1. Ditch the Distractions
- Facebook, Email. Out of sight is out of mind.
- Cultivate mindful, focused based, practice.
- Slow down so you can think, study, analyze, locate mistakes and hear tuning.
- Build attention endurance, an important performance skill.
2. Build a Habit
- Practice daily at the same and best energy times.
- After break return intention. Tag the next clean up spot to quickly get back to focus.
3. Avoid Perfectionism
- Do a good job on everything daily to see advancement. Time and energy are limited.
4. Practice Specifics
- Tone warm up that addresses lip flexibility, intonation, dynamics and color.
- Cover fundamentals-scales and technique in patterns and etudes in all keys.
- Repertoire-rhythm and passage note learning
- Expression
5. Practice Correctly
- Practice slowly, no matter the marked tempo, then increase speed.
- Be able to play each difficulty 4X correctly, without hesitation.
- Detectivefy–detect and identify the problem areas, stop and fix.
Top Student Performers Versus and Less Successful Peers:
Top students use corrective methods. The biggest, impact of all strategic practice is the ability to self-regulate practice sessions and have the patience to slow down and play through without hesitation. Good practice habits will allow you to see your progress and help cultivate a gentle attitude towards yourself (versus negative self talk).
Summarizing A Winning Strategy
- Practice smart. Don’t play to win. Practice to not to loose! End gaming, cutting corners and unreasonable demands will not cultivate a winner.
- Winners cultivate mindful-practice, believe in themselves and go for it.
- Winners see failures as steps towards learning.
- Winners are not concerned what audience, their schoolmates or judges think. Winners dream big! They are committed to a life path’s work.
- Winners believe they will eventually get where they want to go.