When it comes to playing our instruments, probably the hardest and overlooked aspect of it is “how to build a good violin practice“.
Last year following Nathan Cole’s content he share a concept that fits perfectly for me, and it was something that I was searching for for a long time.
Simplifying… our practice should be:
1. Sustainable
2. Balanced
3. Adaptable
Expanding a little bit more into those concepts:
1. Sustainable
Consistency is key, in order to achieve consistency our practice must be sustainable in a way that we can keep our routine without breaking the practice streak. Finding our practice rhythm, our best times to practice and the adequate practice length are tools to help keep it sustainable.
2. Balanced
A balanced practice means covering the most important abilities in violin learning that we are working on at that moment. Helping to grow our abilities in the most sustainable way. Examples of that would be a good mixture of technique building/music learning.
3. Adaptable
Flexibility and adaptability in our planning are important to help us experiment with new material, explore new areas, fit our practice in that daily schedule, fit our practice in that day’s mood, to adapt to accomplish a short term goal (i.e. upcoming concert)
Some ideas to help you start
– Build a practice length that you know you can accomplish without too much effort, something short, in my case I call it the “5 min rule“, I will cover more about this concept in later posts. That’s one idea I got from the Atomic Habits book where he called it a 2 min rule.
– Find a range of materials to practice that can cover one technique at a time or one material that can cover many techniques at the same time.
– Be prepared to switch your practice routine, how you warm up, and adapt your expectations.
Please let me know if you have any questions, I’m willing to expand and explore more these ideas in later posts.
Stay tuned to the resources page for more content, and leave a comment below.
I’m looking forward to know more about your practice.
