Practice Advice

Practice is the way that you will improve your violin or viola playing from lesson to lesson, month to month and year to year.  Practice is about quality, not quantity.  In order to help you get the most out of your practice sessions, I have outlined some general practice techniques that can be applied to a violinist or viola player of any standard and ability.  I have then outlined some practice techniques that are more specific to ability.

General Practice Tips

• Always start your practice with a warm up.  Playing the violin or viola is a very physical activity so, like athletes, we must warm up beforehand.  I will give you warm-up exercises suitable to your ability in your lesson.
• Chose a location where you can concentrate on your practice without being distracted.
• Find a ‘prime time’ to practice.  There will probably be a time of day when you are most alert and productive; this is the time to practice. 
• Have everything you need in order to practice in the room you have chosen to work in.  Gather together your music, lesson notes, a pencil and a glass of water to your preferred practice location. 

Beginners 

• Practice 3-4 times a week for about 10 minutes each time.
• Before you practice, read through the notes I will have given you in your lesson.
• After your practice, fill in the practice diary which I will have given you in your first lesson.  This will help you keep track of what you have worked on during the week, you can also record any difficulties you may have encountered and in the lesson we can sort them out together. 

Intermediate (Grade 4-6) 

• Practice 5 times a week for about 20-30 minutes.   
• Have a clear goal to each of your practice sessions, something that will be outlined in your lesson notes.   
• Start with your warm up exercises then progress on to your scales and arpeggios.  
• Play through the piece you are learning, look back to your lesson notes to remind yourself what needed to be improved on, and only practice the parts you find hard.  

Advanced (Grade 6 and beyond) 

• Practice 5-6 times a week for about 30-50 minutes each time. 
• Start with some warm-up exercises.  At this stage, I would recommend that you use the Sevcik study books, which are full of exercises to improve bowing, changing position and double stopping.
• Play through your scales and arpeggios.  Scales and arpeggios are vital to practice, as they form the basis of good tone production and great intonation. 
• Next practice a study that you have been assigned, which will be by Wolfarht or Kreutzer.  Play the study through then analyse the parts that you found hard, or that did not sound good.  If one bar was particularly out of tune, play it through slowly, correcting each note if it is wrong.  You don’t need to keep playing the whole study through, just focus on the tricky area and practice these bars until they become easier. 
• Lastly play through the piece or pieces you are learning.  Think about these things,

-       Dynamics, am I observing them?

-       Key signatures, if it is your first time of playing a piece through, first play a scale in the key of the new piece.

-       Time signature and tempo marking.  If you are unsure the tempo marking, use your metronome.

-       Tone production, are you producing the best sound you possibly can?

-       Vibrato, think about when to use vibrato in your piece. 

• If in doubt, always refer back to your practice notes or if you are really struggling, give me a call!