Do you feel guilty about not practising enough? Do you walk away from your practice feeling annoyed with yourself? Does practising sometimes feel like a chore?
Some people are lucky to love practising, and have brilliant focus to practise for hours on end. I thought I was one of them but secretly, I harboured many difficult feelings around my practice. I practised hard, completed challenging performance degrees, prepared for many auditions and gigs, but fought a mental battle alongside it. I love playing my instruments but the moment I tell myself to ‘go practise’, I am overcome with self-deprecation and come up with a million other tasks I need to complete before I can get in the ‘practice zone’.
Over the years, I have understood that I need to change my attitude. If I make my practice feel like a chore and if I approach all of my practice with a judgemental ear, I will not enjoy playing. Instead, I need to find a way to make it fun.
Does that sound like something you may need to explore too?
No matter what instrument you play and what stage of learning you are at, you probably want to have fun playing music. Correct? Let me share a few tricks that help me enjoy my practice:
- Excitement. Start with a piece of music you love, something you cannot wait to play. No, I am not telling you to skip warm-up! Can you be creative and turn your chosen piece into an efficient warm-up? Let me give you an example. As an improvising flute player, I know that I need to do some long tones to practise my breath stamina and embouchure, before moving onto articulation, repertoire, improvisation technique, and so on. But to get inspired and excited, I might switch on a track I really like, and play by ear along to it. I might play my long tones in the key of the track, practising not just my tone, but also my ears.
- Curiosity. Replace judgement with curiosity. We all have a tendency to jump to self-criticism as a way to seek improvement. Sometimes, that can be very harmful. Judgement doesn’t give us space to make mistakes, to get it wrong, to find solutions without the pressure for instant perfection. Let’s try to replace judgement with curiosity. If you play something you don’t like, don’t label is as ‘wrong’. Instead, think to yourself, ‘How interesting!’ And gently explore what is really going on. What is preventing you from playing the note in tune / playing the sequence correctly / recalling the lick in a particular tonality? Stay curious and kind.
- Praise. Give yourself a pat on the back. Most of us are good at spotting the mistakes we make / technical skills we haven’t yet tackled. But how often do we give ourselves credit for what we have done well? Give yourself an achievement sticker. Draw a golden star in your practise diary. Do a little ‘Yes!’ gesture or dance a celebratory dance. Whatever works for you, find a way to notice and acknowledge the things you are doing well / have made progress at.
- Set realistic goals. It’s hard to celebrate your wins if you aim too high too soon. Every practice session needs a small goal that forms part of a larger goal. It takes a lot of experience to set goals of appropriate difficulty. Ask your teacher to help you identify your short and long-term goals. If you are learning on your own, perhaps a fellow learner could help you reflect on your goals and strategies to achieve them.
- Know your purpose. Why are you practising music? What do you personally love about music? Why do you want to improve? Why does playing matter to you? It takes a lot of introspection to find our intrinsic motivation to do anything that takes some effort. Sometimes the exploration may take you unexpected places. I went from playing classical music, to learning traditional and contemporary jazz, to learning Brazilian and Cuban music, to attempting writing my own music. I am not done with my learning – I am still on my practice journey. I am still exploring. Sometimes I go down a dead end. But my guiding post is feeling a spark – falling in love with a tune or piece, and getting excited to learn it.
What makes you enjoy your practice? What are your strategies for keeping it fun? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
