Developing a Practice Plan

Hi everyone,

In todays post I will be talking about developing a practice plan and what to include within your practice plan.

For your practice plan you might choose to do yours on a weekly basis or a monthly basis, depending on works best for you. But, you may also want to include what you might to practice on a daily basis by breaking the weekly basis one down into smaller chunks.

What to Include in Your Practice Plan

- Scales & Arpeggios

- Studies, Etudes & Exercises

- Technique

- Tone

- Sight Reading

- Orchestral Excepts

- Exam Pieces

- Repertoire

Scales & Arpeggios

Scales and arpeggios should form the basis of any practice session, and it doesn't matter if you are a beginner or a more advanced player - scales and arpeggios form the basis of any musical journey, and are essentially the foundations of building a good musical understanding. You can use your scales and arpeggios in a various ways such as developing a technique such as staccato or slurring notes, or getting used to playing in various octaves.

Studies, Etudes & Exercises

Studies & etudes can be introduced at any stage of your musical journey, and these are short pieces of music with a few technical challenges thrown in to push you. You can get studies and etudes from a beginner level right the way up to advanced level. I've also mentioned exercises, and these are what Trinity offer as part of their technical graded exam syllabus. These exercises work in a similar way to a study or etude, but they are shorter in length compared to a study/ etude.

Technique

There's quite a few ways that you can develop your technique on your instrument, and most instruments offer books that will help you to develop your technique. They are usually short exercises that usually focus on one or two aspects of the different techniques you can learn and develop your instrument. You can also use your scales/ arpeggios or a study that focuses on a particular technique that you would like to develop. Also, developing your technique takes time; but the more you do it, the more refined your technique should become.

Tone

There's also quite a number of ways that you can develop your tonal qualities on your instrument, and they can range from doing long tones, harmonics or you can just use your scales and arpeggios. There's also books available that focuses on developing your tone on your instrument; and these books can be made up of either well known pieces of music or exercises. They should also explain what type of tonal quality your aiming for within these pieces/ exercises.

Sight Reading

Sight reading is an important part of developing as a musician, as it will help you to read from the stave more easily. Sight reading books are available across a range of instruments, and also from different exam boards and composers. They also range from beginner level right the way up to advanced level.

Orchestral Excerpts

Orchestral excerpts are for more advanced players, and these usually get introduced around Grade 6. An orchestral excerpt is a segment from a full orchestral score, and these pieces also work in a similar way to study. They are also used for orchestral auditions.

Exam Pieces

Please make sure that your practice plan includes all of the pieces that you are working on for your music exams, whether these are graded music exams, diploma exams or exams that will form part of your music degree.

Repertoire

These are any additional pieces that you may be learning either just for fun, or as part of your musical education.

Goal Setting - This is important, as you might have a timeline that your pieces will have to be learned by, or you might want to set yourself a series of short term and long term goals. It's also important to factor these into your practice plan, so then you can make the short term goals more attainable, while still working on your long term goals.

Also, your practice plan doesn't have to include everything off this list - start by choosing what is the most important areas from this list, and then take it from there. Try your best not to overwhelm yourself, as you can always leave areas out that don't apply to your learning for the time eg.) orchestral excerpts, as these are mainly aimed at more advancing players. But you can also do this 'rolling' style, and there's two ways that you can 'roll'.

 - The first way to 'roll' is within the specific area eg) Scales & Arpeggios. I've chosen Scales & Arpeggios as I can explain it a little better to you. So, for your first month; you might want to focus on three scales and arpeggios to work on; and then the following month 'roll in' three more scales and arpeggios to replace the ones that you have been working on.

- The second way to 'roll' is between each area. For example, for your first month you might want to focus working on Studies, Etudes & Exercises; and then for the second month, you might want to work on an orchestral excerpt.