Practising and rehearsingOrganising your practice

Planning your practice

Make up a weekly practice timetable for both of your chosen instruments. A daily practice session of 15 - 30 minutes is recommended.

Set targets and keep a progress diary to track improvements. Difficult areas of the music may require a more disciplined approach – allow yourself several days to practise tricky areas more slowly, aiming to play a little faster by the end of the week.

Keep practice sessions interesting by working on more than one piece and by trying to play a variety of musical styles. For example mixing jazz and classical or blues and baroque will give you more variety and help keep you concentrating.

Before you practise:

• check your instrument is in tune (if appropriate)
• do some warm-up exercises on your instrument/voice
• consider the posture and technique required - this will help improve tone

When you practise:

• record yourself practising so that you can listen back and reflect
• break difficult sections into small chunks
• practise slowly and repeatedly, then gradually build up the tempo
• practise in front of other people to help build confidence
• practise scales and studies regularly to improve technical ability

After your practice, reflect on it by:

• listening to or watch recording of yourself playing
• identifying areas that may require further practice
• noting the progress you see in your practice sessions in a notebook, or a logbook provided by your teacher

Memorisation

Remember that everyone will have their own ways of memorising a piece of music. In the clip below, performers from the Scottish Symphony describe a range of different approaches to memorisation.