Theories of Practicing Music

Ok, it's the New Year. Among my many resolutions is this one: to practice the violin and the piano every day. I will accept a minimum of 30 minutes per day per instrument, but, of course, more time would be preferable, if possible.

I became convinced of the importance of practicing every day after I interviewed Adolph Herseth, who, during his long career as first trumpet of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra, and who was known as "The World's Greatest Living Trumpeter". He told me that he practiced every day, without fail, no matter where he was and no matter what the season. He carried his mouthpiece in his pocket. After that, I began to practice every day and I noticed the vast improvement in my playing. In recent years I would say that I was able to practice for an hour on about 3 or 4 days out of 7. That worked pretty well, but this year I want to do even better. For example, my string quartet wants to do some ambitious music so I want to get into shape and learn the music, as well! At my age, my muscles can become sore (from disuse? or some other reason?) so that's another reason I want to keep my muscles toned.

I'd like to mention two other theories of practicing music. First of all there is a great rule: if you come across a difficult passage, play it very slowly and perfectly. Then work the speed up. I got another tip from YoYo Ma, in an article about him in Time magazine some years ago: when you make a mistake you must play it perfectly three times in a row. If you play it two times and make a mistake, you must start over on number 1! This is a great method because it trains you to repeat the perfect playings, not the mistakes.

Of course, there are many other tricks about practicing, such as repeating a group of notes over and over, then going on to the next pattern.