How to Practise
Most students practise by playing through pieces. That is rehearsal, not practice, and it is why an hour a day can produce very little.
Independent guide. Not an orchestra, school, teacher or agency, and not affiliated with any organisation that previously used this domain. Audition dates, fees and programmes belong to the ensembles themselves — always confirm with them directly.
The difference
Practice means finding the specific bar that does not work, isolating the specific problem in it, and repeating a solution slowly until it is reliable. Playing from the top and hoping is the most common way for a young musician to waste an hour.
A structure that works
- Warm up — long tones or open strings, scales. Five to ten minutes.
- Technique — the scale or study the teacher assigned, at a tempo where it is clean.
- Problem spots — the two or three hardest bars in the current piece, slowly, with a metronome, one problem at a time.
- Run — play a section through without stopping, to practise continuing.
- Something for fun — end on something they like playing.
The metronome
Set a tempo where the passage is clean, play it correctly several times, then move up a small increment. If it breaks, go back down. This is slow, boring and the only thing that reliably works.
How long
Short and daily beats long and occasional. Twenty focused minutes six days a week will outperform two hours on a Sunday, every time.
For parents
Ask what the teacher assigned rather than how long they practised. A practice notebook or a shared note listing this week's specific tasks turns a nightly argument into a checklist.