h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Right, if that's about it then, I'll start assembling the entry.

Latest thoughts: only perfect practice makes perfect. It can be perfect even if it's

*very short,
*too easy,
*very slow or
*months since your last practice.

It cannot be perfect if it's

*self-indulgent,
*unhopeful,
*doubtful as to its efficacy or
*hurried.

I did it! I did it!
I practised this weekend. I even picked up my newest instrument and produced some really good stuff (for me)Thank you all for reminding me that I need to practice. I feel very good about myself now. One thing I did notice was that I found that just playing stuff that I like and enjoy produced the best results. I went back to the tuition after this and things were not so good. However this could be because I had overdone things a little. You know how you have peaks during practice, it is not a good idea to try and do too much.
I am not one of the seven.

The Seven Wise Men? Wise Virgins? Deadly Sins? Sorry, you've lost me . . .

Great to hear of your invigorating practice though! Courage! I'm off to do a spot myself!

First things first...

Practicing. Hmm. Not sure. I'm having a major problem myself. I'm starting to get back into it; playing a study I was given exactly a year ago (purely coincidental). It seems a major problem is feeling guilty about practicing, and inconveniencing those around you. Ask them. Ask them if there is a particular time of day when they really don't want to hear you shrieking. You might find that they like to hear you anyway. When I left home, apparently the neighbours actually said to my parents that they missed hearing me play. News to me; I'd figured they'd got bored of me endlessly trying to play the same thing over and over again, to (my ears) a low standard.

We have trumpet players in our house, and three bad pianists, (one good one and it isn't me) The noise levels are very high. Oh I forgot my electric guitar playing son.(sometimes very bad) You just have to put up with it. I play the quietest instrument.
Dwarf was what I meant.

You play a Dwarf?

any recomendations on what to practice?

I've been trying to play the guitar for years yet I always end up playing the same songs all the time and not progressing much.

(I got as far as grade 1 trumpet and piano as a kid, but gave it up due to some very uninspiring teaching turning it into a chore.)

CF

OK good stuff coming in; I'll try and incorporate the points of view.
(Sorry Happy I forgot I'd asked you where's Sneezy.)

More thoughts:

The factors that determine the value of a house are location, location, and location. Similarly the factors that determine the value of a practice session are motivation, motivation, and motivation. If you have trouble putting down your instrument long enough to eat breakfast, you are unlikely to read this Entry. But many amateur musicians are caught on the horns of a dilemma: if easily motivated, they are easily distracted, and if not, they find it hard to fit practice time into an already full daily routine. Practice done for oneself is the first thing to be sacrificed when something else is clamouring for attention.

Admit that you can't take on something extra without doing less of something else; so write down a list of what you are willing to give up. Even if your days seem moderately idle, there is always stuff going on, and some of it has to go.

It is perfectly good strategy to deceive yourself into good behaviour. Reluctance and other inhibiting habits are good targets for sidetracking. Use dice and cards, and tiny rewards. Cards can be used if you have a long list of scales to learn: write the names on an old incomplete pack of cards, draw one each day. You can incorporate bonuses (free day!) for fun. Throw a die to vary the daily fare: for part or all of your session the following options, or others, could apply:
*six: solve a single technical problem in a piece
*five: revise or memorise an old piece
*four: read through something new
*three: metronome practice
*two: tone production
*one: free choice

Establish (it's best to write it down) how long your session is going to last, before you begin. It may also help to state what level of emergency will be allowed to interrupt it (e.g. doorbell but not phone).

A word on metronome practice: *very* useful, but only when it is used as a steadying measure (to slow you down). Speed is only acquired through smoothness; don't practise the scale, practise the smoothness.

A way to improve reading: do it with your eyes shut. Look at a bar, or half a bar, close your eyes, think it through and play it from memory. Fluent readers are reading ahead of what they are playing, which involves a specialised multi-tasking routine, reading, sorting and playing by memory all at once. Not more demanding than threading your way through a crowded pavement, once you're used to it; but the fatal flaw that stops people improving their reading is their willingness to go back and correct mistakes. Mistakes are like mis-hit tennis balls, they cannot be re-hit. A correction is no use, worse, it is in effect a further mistake. Your attention is always on the ball coming next.

If you are a smoker work out approximately how much time in a day that you spend smoking, it is surprising. Then, give up smoking and spend that time practising. I'm a flute player, my newest instrument is an Irish E flat low whistle in aluminium. (Harder than I thought) I have a glass flute too in D (very hard) and a regular concert flute (much easier, but then I have been practising for a lot longer!)
The main thing is playing must be fun!!
I did play guitar for a few years but had to decide which instument I was going to devote my time to. Tried a Banjo thinking I could play Deliverance (I managed The Old Grey Mare). Now I only do guitar when totally drunk at parties where no-one can tell if its any good or not.

Hmmm . . . could be good psychology, but it could mingle practice reluctance with withdrawal angst . . . best of luck and let us know how it goes!

What sort of mouthpiece is there on your glass flute? A glass mouthpiece would seem vulnerable at the sharp lip.

Crunchy~
recommendations on what to practise: depends on what you want to be able to play. Playing over what you know can seem to be getting you nowhere, but that could be because you don't appreciate the extra relaxation that more and more familiarity brings. You can never know a piece too well (though you can get sloppy if you're bored with it).

It is however a form of self-indulgence if you always play familiar things because you haven't the daring to start learning something new.

Spend a day thinking what you really want to learn next, then go for it.

I'm a choral singer, so maybe slightly different techniques apply here. You're right about practicing the bits that you don't know or are having problems with. I find that learning by heart the few bars up to a problem section gives me confidence and stops me worrying that there's a difficult bit coming up. Again, before tackling the problem section, I learn by heart the few bars after it. This way I can move straight from a difficult peice to something with which I'm familiar so don't need to break my concentration in order to prepare for the next section.

You're right about learning things at a slower tempo and then speeding them up once they are learned.

I try to work backwards. That way as you go through the piece from start to finish you find yourself more and more fluid. Often peope start at the beginning, so instead of getting better as they go through, they get worse (in a play-through situation).

The glass flute is transverse (sideways like a 'usual' flute) It has a slightly raised edge around the hole that you blow across. Generally it is quite safe but you wouldn't want to drop it. I never take it out of the house and it lives in a very firm case.
I couln't really imagine trying to play anythig backwards as such, but I agree with Yvonne about learning the bits before and after a difficult section really well to minimise messing it up when you finally do get the tricky bit right.

Oh! I didn't mean literally backwards, but playing section-by-section, starting from the end.
I'm currently working with bar after bar of sextuplets, so I take the last six notes, work until I'm fluid. Then go back another six notes, and work on those. I then work on those twelve, practicing the join.

Thats good, I have problems enough reading forwards!
Crunchy Frog - why don't you take up Mongolian throat singing. I heard a program on the radio about it and it's very good. If I new a teacher near me I'd have lessons. They say its a little easier for men to do than women though.
Happy

Sorry I meant knew, forgot the K

Singing the alto line in choral work I sometimes have to deal with strange intervals between notes, or notes that conflict or dischord with those of another part (normally the tenors ) I take those intervals and practice them until they feel natural and are easier to achieve. When they come up in the work or against other parts, they're far more easy to manage.

Good point Yvonne. Take your most awkward phrase and use it for warm-ups, using different vowels, different rhythms.