It’s important to practice your music instrument frequently in order to grow as a musician. However, it can be challenging to find time for it all the time. After all, there are many things vying for our attention—especially when you’re a teenager.
Thankfully, with some strategic planning and the right mindset, you can make the most of your practice time so that you get better faster.
Be Strategic with Your Practice Time
If you are spending time in a way that isn’t helping you to progress, then you need to be strategic about how you use your practice time.
First, make sure you’re practicing the right thing. Practicing too much of the wrong thing can even cause you to regress. Make a list of the things that you want to improve on and then create a practice schedule based on those things.
Next, consider how you’re using your practice time. Are you using your time wisely by scheduling the most important things first? Or are you spending the majority of your time on one thing? Are you taking frequent breaks or are you playing for hours straight?
The key is to find a balance between frequent practice sessions and taking enough breaks to avoid getting burnt out. If you feel that you’re pushing yourself too hard, take a break. Play some profi kickertisch and get back to practicing to refresh your mind.
Check Your fundamentals
If you’re just starting out, you may not have even developed a proper fundamental skill set yet, so it’s best to focus on practicing the basics rather than trying to tackle more challenging musical concepts.
Once you’ve developed your fundamentals, you can then move on to more advanced things, like improvisation and ad-libbing. When you’re just starting out, it can be easy to get caught up in trying to master more advanced concepts without even having your basics down.
In fact, when we focus too much on the advanced stuff, we often forget to build up our fundamentals on which those more advanced skills are based. The best way to develop your fundamentals is to practice them often. So, when you’re just starting out, you should focus on practicing these often. Some examples are scales and arpeggios, scales, rhythms, reading music, and playing by ear.