Structuring practice
I’ve been researching how to make practice sessions as effective as possible and believe I’ve come up with a process that will work. It consists of viewing each session as composed of four discrete stages: warm-up, technique, repertoire and review.
These stages can be described as:
- Start each session with a warm-up (using my warm-up tab). In addition to literally warming the muscles, warming up provides an opportunity to examine our movements - remember that we should be playing slowly with the desired technique while warming up. Until recently, I’ve completely neglected warm-up and am beginning to wonder if this is why I sometimes pick up the guitar and feel like I’m a terrible player.
- Actively work on technical proficiency. This might be exercises or tackling a technique required for a song I’m learning
- Work on learning new repertoire every day, remembering to distinguish between:
- Learning how to play small chunks with accuracy at a slow tempo (“Slow practice”), then
- Increasing speed while maintaining accuracy
- Review known pieces every day - this should be fun
I’ve prepared a as a reminder for myself.
