Making the Most of Your Practice Time: Quick Tips for Students

Concentration and listening without distraction can lead to improved problem-solving ability in all areas of your life. Practicing new concepts and techniques requires a performer to consider and contemplate the task at hand. In my personal practice time, I work on my musical and technical limitations. Emphasizing rhythm, sound, form, melody, style, dynamics, and tempo diversity to your practicing can inspire ideas that are creative, imaginative, and musically relevant.

You will always sound the way you prepare.

Use Your Ears

Whether it is a written etude or an improvised orchestration on the drums and cymbals, listen to everything you play in the moment. Always practice with a metronome to develop your rhythmic consistency beat-to-beat and measure-to-measure. Also practice with recordings to develop the phrasing and dialect that helps inform the musical style being played.

When you hear an accomplished musician playing, ask yourself why does that person sound so mature and complete? If you learn to hear and identify positive attributes in others, you will be more apt to bring those same qualities to your own playing.

Break It Up

Try splitting your practice log exercises into smaller sub-exercises. Annotate what you work on each day and at which tempos. Play individual parts before attempting a complete exercise or étude. This can help your mind and hands understand the stepwise process of working through an exercise. Frustration and anxiety during a practice session? Stop, take a break, and move on to something else. In due time, return to the challenge with a positive and clear mindset.

Adapt and Don't Stop

When performing, don't stop when you feel you have played something incorrect. Concentrate, listen and go with the flow and intensity of the music. Create as you adapt in the moment.

Always practice thoughtfully and thoroughly. Accomplished players are those who have put in the most time practicing, playing and thinking about their sound and the music they make. These musicians have developed their musical instincts as well as their technique.

Engage Your Technique

Technique influences sound production, projection, clarity, and confidence when performing. Engage your technique to help discover your own unique musical voice. Always listen, be sensitive, imaginative and creative.

Closing Thoughts

In closing, make the most out of your practice time. There are no trophies or awards for the amount of time one spends in the practice room. Be efficient. Record yourself with video and watch/listen with intent, paying close attention to how comfortable your projected sound and pulse feels to others. It is feasible to accomplish much more in 15 minutes of focused practice time than jamming for hours on your drums.

If performance opportunities with others are not possible, try using play-along tracks to approximate a live environment. Enjoy the process of both practice and performance and strive for balance within both situations.