Doing something for two-minutes every day is a great way to establish a new habit. It’s easy to accomplish and reinforces the most important part of a habit: starting. That’s why in James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, he considers the “two-minute rule” one of the important steps of building a good habit. But, okay, I have news. Practicing for two-minutes a day every single day is only going to result in a little bit of improvement. After awhile, you’ll just plateau. In order to really see improvement, still improve, you’ll need to increase your practice to 10 minutes, then 20 minutes, and then 30 minutes per session. However, feel free to always fall back on the two-minute rule as a way to practice consistently. Consistency will reap more rewards than sporadic bursts of long practice sessions. As you continue with your practicing journey, you might feel yourself sometimes feeling bored of practicing. It’s important to find ways to challenge yourself so you feel interested in playing bassoon every day. James Clear says, “Once a habit has been established, however, it’s important to continue to advance in small ways. These little improvements and new challenges keep you engaged.” In other words, your practice habit should evolve. After you’ve established a good habit and feel comfortable, you’ll want to change your practice just a little bit to keep it interesting and keep yourself engaged. This will motivate you, and help you improve more. For example, let’s say you’ve been consistently practicing for 10 minutes every day, and your practice routine consists of playing through 3 scales and then working on your solo. You feel really comfortable with this routine and have been pretty consistent for the last month. Now, it’s time to take it to the next level. Here are some ideas to change up your practice routine. Feel free to pick one, or multiple. Add multiple practice sessions per day. Try one during school and one after school. Add challenge to your practice session. Pick a piece or scale that is challenging and try to master it by practicing it every single practice session, for 5 minutes after your warm up. End each practice session by sight-reading an etude or solo. Bonus points if you record it and listen to how you did! Find 3 warm-ups that you like and use one of them every time you practice. When you get bored of one and feel like you need a change, choose one of the other two to use. Finally, what about days off? I am a big believer in days off. When you’re just starting out with your practice habit, I recommend trying to do a 7 to 14 day streak without taking a day off. This will reinforce the habit, and since your practice sessions will be short you shouldn’t have to worry about over-playing. However, once the habit has been established, it’s important to schedule time off. You could take every Sunday off from practicing, for example. If you need two days off per week, I recommend having them not be next to each other. For example, you could take Sunday off to rest, and then take Wednesday off from practicing to get caught up on school work. Taking a day off will mentally refresh you and allow you to be more productive on the days that you do practice. Remember to add small challenges to your practicing in order to keep yourself engaged. The key is to keep them small enough that it feels manageable and not so difficult that you lose motivation. This will take some fine-tuning, and it’s okay to adjust course if something isn’t working. Part of the fun of learning an instrument is experimenting to discover the way you learn best. Happy Practicing!
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AuthorLaura Lanier is the creator of bassoonsolos.com Archives
June 2020
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