Practice Tips
Structuring practice time can be simultaneously the most valuable and most frustrating aspect of playing an instrument. Quality practice makes lessons more meaningful, builds skills more quickly, and increases familiarity with the players instrument. However, it’s hard to know HOW to practice!
Practice every day. Get in the habit of picking up your instrument, warming up your fingers, and playing. Choose one of these areas for concentration:
- Bow arm speed or placement
- Intonation (left hand)
- Posture (holding the violin/viola with your chin instead of left hand)
- Sight reading (eyes and brain translating down to fingers)
- Rhythm
One of the most important practice tips is:
Do not practice something until you get it right. Practice it until you cannot get it wrong. This means breaking a song down into bite-sized chunks and deliberately practicing the challenging passages with proper form and intonation until each section feels automatic. Joel has some great thoughts on this topic in the following video:
Parents! You are one of the biggest resources to your child when they are learning how to practice. Your encouragement and focus can bring their attention to the practice in way they couldn’t manage otherwise. Don’t worry about long practice sessions with young kids! Try to practice for 5 minutes in a burst. Ask them to show you their work. Help them practice skills for 10 repetitions.
Check out these videos for more helpful tips as you carve out practice time!
Last but certainly not least, it is always very important to find the right teacher!
Thank you for watching, and we hope you find some helpful tips and tricks that work for you! If there are any topics we do not cover that you would like to see us make content for, please let us know at: support@kennedyviolins.com!