A One-Page Practicing Guide 

Practicing = (perception + effort) x repetition

The 3 Types of Practicing:

1. Building

            This is where you’re learning something completely new. It includes trying to do things that you aren’t quite able to do yet, which means that you have to make your muscles stronger and faster. This is where the real “work” is.

            Building requires trying to make each repetition better than the last one. You have to pay careful attention to make sure you’re doing things right, and you have to put effort into doing something that’s difficult. When you’re building something, you should practice it until you actually feel it change—making it significantly easier than yesterday.

2. Combining

            This kind of practicing is when you’re not building strength, flexibility, or accuracy, you’re just doing a different combination of things that you already know how to do. You just have to learn how because you’ve never done them yet—it’s a mental process. It includes learning how the notes to a piece go and, usually, the bowings. This requires a lot of exploring, paying very careful attention to how things work. This is the kind of practicing that requires the least amount of repetition, because it’s mostly just figuring things out mentally.

3. Retaining

            This is how you make things automatic. Also known as review. When you retain, you want to try and make each repetition the same. After doing something zillions of times, you’ll find that you can do it without thinking about it. Remember what Dr. Suzuki said: “Knowledge is not skill. Knowledge plus ten thousand times correct is skill.”

Basic Practicing Principles:

w Warm up with something simple to loosen up your muscles and focus your sound.

w Do difficult things slowly at first, then work up speed. Be patient!

w Break things down into small units. Work only on the notes that are problems.

w After you’ve broken things down, put them back together—this is equally important! You may find that new problems arise when you reassemble something. This is natural.

w When you miss a note, also check the note before it.

w When working for control, use stop-preparation and speed rhythms.

w Always use motions that make sense to you.

w Tension is our greatest enemy. Muscles that are loose and relaxed will be faster and more accurate than muscles that are being clenched. Tension slows you down because it makes you stuck, and it also prevents you from being able to do more complicated things. It also prevents your sound from being free.

w Consistency is our greatest friend. Do things every single day and they will get better.

            In order to save you time, everything you do during practice should have a purpose. You should always be able to ask yourself, “What am I trying to change?” We change through perception, effort, and repetition. Perception means being very careful about what’s going on.

            Most people don’t know how many times they can repeat something, or how well they can do if they try. You are stronger than you think, and smarter than you think. Do more.

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