Daily Practice Routine For Technique

[InducingPanic]

Hi folks. I need your help. Firstly, I’m a long time player, 30 plus years, yet still on my journey. I have been writing out my daily practice schedule since before music school, and I’ve hit a wall with my daily technique work. Not a wall speed was, but just in general where as I’m not seeing musicality improve. Even my technique work is set to band in a box baking tracks so that they feel more musical than just exercises to a metronome.

For a while now, my work has been centered around a solo I may be trying to learn. The sections I struggle with get on the schedule and are worked with a ladder/ tempo system. It is a good system in a sense that it is musical and there is always a goal tempo. The bad is that it feels limiting.

Would any of you be willing to take a minute and share your daily practice programs so that I might see what others who value technique work on?

[RockStarJazzCat]

Hi @InducingPanic, if you are disciplined and/or focused enough to maintain a consistent daily practice program, very cool.

With that in mind, if what you are working on does not capture your fascination emotionally or in other ways that scaffold a longer term goal, it’s likely that you will not learn what you wish to efficiently. I recommend diversifying your efforts so you face more than one learning curve at once and are never bored with it.

In my case, working on functional sight singing skills first thing in the morning keeps my mind musical in such a way that any melody I hear later in the day becomes a mini lesson. Keeps my instrumental practice musical in ways it otherwise wouldn’t be.

I’ve never had good luck with a “goal tempo” for the simple reason that it takes me from the relaxed space into strained effort. I’d rather observe what’s happening in a way that doesn’t feel limiting. That is, be more interested in what’s happening while one plays. I suppose that’s where this forum comes in. My two cents, Daniel

[InducingPanic]

Thank you for making the time to write. My program itself is very diverse. The technique ited only a small part of it. It’s that part I’m trying to change up.

[RockStarJazzCat]

Thank you for making the time to write. My program itself is very diverse. The technique ited only a small part of it. It’s that part I’m trying to change up.

Cool. Then my shared insight won’t be as helpful to you. Hopefully others’ will.

For a while now, my work has been centered around a solo I may be trying to learn. The sections I struggle with get on the schedule and are worked with a ladder/ tempo system. It is a good system in a sense that it is musical and there is always a goal tempo. The bad is that it feels limiting.

This is what I was responding to mostly.

[Brendan]

Hey, good question! We have a few similar forum topics that may be of interest:

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Not intended to call you out specifically but a general reminder for everyone, the search feature on the forum is pretty good and I always recommend a quick search before posting — often I think it can be better to join an existing topic if similar enough, to concentrate the discussion in one place, though of course no worries if you feel a new topic makes more sense!

[InducingPanic]

I wasn’t asking how to practice, how long to practice or to discuss my schedule as chaotic. It is anything but any of those things. Feel free to delete this thread if you like.

[Brendan]

No prob no need to delete the topic, sorry if I misinterpreted. I just remembered that we had some other conversations that seemed to be along the same lines and not sure if you’d seen 'em yet.

Could you share a bit more detail on the sort of thing you’re hoping to see when it comes to daily practice programs? Sounds like the what rather than the how to practice if I’m reading correctly?

It may also be useful to expand on the technique goals you’re struggling with or even post to #technique-critique with some video if you like at some point!

[RockStarJazzCat]

@Brendan sounds more like a search for inspiration on technique development with the context of an already successful practice routine, as opposed “to tell me what to do.” It’s a novel topic to me coming from the angle of someone who is clearly already successful in their practice, asking. @InducingPanic, am I totally misreading what you were getting at? There is so much to explore technique wise, I can’t imagine being bored with it unless I’m imposing artificial limitations on what I’m doing. Not looking to fix anyone’s playing–I’m legitimately curious about your experience with feeling “limited,” if you’d care to elaborate. For what it’s worth, I’ve played for forty years now, and I feel much less cognitive dissonance about my practice than I did ten years ago. Not all of that came down to the “what” of what I practiced, and I mostly attribute the positive developments to thinking adjustments inspired by greater access to resources. Peace out, D