Wynton’s Twelve Ways to Practice

  At no point in a musicians life is there ever any end to practicing. At no point in any musician's career do you ever "finish" practicing. So much time is spent of every tiny nuance that eventually adds up to a competent musician. The grind is slow. The achievements are not permanent. Musicians at the top of their careers must spend hours a day practicing just to maintain their level of musicianship! Your bulk of your development as a musician does not happen in private lesson, or a guest lecture. It happens in that tiny dimly lit practice room. Thats where the masters are made. If you walk the practice room halls of any University or College, the students you could swear actually live there, are typically the best players in the school. Its a long process that has very little instant gratification. You can spend 6 hours practicing in a day, and feel as though you have made no measurable difference. But with the drive and determination to have months of 6 hour practice days will catapult you into a different dimension of musicianship. As musicians, we spend so much time practicing- we should make sure we're doing it right! Here is the trumpet master, Wynton Marsalis, explain exactly what you should be doing with your practice time. These 12 ways to practice do not only apply to music. They apply to everyday life. That drive and determination developed in your 4x4'' stale practice room will bleed out into everything else in your life and make everything so much better.     1. Seek out instruction: Find an experienced teacher who knows what you should be doing. A good teacher will help you understand the purpose of practicing and can teach you ways to make practicing easier and more productive. 2. Write out a schedule: A schedule helps you organize your time. Be sure to allow time to review the fundamentals because they are the foundation of all the complicated things that come later. If you are practicing basketball, for example, be sure to put time in your schedule to practice free throws. 3. Set goals: Like a schedule, goals help you organize your time and chart your progress. Goals also act as a challenge: something to strive for in a specific period of time. If a certain task turns out to be really difficult, relax your goals: practice doesnʼt have to be painful to achieve results. 4. Concentrate: You can do more in 10 minutes of focused practice than in an hour of sighing and moaning. This means no video games, no television, no radio, just sitting still and working. Start by concentrating for a few minutes at a time and work up to longer periods gradually. Concentrated effort takes practice too, especially for young people. When making the decision between practicing and getting food, I usually end up dropping a pant size over the semester. @musicmajorprob — Angelica Fulop (@gelifulopizza) January 21, 2015 5. Relax and practice slowly: Take your time; [...]

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