We are often told that we need to practice a certain number of hours in order to become good. Many have the idea that if you didn’t manage to learn the piece we are playing fast enough or if we are not developing our level fast enough, that then it must be because we are not practicing enough. We might spend hours and hours in the practice room and still be told that we need to practice more. But in reality, it is probably not the amount of practice that is the problem, but the efficiency of the practice. If we practice efficiently it is possible to develop faster with only a small amount of practice compared to non-efficient practice for many hours.
Read here for tips how to make your practice more efficient.
Have a goal with each practice session
Before starting your practice session, you have to determine what you want to focuse on today. The focuse can be anything you feel that you need to improve, it can be intonation in the high register, sound quality when playing loud, improving legato/staccato, learning one page of your piece by heart, etc. The goal of your practice needs to be very specific. During the practice you also need to thing about other things than your main goal, but by having one thing you focuse on in every practice session, you will help yourself stay concentrated and after the practice session you will be more able to evaluate how your practice went. The goal of your practice can change every time you practice or you can have the same goal for a longer time, if you have a certain area of your playing you need to improve.
Evaluate your practice
When you determine your goal of the practice session it is also improtent to evaluate afterwards. You need to give yourself some time to think about your practice and evaluate what you think went well, what you improved or what you need to work on even more. It is important to determine the things that didn’t go well and you need to practice more, but it is also very important to think about the things you did well. If you decided that your goal of the practice was to improve your intonation in the high register, then you will not make it perfect in one practice session. You need to evaluate your practice and see if you did improve it even just a bit. This way you will feel happier after practicing and motivated to practice, because you feel that you are actually improving.
Have a practice journal
When you determine your goal with the practice and you evaluate afterwards, it can be a good idea to have a practice journal where you write everything down. When you write your goals down it will psychologically make you more motivated to realise them, and when you write down your evaluation you will make yourself think more and deeper about your practice session than you would without writing it down. Another benefit of having a practice journal is, that after a while you will be able to look back to all your previous sessions and see your goals and evaluations. This way you will be able to see very clearly if your goals have changed or if the goals stay the same. If your goals have changed that can either mean that you improved the goals and it is time to change your focus, but you might find out that you changed your goals because it was hard to stay focused on a certain goal. In this case you might want to revisit this goal. If your goals have stayed the same, it can mean that you are still in the process of improving this goal, but you might want to change the goal sometimes. If you stay with the same goal all the time, it can be demotivating and you also need to focus on other aspects of your playing.
Stay concentrated
During your practice session it is important to concentrate and stay concentrated. Since we are often told that we need to practice a certain number of hours or practice more, we have a tendency to focus on how long we are practicing rather than the quality of hour practice. If you are very concentrated during your practice you will lose your concentration from time to time. When this happens, it is a good idea to take a moment or few minutes and just relax your mind. Then your mind is ready to concentrate again. If you keep practicing when your concentration fades, the quality of your practice will go down and you might even develop some habits that you will need to spend time and energy on to get rid of later. If you are not used to focus on your concentration during practicing, you might not be able to hold the concentration for long. If this is the case for you, it is best to take breaks or even stop for the day. If you make sure that you always practice concentrated, you will be able to concentrate for longer and longer over time.
Listen to your body
A very important point is, that you need to listen to your body. That means that it is important to not force yourself to play longer than your stamina allows. You need to push your stamina a bit in order to improve it, but if you feel your embouchure getting tired and you start biting the reed, then it is time to finish. If you overplay your stamina, it will be hard to play the next day, and you will almost definitely develop bad habits that you will need to work on getting rid of later. To avoid this, you need to finish your practice when you feel that you are not able to hold your embouchure the optimal way. Other signs that show that your stamina reached its limit is if your sound starts getting worse, you are not able to keep intonation and you start to get tense. If you get tense in your arms, back, neck etc. it is very important to listen to your body and stop practicing. If you have problems with constant tension, you need your goal of the practice to be relaxing your body. If this is not working enough, you need to see your doctor to release to problem before it gets worse or even permanent.
We are very often told to practice more or a certain number of hours. But the reality is that this is not the best way to practice at all. If you do all these tips in your practice, you will likely not be able to practicing as long as you did before, but over time you will see greater improvement. It is more important to practice smart than to practice long.
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