The BAVS FAQ

How much time should I be spending practicing?

How can I make efficient, optimal use of my practice time?

How should I split my practice time between the things I'm working on?

What are some practice tricks for working on speed?

How much time should I be spending practicing?

In general, an hour of daily practice is reasonable. Much benefit can be gained from practicing two hours. Beyond that, the benefit gained for a third or fourth hour of practice is somewhat less on the basis of what's learned for the time spent; after the fourth hour, very little benefit is gained from each additional hour of daily practice. Of course, most adults will feel themselves fortunate if they find an hour a day! Around half an hour of day of practice is needed to maintain one's skills; time spent beyond that will lead to gradual improvement. Regular practice, even if it's brief, is much better than periodic marathon sessions. Research has shown that it's more efficient to practice in the mornings, as hearing is better at that time, though muscles are looser in the evenings.

A poll of BAVS members shows that roughly 50% of the respondents practice for around an hour a day; around 90% practice somewhere from 30 minutes to two hours per day.

Note that the sheer number of hours that you spend practicing does not translate directly to improvement in skill. You must practice intelligently -- not repeat things mechanically.

[Last update: Sun Sep 16 17:30:57 2001.]

How can I make efficient, optimal use of my practice time?

The pianist and composer Franz Liszt said, "Think ten times. Play once," and teachers have been repeating this adage to their students ever since. Your mind must know what you are going to do before you do it. The first set of repetitions of a bit of music that you play, sets that conscious control in your mind -- it teaches your brain exactly what the pitches sound like and what's necessary to control the physical movements being executed. Later on, when the music is already completely correct under normal circumstances, if you plan to perform in front of people, you will do another set of repetitions that reinforces the physical side, adding muscle memory to the aural and conscious memory.

The corollary for that is that if you're going too fast to have total conscious control and aural awareness of what you're doing, then you're practicing too fast and you must slow down. When you practice something fast and sloppy, you are teaching yourself how to play something wrong. Even if you later decide that you want to get it right, you must now undo the habit created by a hundred times of playing it badly; this is usually at least ten times more frustrating than the frustration of learning it correctly from the very beginning. Every hour that you spend in careless practice is essentially a "negative hour", forcing you to work off the deficit in practice time later.

Furthermore, if you repeat something ten times, and you do it right once, you have now practiced it wrong nine times! To avoid practicing in your errors, every time you make a mistake in a measure, you need to play that bit correctly at least five or ten times for every time that you made that mistake. The "five times in a row" rule works well for many people -- if you are repeating something and you get it wrong, you have to start the counter over from zero, and not go on until you are either exasperated (in which case you should stop and come back to this another day), or you do it right five times in a row. Alternatively, you can use the "penny trick"; place five pennies on your stand, and subtract a penny every time you play it right, and add a penny every time you play it wrong. (Some people use small candies such as M&Ms instead of pennies, but this can lead to consumption of large amounts of sweets!)

Particularly when you are first learning something, you should not simply play through it, except once or twice in a practice session, when you should do so to work on the general musical flow. Instead, pick one section to focus on at a time. Don't let yourself go on until either it's right, or you're convinced you will make no more progress on it today. Set aside some time the next day to review things that you fixed the previous day, too -- you will often get a small bit of backsliding each day and it can take several days of concentrated fixing to make a passage "forever yours".

A section may be a unit as small as two notes or a measure, or it might be half a page of music -- it all depends on what the difficulty is. If your problem is intonation, a section should be extremely small -- a single group of notes, probably. Chain these small units together to make larger units, so when all the small units are right, you practice the larger unit so the connections between the smaller units are seamless. Even if all you are getting is "one good note", then you can concentrate on making the next note good, too; put together lots of blocks of two good notes, and you have an entire piece of good notes!

[Last update: Sun Sep 16 17:43:13 2001.]

How should I split my practice time between the things I'm working on?

The "traditional" way to split a practice session is to spend one-third of the time on scales and basic technical exercises, one-third of the time on etudes and other more complex technical work, and one-third of the time on repertoire.

The time spent on repertoire should be further divided into "practice" time and "performance" time. In "practice" time, you focus on the careful detail work, stopping whenever necessary. In "performance" time, you focus on musicianship, and will generally try to play through an entire piece, or large sections of a piece, in order to achieve flow, continuity, and musical coherence.

[Last update: Fri Mar 21 04:44:44 2003.]

What are some practice tricks for working on speed?

You want to develop is conscious control over your movements, and retain that conscious control regardless of what tempo you're playing it. In order to do this, you must initially practice in a slow tempo -- but with fast, decisive movements. In other words, when you drop your finger onto the string, it should come immediately after the mental "command" to do so, just as if you were playing quickly -- but you hold the note, or stop the bow, or whatever's appropriate, while mentally preparing for the next note. Practicing slowly is a method for giving yourself longer to think about what to do -- not an excuse to let the muscles get lazy.

Some general tips:

Relax.

Make sure to keep the left hand as relaxed as possible, since pressure and tension will kill speed. Incorrect left hand position, a tight grip on the neck of the instrument, and other such posture problems are all things that will interfere with technical facility.

Don't cheat any notes.

Pay special attention to the notes which are NOT on the strong beats (especially the second note of two and four-note patterns, and the up bow of triplets); the brain tends to de-emphasize these and we end up rushing them. There is also a tendency to cut open strings short. When they are used in a fast passage, they need to be held their full value, and the next finger used should be dropped quickly and with a bit of extra articulation. Finally, make sure not to cut short the last beat or last note of a measure. Sometimes, it can help to think of the last note of a measure "leading in" to the first note of the next measure.

Articulate.

In any fast sequence of notes that are slurred together, greater articulation is needed in the left hand, as the necessary clarity cannot be created by the bow.

Don't allow yourself to rush.

In order to avoid rushing, take advantage of the natural breaks between phrases to mentally reset the tempo. Though you might still end up rushing a couple of measures, this will prevent a snowball effect.

Anticipate, but don't over-anticipate.

Anticipation needs to be carefully managed. On the one hand, you must prepare for what comes next. On the other hand, you must finish what you have been doing, and your playing must sound without anticipation. Note that upcoming things can influence their predecessors; for instance, you might play a note sharp because you are unconsciously anticipating an extension that doesn't occur until the next measure.

A number of ways to practice a passage for speed are listed below. They can be used even when you're just learning the notes and having to go very slowly indeed... just increase the speed when you feel comfortable doing so. The tips are really intended to deal with passages of notes of equal length -- lots of sixteenth notes or triplets in a row, etc. -- but the principles can be extended for other stuff, as well.

Doubles.

Slur two notes to a bow and play each note twice. i.e.: first note-second note, second note-third note, third note-fourth note, etc. This lets you spot any particularly awkward finger-to-finger transitions, and it makes it easier to hear any intonation problems. It's not likely to increase your speed very much, but it'll help you work out problems that are speed roadblocks. This is also a very good way to practice arpeggios and scales, especially scales in double-stops.

Rhythm variations.

You help the brain to treat each note with equal weight by practicing the passage in different rhythms. Typical rhythm patterns also force you to play certain groupings of notes quite quickly, while interspersing held notes that give you time to mentally prepare for the next fast group of notes.

Four useful rhythm patterns for sixteenth-note passages are:
long short long short (dotted rhythm)
short long short long (dotted rhythm)
long short short short
short short short long

Three useful rhythm patterns for triplet passages are:
long short short
short short long
short long short

Rhythm patterns should be practiced slowly, and sped up gradually. The long notes should all be the same length, and the short notes should all be the same length, so you keep things even. If you need more time to think, you can hold the long notes longer, but then you should hold ALL of the long notes longer.

Note chains.

This tactic allows you to build up the speed of a passage, note by note, creating a "chain" of "good, fast notes". Play the first two notes of the passage really quickly. Then play the first three notes fast. Then the first four notes. Then the first five notes, and so forth.

This practice trick is most useful when it is used "backwards". Begin by playing the last two notes of the passage really quickly. Then play the last three notes fast. Then the last four notes. Then the last five notes, and so forth. This really helps to eliminate "false anticipation" of the next notes, which can blur passagework and smear intonation.

Unit practicing.

Practicing in units of N + 1 notes is useful. For example, in a passage of sixteenth notes, play the first group of four plus the first note of the following group, quickly. Stop. Play the second group of four notes plus the first note of the third group. Stop. Etc. This is like note chains, except for a group of notes.

You can extend this scheme by adding one one group at a time: Play the first group plus the first note of the second group and then stop, then play the first two groups plus the first note of the third group and then stop, then play the first three groups plus the first note of the fourth group, and so forth.

This also works backwards: Play the last group of the passage and stop, then play the last two groups of the passage and stop, then the last three groups of the passage, and so forth.

This kind of practice eliminates any hesitation that might occur when you go between one group of fast notes to the next group. It is also excellent for mental preparation followed by quick movement.

Bowing variations.

Practicing the passage using multiple types of bowstrokes can help solidify the coordination between left and right hands. A fast passage will sound muddled unless the fingers and the bow are properly coordinated; the fingers need to be prepared before the bow moves.

For fast passages in separate bows, try moving the bow at the speed of the eventual tempo, but play each note N times, where N is whatever makes sense (four times in a passage of sixteenths, three times in a passage of triplets, etc.) In other words, if the passage has sixteenths 'A C B D', you would play sixteenths at tempo, 'A A A A B B B B C C C C D D D D'. Don't stop between groups of notes. If you need more time, keep repeating the groups of N. If you want to make the bowing work out on groups of sixteenths, only play the first note three times, i.e., 'A A A B B B B C C C C D D D D ...' This will help you coordinate the change of bow with the change of finger at full speed, while still giving you time to think.

If a passage has slurred notes, practice using separate bows; if the passage is in separate bows, practice it in slurs. You can also try practicing the passage a handful of times with reversed bowing; this is sometimes good for breaking odd difficulties in coordinating left and right hands.

Kreutzer #2's patterns (see the International edition edited by Galamian) can be applied to most passagework (with modification for things not in quadruples, of course).

If you cannot play slowly with precision and clarity, each note even and held for its full length, "speaking" equally, it will not get any better when you try to play it quickly. While it's important to periodically practice the passage up to tempo, not stopping if you make a mistake (continuing on in tempo without disrupting the pulse, if possible), blind repetitions only "practice in" the mistakes. Be patient! It takes time and practice to achieve speed.

[Last update: Thu Oct 11 16:15:05 2001.]