The Practice Plan - Dr. Joseph Montelione

Dr. Joseph Montelione Florida Tech University montemusic@gmail.com

The final stage of effective, efficient practicing is to work with the student to develop a practice plan. The plan should consist of setting goals, scheduling daily time for practice, listening to music, developing questions to ask the instructor, working out fundamentals and playing through repertoire.

1. You’ll Have the Time To Practice When You Make The Time To Practice: It is important that educators encourage students to schedule a regular time to practice. It doesn’t have to be for a long period of time. I tell my students to strive for shorter more frequent daily practice every day. Practicing 20 minutes every day is so much more efficient and effective than practicing an hour a day every couple of days. Practicing 20 minutes every day as opposed to an hour every couple of days is more efficient and effective because 1.) our mind and attention span can only last a certain amount of time before it starts to wander—better focus will yield better results and it’s a lot easier focusing for 20 minutes than it is for 60 minutes. 2.) doing it daily helps develop the muscle memory needed to more easily execute musical ideas.

2. Categorize Practicing: The four main stages of practicing are Discovery, Conditioning, Reinforcement and Repertoire. I encourage my students not to move to the next stage without properly mastering the previous stage. Some bad examples are practicing repertoire that is beyond a student’s technique, reinforcing concepts not yet mastered, being able to play a new concept once and thinking you have it without conditioning your body and mind to create a new habit. I tell my students to place aspects of their technique into each stage so their mind can be better focused. For example: Discovery (examples of areas that could still need to be figured out)

Range

Endurance

Triple Tonguing

Multiphonics

Conditioning (examples of areas from discovery but still need to develop new habits)

Double Tonguing

Articulating Soft Short Low Notes

Single Tonguing

Major Scales

Reinforcement (examples of areas that are conditioned but still need to be reinforced)

Single Tonguing

Major Scales

3. Make It Easy: Remember that the conscious mind can only focus on one thing at a time. For each one of the areas that need to improve, I encourage my students to set small attainable goals. Setting small attainable goals yields faster results. Concentrate on that goal and do not allow any sort distraction to turn into frustration. If students find themselves becoming distracted, I encourage them to take a break and come back to it later. Taking a five-minute break and coming back to it is much more effect than putting the instrument back in the case.

4. Listen and Question: One of the most important if not the most important aspect of practicing, and most often overlooked aspect, is to listen to music. Listening to music does not mean, playing music while doing homework, or in the car or while engaging in any other activ-

ity. Listening to music involves time spent focused solely on absorbing the sound without any other distraction. It is vital that practicing musicians listen to music to be inspired by the professional sound so they can develop their own sounds. Plus, the reason why listening to music is the most important aspect of practicing is because students must know what they want to sound like and the only way for them to know is to be inspired by the sound of a professional musician. In addition, as students are listening, I encourage them to develop questions to ask. Questions such as how the musician performing on the recording executes a particular area of interest, i.e. sound, articulation, musical shape, etc. Students need to understand that asking questions will help tailor their lessons to what will be most effective in the practice room.

5. Repertoire (Any piece of music that needs to be learned i.e. Band Piece A or Orchestra Piece B). For Repertoire, I strive to assign music that is within or just slightly above what students are capable of handling. It is possible to engage in Discovery, Conditioning and Reinforcement while working on a piece of music. For example, the first 8 measures in Band Piece A is within a student’s technical grasp but that particular combination of notes and rhythms need attention. So, a student would begin to discover the patterns of the rhythm as well as the intervallic association between notes and coordinate the muscles needed to condition your body to play them the correct way. Then they would reinforce that phase again and again until it can’t go wrong.

I always introduce a new student to the “ten-minute rule.” In the first ten minutes, practice a small section, and only that section for ten minutes. Then when ten minutes has passed, no matter the outcome of that section, move on to work on another section of the piece. Then, after the ten minutes have past, the student can either move on to another completely different section or go back to the first section worked on in the first ten minutes. The idea is to not repeat the same section back to back, thus building small chunks of passages into larger sections of the piece over the course of 60 minutes.

Final Thoughts

• Know the different types of practicing: Discover, Condition, Reinforce, Repertoire

• Set Goals: The conscious mind can only concentrate on one thing at a time. Pick attainable goals that can be achieved in a practice session.

• Ask Questions: The more detailed and specific the question, the more detailed and specific the answer.

• Daily Practice: Remember to listen and be inspired by the ideal sound of a professional, workout fundamentals and then practice your repertoire, incorporating small amounts of consistent daily practice. Shorter, more frequent daily practice is better than longer weekly practice sessions and will help in efforts to becoming a life-long music performer-advocate.

Joe Montelione has been on the trumpet faculty for Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp, New England Music Camp, National Trumpet Competition, and Music Academy International’s Trentino Music Festival in Primiero, Italy. He is currently on the faculty of Florida Tech University where he teaches trumpet and directs the jazz band.