This is not to say that what you practice is unimportant.

As somebody who has learned to play an instrument primarily through learning repertoire, I believe quality and challenging repertoire is important for a player to fully develop all facets of their ability on the instrument.

That being said, it can be easy to get into a routine of skimming through repertoire, being able to play it all pretty well, but losing an attention to detail. In fact, it is unlikely that a player can progress to a high level without developing some specific and focused practice strategies. One thing I try to focus on in my practice is mindfulness. You may have heard of this as it relates to meditation or yoga. In music this manifests itself best as the ability to critically listen to every aspect of your own playing. In yoga, mindfulness can be achieving a full-body awareness; in music making, this can apply too - developing a full aural awareness. The ability to listen critically is at the core of what we do as musicians, and truly one of the most important skills that music builds; one, too, that is applicable outside of the profession and often cited as a reason music is a required class in schools. Gaining a deeper ability to listen and create a full aural awareness is a never-ending journey. Listening better, however, will undoubtedly make your practice sessions more focused and efficient and will help you improve as a musician.

I aim to present several concrete practice strategies to focus a practice session by managing time and working towards mindful and critical listening, to thereby develop your full aural awareness.

I. Time Management and Goal Setting

No secret to a great many players, setting a practice schedule is one of the top tools to keep a session focused. Numbers vary from player to player, but breaking up work into blocks of either 10 or 15 minutes depending on the exercise or repertoire is a way to organize a session. That amount of time is such that if a player feels they can already play a passage “well enough,” upon doing so they may see that there is time left on the clock, forcing them to listen harder and refine the passages - in other words, digging deeper than “good enough.” On the converse, if there is a difficult line of music a player has undertaken, the time limit prevents them from overworking. This is especially important for challenging works that may have a wide tessitura or strenuous dynamics.

Side note: in this digital age, it is also recommended that players get a self-contained timer and avoid the timer app on their cell phone, so as to avoid distraction. Managing time is an organizational practice strategy, which builds the foundation for focus and mindful listening by keeping the mind and ear on-track.

Hand in hand with time management is goal setting. This is not new material, and I would hazard to say most (if not all) successful players abide by some form of these organizational tools. For younger or less experienced players who may not have the wisdom to impose a schedule upon themselves, however, “go practice” is not helpful advice. Setting up a plan of attack before entering the practice room can ensure you achieve your goals. Vague is good, but specific is better. A sample practice schedule may look like this:

60 minute session:
10 minutes: Rochut #23, ms. 41-end [beautiful sound on higher notes, dynamic contrast]
10 minutes: Arban Characteristic Study #1, beginning-fine [attention to articulation markings, pitch accuracy]
5 minute break
15 minutes: Stars and Stripes Forever, intro and first strain [rhythmic accuracy on 16th notes]
5 minute break
15 minutes: Clarke/Bride of the Waves, trio/meno mosso [intonation on octave slurs, double tongue clarity]

If you keep a practice journal, try writing a schedule like this before you practice, and then make notes after the session on what you achieved in each of those blocks. For people who prefer to plan in their heads, any plan is better than none. However, it has been shown that putting goals down on paper improves the likeliness of achieving them by up to 42% (source), and another study claimed between 1.2 and 1.4 times as likely (source). Regardless, setting an intention on paper rather than keeping mental notes will improve your chances of achieving what you set out to do.

II. Dissecting and Listening

With a practice session organized, the attention can now turn to listening. Critically listening may feel like a vague and difficult thing to do. What I find works best is to break down playing into its component parts; i.e. in any piece or exercise, listen for each component that makes the work sound unique. Let’s look at one of the simple early Arban exercises as an example:

While this looks like something nearly everybody could very easily play, try to think of all the components that are involved in making a sound - any sound - to play this exercise. The beauty of simple exercises like the above etude is they allow for massive variability and they can be catered to an individual performer’s weaknesses. Below is a compiled list of potential components involved in performing this exercise:

There are certainly more components a performer may think to work on, but starting out this may be a pool of ideas to draw from.

Now, working through the above exercise, try to listen for each component individually - take a pass or two to focus solely on one aspect. When listening for note beginnings, for instance, what do you hear in your playing? How would you characterize the sound at the start of the note, and, perhaps more importantly, is it in line with the note beginnings of the players to whom you listen and respect? With all of these components, you can do a “listen and compare” to the sound concept in your mind. Try to find the ‘extremes’ for every component; for note beginnings the extremes could be air attacks on one end to almost putting your tongue in the mouthpiece on the other! Neither extreme will probably sound good, but until you cross the “line of vulgarity,” you can never know how much is too much. Having the control to play anywhere between the two extremes is a very handy tool. For other components, playing soft may mean playing as soft as you possibly can and then softer; breathing may mean trying different vowels as you breathe, different levels of relaxation, etc; vibrato may mean from flat tone to as fast as possible. Try to simply listen and explore all possible avenues for each component.

To make listening more effective, nearly every teacher recommends recording yourself and listening back to the recording. While playing the instrument, not only can you not divulge full attention to listening because some of the brain is focused on producing sound, but because of the physical aspect of being attached to the instrument! Any instrument you touch to play will resonate through your flesh and bones, producing different levels and types of vibrations on your ear drums - as opposed to purely listening to sound waves produced externally. A recording will tell you the truth about how you sound; while this can be difficult to listen to, it will give the most accurate feedback, which is important to accurately improve as a performer.

III. Application and Conclusion

Not all of the aforementioned components will be applicable or useful for every piece of music. What is important is mindfully practicing the ones that are. Whether playing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star or the Horovitz Euphonium Concerto, you can make your practicing more effective and become a better performer with the above methods.

• Segmenting up your time purposefully and…

• Being mindful about your goals in a practice session, combined with…

• active, mindful listening to individual aspects of playing

  will ensure your practice more efficient and effective, meaning you can get more done in less time.

If you think of more components to practice or you have success stories about trying new practice strategies, send me a message! Happy practicing.