mine, by the time you're halfway to the shops, your head will be scrambling things:

"Milk, eggs, sausage powder, a chicken for the clothesline, a frozen cat... broccoli...? um... what was the other vegetable...?

When you come home, you'll have bought 5 of the 11 things you were supposed to... and another 10 things that were never on the list in the first place.

The same thing will happen to your lesson information.

With everyday that passes, you will remember less and less of what happened.

Don't believe me? Try the next exercise...

The Blue List

Right now, to and get yourself a blue pen and a sheet of paper.

Back already? Great. Now wrote down very point you can remember being made last lesson.

Take as long as you need.

When you're finished, put the sheet of paper somewhere safe... and then make sure you take it with you to your next lesson.

The Red List

At the next lesson, if your teacher has to remind you of a point they made last time - and that point is not on your blue list - then don't just nod and say "ok."

You need to add it to your list.

But you add it in red pen.

Chances are, as soon as your teacher makes a Red Pen point like that, you'll smack yourself in the forehead and think "How could I have forgotten that?"

Even more frustrating is that often these Red Pen points are things you could have easily fixed... if only you could have remembered.

Your pass mark

Once the lesson is over, quickly count up how many red pen points there were.

There is only one acceptable total:

Zero.

Anything higher means that your brain is leaking valuable information... and wasting time. The longer the list, the bigger the leak.

So what can you do to stop leaks like this? It's actually quite easy. You're going to stop them before they start.

Early blue lists are longer

Here's something that's a little weird:

If you created your Blue List straight after a lesson, it's going to be much longer than if you create it halfway through the week.

Why? Because your recall of the lesson will be at its strongest straight after the lesson... and then will diminish with every passing hour.

With 168 hours until your next lesson, that's  a lot of diminishing. 

It doesn't have to deteriorate like this though. There's a way to stop the information from fading, and it's something you should do every week before you practice. 

Stopping the decay

The key to stopping information disappearing is to reinforce it.

And the earlier, the better. Don't wait until midweek before you try this, otherwise the damage will already have been done.

Instead, start by making use of the trip home. Before your car pulls into your driveway, you need to have listed all the points that were made at your lesson.

You'll find that because your lesson has only just finished, these points should still be fresh, and should come easily.

It doesn't sound like much. But two very important things will have happened then:

          1) These points have appeared a second time. Your brain will notice this... and the                   information will be less likely to fade as a result.

          2) You forced yourself to actively recall the information. This will forge pathways in                 your brain that will ensure that you can recall the information again in the future.

Contrast that with what happens if there is no review:

          1) Your brain hears the information once, at the lesson itself. But it hears lots of                           things once, and to keep you sane, helps you forget most of them :-)

          2) Your brain is not required to call on that information. And so it files it under                          "Probably not needed." Like something you put in an unlabeled box and stick in the                    attic.

And then just like that unlabeled box, you won't be able to find that information when you need it.

Which is a fancy way of saying that you will have forgotten it.

A second dose

If you really want to ensure that nothing fades, then you might want to have a further top-up on the day after your lesson.

Again, your job is to list as many points from your lesson as you possibly can.

Your brain will really have got the message now that this information is worth filing, and making accessible. And so you'll remember it.

Remembering is a good start...

...but it's only a start. These Lesson Reviews will help you recall all the points that you needed to work on, but it's now still up to you to actually do that work.

Decide on the techniques that will help you deal with each of these points, and then go knock them off one at a time.

Measuring your progress

Every so often, run the Blue List/Red List exercise again. While Lesson Reviews don't guarantee that there will never be Red List items, they do guarantee to radically shorten those lists.

Which means your teacher can spend less time telling you about things you really already know (but had just filed badly)... and instead can surprise you with new ideas.

:-D

          

Lesson Preflight Check ~ Practiceopedia by Phillip Johnston

LESSON PREFLIGHT CHECK

Finding out if you're on track for next lesson

There are three days to go until Cameron's lesson, and he's not even close to being ready.

The problem though is that he has no idea this is the case. He'll find out he's not ready the same way he always does... with a panic attack on the day of his lesson.

It doesn't have to be this way. There's a special practice session he can run once a week that can rescue all of this...

~ 0 ~

If you WAIT until your lesson to find out whether you're ready for your lesson, then that's usually a sign that you're not ready.

Why? Because a big part of being ready is not just having everything done...

... it's knowing that you have everything done.

It's being able to confidently say to your teacher:

          "I know exactly what you needed me to do this week, and I've completed all of it."

Rather than simply:

          "I've done plenty of practice this week, I should be ok."

So how will you know that you're lesson ready?

The Preflight Checklist

Pilots don't just jump in the front seat of their Cessna, turn up the stereo and take off. They need to be 100% certain that everything is working as it should first. They run right through a checklist before they go anywhere.

                    Landing gear. Check

                    Flaps. Check

                    Onboard navigation. Check

                    Fuel. Check

                    Brakes. Check

The end result? As the wheels leave the tarmac, the pilot can confidently say:

"Everything's ready"

Don't find out in mid air

You'll certainly find out at your lesson whether you had completed all your practice tasks or not. In fact, your teacher will normally dedicate the first few minutes of your lesson to checking exactly that.

But that's a bit like finding out in mid-air whether your plane is ready: 

                    Landing gear. Check

                    Flaps. Check

                    Onboard navigation. Check

                    Fuel. Empty

                    Brakes. Check

Whoa! What was item four again? What would be so frustrating here is that fuel would have been a very easy thing to fix... if only you'd noticed it before you took off. Not so easy at 20,000 feet.

That's exactly how uncompleted practice items work. Most tasks that you had left undone you probably could have easily covered with a small amount of practice... if only you'd known.

Timing is everything

We'll have to look at how to run your Preflight Check in a second, but a more important question is working out when it should take place.

It needs to be late enough in your practice week that you've had a chance to actually complete your practice tasks - however, it needs to leave enough time before your lesson that you can still catch up on any tasks that you discover aren't ready.

It's no good running a Preflight Check twenty minutes before your lesson. Similarly, a Preflight Check after only one day of practice will usually just confirm that you've still got lots left to do. 

Normally I recommend a Preflight Check on the fifth day of your practice week.  By then, you should be just about finished with all your practice tasks - but if the Preflight Check goes badly, then you still have time to make it good.

Essential equipment

There's really only one thing you'll need for your Preflight Check:

A comprehensive list of everything your teacher needed you to get done this week.

You're then going to run through every item on that list - every item on that list.

So if your list included the requirement that you be able to play page two of your new Sonatina from memory, then at  some point in your Preflight Check you need to be able to do exactly that.

Remember, anything you don't check for now, your teacher will be checking for at your lesson. So it will definitely be noticed - the only question is when.

The whole point of the Preflight Check is to notice things while you can still do something about them.

If the Check goes badly

Sometimes these Preflight Checks can reveal that you're nowhere near as ready for your lesson as you should be.

That doesn't mean game over though. It just means you have to play some serious offense in the final quarter.

You'll be amazed how often a burst of intelligent work after a Preflight Check can take you from nowhere-near-ready to wow-my-teacher-is-going-to-be-so-impressed.

Remember, your Preflight Check doesn't just come back with "ready" or "not ready." It will also let you know exactly which practice items are not ready. In this way, that final quarter burst of practice is not just more practice - it's also better targeted practice.

You can then spend most of your time on the items that are least ready.

Show your teacher

When your teacher asks how your practice week was, you won't be limited to just giving them an adjective:

"It was good."

"I did lots of practice."

Tell them instead the results of your Preflight Check, together with when the check took place.

Why Preflight Checks can go badly

Preflight Checks are very good at helping you understand how ready each practice item is, but not so good at helping you understand why some items are not ready.

You'll need to respond differently, according to the true cause:

1. Not enough practice

Practicing is certainly not about how much time you spend, but it does take time to get through all your tasks. So if you know that the reason for the bad Preflight Check was "insufficient practice," then you need to schedule additional sessions for the remainder of your practice work.

2. Working on the wrong things

For instance, working on passages and issues that are already in good shape. This causes a huge gap in quality between the passages you play best and those you struggle with. And so, despite the fact that there might be plenty of practice happening, you're not going to be ready for your lesson. The problems from last lesson will remain unlearned, and your teacher will remain unimpressed. Keep yourself focused on the tasks at hand, by having a list of tasks you need to complete by the end of the session.

3. Choosing the wrong practice techniques

The type of practice you need to do for a "please speed up page X" is very different from preparing for "Please rework the fingering in bar Y." If you don't match your practice to the task, you won't be ready for your Preflight Check... or your lesson.

4. Poor closure skills

When you're practicing, you have to know when it's ok to stop, because overpracticing practice tasks can be just as bad for being lesson-ready as underpracticing. 

Fitness Training ~ Practiceopedia by Phillip Johnston

FITNESS TRAINING

Behind-the-scenes practice to help all your pieces

Casey has a special sort of preparation that she does - in addition to her regular practice.

None of it is on her teacher's Please Cover This Week list, but it's helping Casey to play better, practice less, and learn pieces faster - than most other students.

What's her secret? What is this special training that she does? And how can you do it too...?

~ 0 ~

If you were a professional footballer, your training would consist of much more than just practicing the elements of your game.

You would expect the soccer player to run plenty of drills on passing, dribbling, shooting, tackling, heading and taking penalty kicks. These are the elements that are on show in each game, and any football player obviously needs to have first rate skills for these areas.

However, what's not so obvious is some of the other work that the fans in the stadium never directly get to see.

This training happens behind closed doors, and most of it wouldn't seem to resemble soccer.

There's work on flexibility, endurance, sprint training, strength and conditioning. They'll work on their nutrition, their sleep habits, and their mental preparation. They'll study tactics, create strategies, scrutinize opposing teams and players, and review past performances of their own.

The fans will never know. But the player will, and it will have a positive impact on every game they play.

The invisible advantage

All of this behind the scene work is part of the soccer player's "fitness" - a term that goes well beyond how puffed they get if they're running to catch a bus. The soccer players never get a chance to directly show all this work - it's not likely they're going to have to run five laps on the field and then drop for 30 push-ups as part of Saturday's big match. 

But the entire regimen means they come into each game as a fully prepared and well-rounded player. 

Fitness training for musicians

What's this got to do with music? When you're practicing, it's tempting to spend all your time on the "visible" items. The pieces for your recital. The passage your teacher asked you to polish.

That's a bit like the soccer player only working on kicking and passing. Just as there is essential behind-the-scenes training for the soccer player, musicians have their own fitness work they need to do too.

This fitness work won't directly get you ready for your next lesson or recital. In fact, you won't ever get a chance to show this training to an audience.

But increasing your musical fitness levels will have a huge impact on your playing - and perhaps most importantly, on your practicing too. Let's take a look at three of the most common fitness training elements you'll face, and just why they're so important.

1. Scales and technical work

You'll never see "D major scale" scheduled as the opening item in your recital. But your scale fitness work will have had an enormous impact on whatever piece you actually do play - from the time you first read through the piece, to the performance itself.

Scales and technical work are an example of prepractice - developing skills now that you can call on in pieces later. So how does all that prepractice help?

Learn new pieces faster

If you already know D major scale, the fact that your piece is also in D major means that you have a huge head start when you are learning it. You will be expecting particular notes and particular fingerings, and you will be right most of the time - saving you plenty of reading time.

What if you were that comfortable with every key? You'd have a head start for every tonal piece you ever play.

Instant expertise at scale-based passages

Those big runs at the beginning and at the end of your piece? No need to practice those if they're in D major - you had done the practice in advance by becoming good at the scale behind the scenes.

Which means that the runs can sound great on concert day, even though you may have spent almost no time working on them directly.

More precise and powerful passage work

Of course, not everything in your pieces is going to appear as a straight scale. There might be a tricky run on page 3 that doesn't directly quote a scale you've worked on, but the time you had spent on scales in general meant that your "chops" are in good shape.

End result? You would have been able to master that passage with much less practice than somebody who didn't have the scales background - again, because the scales work you did a year ago ended up being prepractice for the piece you're doing now.

Help with memory lapses

That horrible moment at the end of your performance - when you couldn't remember whether the C's in the final run were sharp or not - was saved by the fact that you knew the whole run was based on a D major scale.

So you thought of that single fact, and just let the passage happen. The C#s would tumble out automatically, because they were always there in your scales work too.

The more figurations your fitness training includes, the better

Part of the aim of scales work is so you can look at a brand new passage and say "I've done that before." Or at least something very like it.

Obviously then the greater the variety of figurations you've covered in your scales fitness work, the more often you're going to be able to say "I've done that before" when you tackle new pieces. 

For that reason, you don't want to limit your scales practice to always delivering the same scales in the same way. Start on different notes, with different rhythms, at different speeds. Work on broken chords and arpeggios as well as scales. And factor in sudden direction changes, so that your scales are not always just up or down.

All this variety will help mirror what you're likely to encounter in reality. 

2. Sightreading

Scales aside for a moment, every piece you ever learn to play will be new at some stage. When your piece is a newborn like this, how fast things progress is limited by how well you read.

For this reason, good sightreading is a discount voucher, that promises big savings of your most precious asset: Time.

In fact, it can enable you not just to minimize, but to eliminate the 'figuring-out-how-to-play-this' stage of practice, allowing you to concentrate straight away on actually polishing your performance.

So while other students are still busy slogging through new notes, you'll already be speeding the piece up, injecting dynamics and adding your own performance stamp.

3. Theory

Theory is not  just about filling in worksheets and causing yourself pain. Similar to solid scales, a good understanding of theory will allow you to make assumptions about what's coming up in scores you've never met - and be right.

So if I'm learning the first movement of a Classical Sonata, I know that the centre section is likely to be built from short snippets of the opening theme, running through a bunch of different keys.

Why? Because I know what a development section is. I know when in the piece it's likely to appear, how long it's likely to last and how busy things are going to get - even though I've never played or heard the piece before. All I really need is confirmation that it's a sonata, and the name of the composer. My theory knowledge will usually do the rest.

But there's more. Not only can theory help you solidify pieces you already know, it will allow you to neatly describe what's already in your piece, making it much easier to remember otherwise complicated passages.

So instead of a passage just being masses of flats that you have to wade through, a little theory knowledge can go a long way:

Ah! It's inversion Gb major broken chord - then same again in the relative minor :-)

You won't have to read those notes after that. Nor will you have to remember them. Armed with that description, you could re-create the entire passage.

Don't wait to be asked

The students who are the most musically "fit" are not always those with the most demanding teachers. It's those students who demand the most of themselves.

Because you won't always be asked to show these fitness elements in lessons, you won't get extra credit for working on them. As a result, it can be very tempting not to work on them at all - after all, who will know?

You'll know. Music fitness is prepractice for thousands of pieces you haven't even met yet, and it will help lift  your playing to heights that regular practice alone could never reach. You'll also be able to learn new pieces much faster than you ever thought possible.

In short, if you do the training, you'll be armed with the equivalent of brand new musical super-powers.

Still not convinced? If nothing else, remember this:

Fitness Training - a ticket to less practice. 

Every minute you spend now on musical fitness training will save you an hour in the future.

I'm sure you'll think of good things to do with all that time you save! :-)