There are two things you must be mindful of in every distinctive stage of your musical growth:
Improvement
Maintenance
In this lesson we’ll be looking each of them and a proper understanding of what they imply will help you manage and maximize your daily practice routine.
Alright! I would want to assume that you know about the concept of practicing and practice routines. Therefore, let’s get started by breaking down the concepts of improvement and maintenance practice.
Improvement Practice: Making New Friends
It’s NOT enough to practice. It is important for you to practice like you’re making new friends.
The same way you come across people you think are cool to be friends with, try to start up a discussion with them, get acquainted with them, and more, that’s how to approach a practice session.
Look for concepts, ideas, techniques, progressions, songs, etc., that you’re not familiar with and start up a conversation with them, then get acquainted with them (figuratively).
“Here’s What I Mean…”
Starting Up The Conversation
The practice session should be approached like you’re getting started with a conversation. You should be observant and open.
Just like in real life where friends might give you good or bad initial responses, you can either play an unfamiliar concept easily or find it challenging.
If you find it challenging, try again — don’t give up.
However, after trying repeatedly and it’s way beyond your scope, it is recommended that you try practicing something simpler.
Attention: To learn more about this, I recommend our 500+ page course: The “Official Guide To Piano Playing.” [thrive_2step id=’18141′]Click here for more information.[/thrive_2step]
Getting Acquainted
After practicing unfamiliar ideas for a while, you’ll get acquainted with them. You’ll get this feeling associated with finding out the similarities and differences between you and a newfound friend.
I’m talking about feelings like:
“You love traveling? I do too.”
“Your birthday is on the 4th of November? That’s my birthday too.”
In this case, you’ll respond thus:
“Oh! This is almost like the major 2-5-1 chord progression in the key of A major”
“Wow! I’ve come across this progression in the key of Db major”
At this point, you’re getting more comfortable and confident and the ideas are no longer unfamiliar.
Maintenance Practice: Keeping Up with Old Friends
There’s another dimension to practice that you must not take lightly and that’s practicing like you’re keeping up with old friends.
Making new friends is good. However, it is also important for us to learn how to keep the old ones because you never can tell when you’ll be needing their help.
If your friend in the 90s becomes the president of your country and you’ve not had a conversation with him for decades and memories are even fading out gradually, how do you take advantage of that friendship that you’ve not been keeping up with?
It would be a lot easy if you keep the communication going, meet from time to time, and more. But when you’ve lost touch, you’ll have to revive the friendship again.
“This Happens A Lot With Musical Skills Too…”
It is important to maintain the musical skills you’ve acquired and this is like keeping up with old friends. This is because after a while of not keeping up, the tendency of “getting rusty” or losing the skill is there.
If musical skills are not maintained, you might be unable to execute those skills with clockwork precision in a live performance situation and trust me when I say it doesn’t feel good.
Attention: To learn more about this, I recommend our 500+ page course: The “Official Guide To Piano Playing.” [thrive_2step id=’18141′]Click here for more information.[/thrive_2step]
Final Words
The key to having a balanced practice routine is practicing both for improvement and for maintenance.
A vast majority of musicians focus on either the improvement or the maintenance aspect of practice. But from what we’ve covered in this lesson, I’m doubly sure that you will have a balanced practice session.
Keep up the great work!
