Articles
Practice & Listening
May 2, 2011
How much do you have to spend practicing fiddle each week? My rough guide is, 2-3 times a week you might improve, 4-5 times a week you will improve making good progress. With practicing everyday, you will notice the improvement and so will others, usually make excellent progress. Adults may find it difficult to practice everyday so a goal of most days would be practical. How long should my practice session be? Of course everyone is different but it should be at least a half hour to make noticeable progress. If you practice everyday 40 minutes would be good. If you practice 4-5 times a week at least to 40 minutes. If you only practice 3 times a week you should practice in hourly chunks. Of course listening to or writing music will help outside practice time.
What to practice? The more goal directed your practice the more likely you are to achieve it. The more motivated you are, the more you will stick at it. Even if it is simply to play a tune, a goal of how you want to improve will help. Set a time frame and have a structure to your goal and write it down. Also the more you practice, the more you will build up a level of concentration and consistency.
Now to listening. Listening is a huge part of a musicians life and you will need to do it to develop your ear for music (one of many skills of a good musician see ‘skill sets’ article). Music is like a language but communicates pitches rather than words. When you first learn a language you cannot understand native speakers because they speak too fast. Your understanding is not developed to make sense of each word spoken so it becomes a communicative stream. This is the same with music and Irish music can be fast! Your understanding develops so you can hear the pitches, how they relate to tempo, the key and the set of tunes at speed.
Tip: Listen to music for 2 or 3 minutes (to a duo or trio) and see if you can focus on the sound of 1 instrument. Then listen to 2 instruments and see how they produce ‘one sound’. As your listening improves you can listen out for ornamentation, bowing, elements of style etc. At an advanced stage you may be able to tell the key, what string the player is on and the ornamentation as you are listening.
If there is something that bogs you down or is difficult in a practice session, skip it and leave it till the next practice session. By the time the next practice comes along, you will have gained some insight in how to overcome it (or how to approach it in a different way, play it slower for example). It if is simply too difficult for you to play or understand, you will need advice or tuition to progress. Keep up your fiddle practice.
