Practice practice practice! (Yes, the Photo is ME in a bad Mood!)
We hear these words all of the time from our teachers, orchestra and band directors and if you’re younger, even your parents.
When I went to Indiana University to start my degree in Oboe Performance, I did not have a clue on how to practice properly. Many of you are like that and students that I teach start that way with me. However it is my pleasure now to teach students how to practice successfully.
If you are the type of person that starts in the beginning of an Sonata or Etude and just play it straight through, you are doing yourself a disservice. We have to become more efficient at practice. We don’t want to waste our time so we need to practice in a way that gets things learned quickly and efficiently.
I give my students an example: phone numbers are three digits, 3 digits and then 4 digits here in America, and that allows us to remember them. The same thing is true for difficult musical passages. We need to divide it up into something we can understand. So if you have a difficult 16th note run, divided into small segments that you can easily practice. When students come to my studio for a lesson, I have them break difficult passages into these small segments, and then a few more segments, then a few more, and then finally we put it all together. And usually, they are amazed that they can actually play it. That is a great way to practice any passage and this goes for professionals or amateur players.
After I learned how to practice in my freshman year at Indiana University, then I started being able to play almost anything. My teacher Jerry Sirucek, was a master at teaching students how to practice, and that is a technique that I impart on all of my students. It is a life lesson in music that is one of the most valuable things you can have.