“Always start with what you CAN do.” – Norman Bolter. Whatever you want to achieve, you have to start with what you can do today and work towards it patiently and deliberately. The two most important words in this sentence are CAN and START.
“The highest reward from your working is not what you get for it but what you become by it.” – Sydney Harris. Keep the ultimate goals in mind: being a wonderful, expressive musician.
Be creative. Invent routines and methods for yourself to address specific problems. Hammering away at something hoping it will get better is probably the slowest way to improve. It’s better than not practicing at all, but not by much.
Be productive. Don’t just put in hours because you think you should; find ways to use your time productively. If you only have a few minutes, figure out what you can accomplish in that time. If some aspect of your playing is going so poorly one day that even trying to fix it will be frustrating, work on something else and vow to come back to that aspect the next day. Practicing slowly is always productive.
Monitor your body for relaxation, economy and ease of motion and tone production.
“I want it to be EASY!” – SamPilafian
Tell, don’t ask. Don’t play anything, ever, wondering how it will come out. Direct it, tell it, sing it in your brain, be in charge of the sound. If it doesn't come out the way you imagine, that's something to work out practice methods to improve. But your mind is ultimately much more powerful than your body, so keep the mind in charge of the body, not the other way around.
Practice for your mind at least as much as your body. Find the most productive thought processes that help you in the moment of performance, and practice those as you prepare for the performance or audition.
Practice performing. Devote some of your regular practice time to performing. Commit to the moment, play as if there’s an audience, and don’t stop for anything. Using a recording device is one excellent way of doing this. Evaluate afterwards to determine what specific technical aspects and overall musical ideas you want to do better, and then practice those things very specifically. But make sure to practice the commitment to the moment you will need for performance.
Your three best teachers are: 1. a constant, flowing airstream; 2. a constant, flowing, subdivided internal pulse; and 3. your imagination.
Think more about great phrases and less about perfect notes – particularly as you get closer to the audition or performance.
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