Posted by MP on August 20, 2003 at 12:40:10:
Sorry to begin a new thread on this, but I feel it's an important point.
In the below thread about practice amounts, a young student talks of trying to practice four hours a day and 'organising' sessions into hour-long blocks.
Good practice is focused practice; not going through the motions and practicing what you can already play.
Anyone sitting down playing scales near-solid for an hour must be wasting the majority of that time!
Humans cannot concentrate constructively for more than about 20 minutes in my opinion. This statement is backed-up by Christian Lindberg (and other top professionals) who stated the same thing in a masterclass. Clearly it varies from individual to individual to a minor extent.
There is no point in practicing unless it is focused, constructive and effective. An hour's scale practice cannot contain a full-hour's effective, concentrated work. 20 minutes focused practice of major scales (played in an unfamiliar pattern perhaps) followed by 10 mins rest will probably yeald the same results toward whatever your goal may be. If it's available in the US, Howard Snell's book - "The Trumpet" contains great advice on practicing (and a whole lot else too).
The guy in the below thread tried to organise his practice time and aim for 4hrs, however he went on to say he fails to reach that 4hrs. That's bad practice my friend. Much better to do a comprehensive Daily Drill lasting 40 - 50 mins which covers ALL technical bases for 10 minutes (or even less) each. These sort of achieveable targets in your practice are of much greater benefit - particularly for someone at school. I say better to practice part of a solo or study for 10 - 20 minutes perhaps. Make your goal simply to be able to play part of the piece better once you've finished. If you feel like stopping after 10 mins, fine; you've done what you set out to. Repeat this process with any aspect of your playing until you either have no time to spare that day or are simply bored. Keep your targets small and achieveable. Don't look past your current goal in the short block of practice you are doing. Use your rest time to evaluate and decide what to do next. This is focused practice as I see it.
Any amount of thoughtless, unfocused practice is a virtual waste of time and if folks think they can concentrate fully on something like scales for an hour, I believe they're mistaken. You're probably just going through the motions; practicing what you can already do!
Sorry for the rant.
Thoughts?
MP