If you are like many musicians, you’ll know engaging in regular practice is no small feat. There are seemingly endless barriers to carving out—and protecting—the time and energy necessary to engage with your craft. This makes it essential to get the most out of these valuable resources. To do this, it helps to ask yourself three questions: What, why, and how?
What?
First, you want to be clear about what you’re practicing. There is an overwhelming amount of practice material available to you—from countless songs, to an endless array of exercises from books, courses, and online resources. Attempting to figure out on the fly what you want to work on can lead to choice paralysis, wasted practice time, and cognitive fatigue. Selecting what you will be working on ahead of time—either by committing to the exact material or by simply narrowing down your choices—can counteract these issues.
Why?
Next, you’ll want to know why you’re practicing something. If you’ve ever experienced resistance when it comes time to practice something—especially if it is new or challenging—it may in part be due to not understanding in what way this material will help you to advance as the musician you want to be. Practicing something simply because you think you should, or because someone told you to, will make it hard to get your brain on board for the challenging task of deliberate practice.
Ideally, your “why” for practicing anything will be intrinsically motivated. This will often mean picking material that supports you and your musical journey, but can also be as simple as choosing something out of interest, inspiration, or curiosity. Any reason you give that puts you in the driver’s seat of your musical experience will reduce instances of resistance and allow you to engage deeply—and even eagerly—with the material.
How?
For even further refinement, you can specify exactly how you will work on the material you’ve selected. There are many different ways to practice the same material, and you will want to deploy a specific approach, tool, or strategy based on what you want to accomplish.
Scales are a great example. For many musicians, the idea of working on scales conjures up images of repetitive metronome drills. While this can be an effective way to practice scales if your intention is to develop fluency on your instrument, build muscle memory, or perhaps improve your time feel, it’s not the only option available.
You can internalize the sound of scales by singing them, practice spelling them out loud in each key, or build your musical vocabulary by creating interesting melodies. If you’re a guitarist, you might break a scale up into its various interval functions—à la Tom Quayle and David Beebee—and learn how to visualize each of the resulting discrete shapes on the fretboard. Beyond using a metronome, you can practice scales along to songs or over jam tracks. All of these options will coax different results out of the same practice material.
Together, the questions why, what, and how intentionally focus your limited resources so your practice sessions are more effective. You will experience reduced procrastination and paralysis, more enjoyment, and make quicker and steadier progress on your musical journey.
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