The Best Violin Practice Advice!

4/30/2017

Almost everyone wants to play a musical instrument but the biggest hurdle is finding the key to unlock the discipline for a daily practice routine. In this blog post and correlating short video, I share my favorite practice advice and you will learn 3 things to help you unlock your practicing success. Learn:

1- The magic power to this simple advice: You don't have to like something to do it.

2- What comes & goes in life and why this matters.

3- The three things that practicing your instrument is really for:

Doing your best in life.
Developing a brain with connected pathways for intelligence and creativity.
Training discipline.

What is your favorite practice advice? Please let us know in the comments below - Thanks!

4 Comments

Shelly Berg

5/1/2017 06:06:25 am

Not so much advice, as perhaps a strategy to simplify difficult spots...
A strategy I teach my middle school students is what I call "4, 3, 2, 1." In any one particularly difficult area I will have students play the passage as such.

Step one, all the rhythm of the difficult spot goes out the window. First the student will play 4 quarter notes of every pitch change. Once there is success in that, we move to 3/4 time and play 3 quarter notes of every pitch change. Again, with success we move to 2/4 and do 2 quarter notes for every pitch change. Once a student can successfully do this we go to 1 quarter note per pitch change.

This works on many levels. First of all students can be successful in getting fingers to create sound pitches. When doing 4 quarter notes they actually "buy" time to look ahead and plan. With 3, there is still time; however, you have to think about it differently. 2 notes per each helps secure a success level. 1 note each is critical; because, you have to be able to look far ahead and know what your left hand is going to do. This does not need to be fast, just accurate. At this point, if a student can do this they can usually play the section very slow with the rhythm.

Again, not advice, so to speak; but a way for students to feel success and a strategy they could use when facing other difficult music spots.

Heather

5/2/2017 08:45:05 am

Hello Shelly,

This is such an excellent protocol. Thank you so much for taking a moment to share and I am confident this will be of value to any teacher who read this and I will try it out too. Thanks so much! Heather

Melissa

6/19/2017 08:35:19 am

Hi Shelly,
Thank you for sharing the 4-3-2-1 strategy. It is similar to what a professor showed my class in college, but his approach didn't factor in having to process in a time change, which I find very helpful. I will definitely try this! In the past I have doubled notes, changed rhythms, things like that. It helped students, but isn't the best for younger students. Thank you again for sharing!

Heather

6/19/2017 09:18:38 am

Hello Melissa, Thank you so much for taking a moment to share. I am so grateful to Shelly for sharing this approach. I used it on all levels of players my last 4 weeks of teaching and typically assigned at least 3 sets (which would yield 12 reps). I also did lots with doubling and rhythms but really liked 4-3-2-1 since it gave young players speed right away while slowing them down. Best wishes! Heather

The Best Violin Practice Advice!

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