Practice Tips
Good advice from professional musicians

• Set up a regular time to practice every day. Make your practice space pleasant—good lighting, good amount of space. Enjoy your practice time—it is the time you get to spend learning how to make the sounds you want to make with your instrument!
   

• Get a good amount of rest and eat lots of healthy foods. Stress is part of everyone’s life—eat well and rest well so you can handle the tough situations
   

• When you practice, spend time listening to the pieces you are preparing---find recordings—do not be shy about asking teachers for help with this. You need to develop your ears—listen to as many recordings and live concerts as you can.
   

• Practice your scales every day. Focus on great intonation, a clear ringing tone, and put all your energy into your sound.
   

• Practice your pieces and scales at a lot of different tempi---slow practice, mid-tempo practice, and up to tempo practice are all important. Make sure each practice session includes some of each.
   

• When you have difficult passages, make sure you ask your teacher for specific tips on making them work. Once you have a good game plan, repeat the passage many times, focusing on the main difficulty in the passage. Use a metronome to help you practice at a steady tempo and to help you gradually work up the tempo. Play the passage 5 times at each speed, then click up the speed one or two clicks, and play it again, 5 times, and so on, increasing your speed until you are getting it up to tempo.
   

• Be patient! Everyone who plays an instrument well has had to practice for many hours….be patient and enjoy the time you get to spend listening and refining your skills.
   

• Keep trying! Sometimes things will go really well, but there will be set backs no matter how hard you work. Don’t let them get you down- learn from them and keep putting in your best effort.
   

• Listen to people’s advice—you may not see their point at the time, but remember what they say. It may be they are pointing out something you can really benefit from down the road.
   

• Ask for advice…If you are not sure what to do, ask your teachers!

Audition Tips

• Give it your best
   

• When scales are requested, have a routine prepared…it could be something like think first of the key signature, then doublecheck that you remember the fingering…then, start to play the scale…do not play until you have completed your routine.
   

• Get experience!  Take advantage of every opportunity to play in front of people--give yourself a big pat on the back every time you play in front of people and do okay-it only gets easier by doing it!
   

• Do not make faces—just because you know the ins and outs of everything you do, your audience or audition panel does not—let them enjoy your performance-don’t ruin it for them by making a face and having them think---hmmmmm, I wonder what was so bad, I thought it sounded great…
   

• Plan your preparation -- find out all the dates you need to know-registration deadlines and the actual audition date, and work backwards.  Use a wall calendar to plan how to get all the material prepared.