2. Practicing
Practicing is the most important part of learning any musical instrument. The more practice you put into it, the more you will get out of it. Practice doesn't necessarily make perfect, but it does make better! The key element of practice, is time. The most important thing you can do to practice is to make time for practice. For beginners start out practicing 20 minutes a day. If you have more time, great, if not try to do at least twenty.
Set aside a certain time each day for you to practice for twenty minutes, or more. If possible make it the same time everyday. To help with this process try making a schedule of your entire week. Even if you can't schedule your practice at the same time everyday, examine your schedule to find that twenty minute spot for each day. Here is an example schedule to use as guide:
Once you have scheduled your practice time, make yourself stick to it. Set an alarm on your cell phone if you have to, but make yourself get in that practice room! Where you practice is also important. It's best to practice where you can be alone, with just you and your instrument. Try to find a place away from the T.V. or any other thing that will cause you to lose your focus on practicing. Once you've found that perfect place, which you should have all set up and ready to go (see the above article on Setting Up Your Practice Studio for what you need) it's time to get started!
Allocate to each practice session, a certain amount of time for each item that you need to work on. For example:
Practice Scales= 5 minutes
Practice Chord Changing = 5 minutes
Practice Songs = 10 minutes
Again, being organized (i.e. having your music in a binder, in alphabetical order), will help tremendously, and save you lots of time. It doesn't count as twenty minutes of practice if you spend the whole time looking for a song, that is folded up 6 different ways in your coat pocket, inside of a closet on the other side of the house!
Keep your music nice and neat, and put it on a music stand. Setting your music in the floor or, on the bed can enable bad habits to emerge, such as not holding the instrument properly, because you are having to lean down to see the music. Using a music stand may also help you practice longer. If you're not straining your neck to look down at the floor to see the music, you are more likely not to get as tired as quick.
Also keep your instrument out of its case and on an instrument stand, or wall hanger. This will save you some time. It will also be more inviting for you to pick up your instrument, even when it's not your designated practice time. A wall hanger is a great way to save space in a small room, and run usually about the same price as a floor stand.
Use a metronome, or drum machine, in your practice to help you develop good rhythm. Our student resource page is equipped with both a metronome, and drum tracks, which you can set to various tempos and styles. See the next article, Using the Middle C Resource Page to Practice, for more information on how to use these tools and more.
Repetition is important in practicing any song, scale, or chord change, so get in the habit of playing them in a row, over and over. If you find yourself having trouble with certain sections of a song, isolate those sections and practice them separate from the rest of the song, until you feel you have got them down.
Don't get too hung up on the troubles sections, as many of the kinks will get worked out over time, the more you play the piece. One other piece of advice hear, is when you are practicing a song, try to keep the tempo at a speed that you can manage for the duration of the song. Don't just play the easy parts fast, and then slow down on the hard parts. Slow down the easy parts of , so that you can keep the same tempo while you play the difficult parts. The more you practice you may then begin to speed up the tempo of the song, to where it needs to be.
If you start to get frustrated with part of a song, especially something that you have played perfectly fine in previous practices, try moving onto something else and then come back to it, either later in the practice, or at your next practice session. There are times that your brain just needs to be "reset". I have had students in lessons trying over, and over, to play something for me that they could play perfectly fine at home. I will often tell them to play "Jingle Bells, or some other, off-the-wall song (which they usually give me a strange look like as if to say, "I'm trying to play 'Thunderstruck' by ACDC and you want me to play 'Jingle Bells'?") Once they have played a little bit of "Jingle Bells",I tell them to stop and go back to what they were playing before, and most of the time they play it perfect!
