Practicing your instrument is absolutely essential to your development as a player. The cliche, "practice makes perfect" is cliche because it is true. However, it is completely possible to practice much with little results. The key to practice is not just running through the exercises and playing things over and over again. The key is finding a time and place and order that work for you and doing it consistently. Here are a few suggestions that may help you develop practice habits that are both effective and efficient so that you may see greater results in less time.
1. Always warm up! Start your practice times the same. Do simple exercises: single strokes, double strokes, or other rudiments. Make sure your hands are feeling loose before you begin playing faster or more difficult things. Good drumming starts with a good foundation. If you work on your rudiments everyday and pay attention to your technique, the harder stuff you are working on will be easier and sound better.
2. Pace yourself! Ineffective practice starts when you either rush through things or stay on one thing too long. Give yourself time limits to start out with so you do not frustrate yourself. Five minutes on warm-ups, ten minutes on drum set, etc. Of course if something is going well and you don't want to stop, then keep going.
3. Practice more often, not longer! There are many studies showing that most people do better when learning is done in small chunks and reinforced often, especially when dealing with coordination. Practicing more often for shorter periods of time seems to be way more effective than practicing once a week for 2 hours. The brain actually will fatigue after a period of time and anything done after that will have little to no lasting effect. Essentially, it amounts to wasted time. Once a day for 30 minutes, twice a day for 10-15 minutes, or 3-5 times a day for 5 minutes; this kind of practice will work something then reinforce it multiple times before the brain has a chance to lose what was done.
4. Just play! Give yourself time to just fool around or play creatively, without analyzing, reading, or thinking too much. The goal for any player is to eventually be able to live in that creative place, knowing that whatever comes to your mind will work and sound good. The transition from analyzing to creating needs to take place and can only be done when given the chance.
5. Do what makes sense for you! You need to discover times and regiments that work for you and make sense for your schedule. The main thing to remember is that you must be in good head space for effective practice to take place. If you find yourself getting frustrated or having a hard time concentrating, walk away and return to it later. Though music is a discipline and requires lots of work, there is great freedom in how one learns and in turn expresses what is developed. Enjoy the journey!
Immobilienmakler Heidelberg Makler HeidelbergSource by Nathan Rike