The joy of time

Time, a definition: a measured or measurable period or a continuum that lacks spatial dimension.

Time is the the measurement of our days, tasks and the majority of our lives. It can quite often feel like you don’t have time to practice, or that you’ve too much going on and practice will take too long. I find the same issues whether it’s encouraging my older and younger students to find time to practice.

So here’s the tip to adults and parents of younger musicians:

Don’t practice for more than 10 minutes at a time.

Why? Well put simply, because 10 minutes is much more manageable than 30 minutes or 60 minutes.

Not only this, but it can drastically focus your practice and rehearsal time into being more productive than doing a longer session.

So what might that look like in reality? For everyone it might be slightly different, and for children especially they need to find their own way. I’ve put my suggestions below for a great way to structure your practice.

So set your 10 minute time and get ready to streamline and focus your practice.

Extra Tips:

As a parent you might want to consider which sections of this you can help you child with. Can you get the to talk to you about what went well and what questions they have? If you can this is a valuable tool, especially if you can write it down or communicate it to their teacher before the lesson.

Now you might find that some days you need less than 10 minutes, some days you want to do more. You might find that you need to repeat your focus task and application a couple of times, which is perfectly fine!

Just take a moment to do 10 minutes every other day and you’ll really quickly start to see the benefits.

1 minute warmup

Vocal sirens, stretching etc. They don’t need to be extensive.

2 minutes focus practice

This might be something technical that came up during your lesson, it might be a specific section of the piece you’re working on. The aim is that it is something small and specific that is achievable in 2 minutes. For things that are slightly more complicated, you can break them up into bigger tasks.

2 minutes application

This is the point where you take what you’ve been practicing and apply it within the wider structure. This might not involve playing through the whole piece of music.

(Optional - perform the whole piece)

The key to this, even if it takes you over your 10 minutes, is to not lose the focus on the work you’ve been doing before.

1 minute praise and planning and questions

What went well in your practice, what do you need to focus on next time, and what questions you have for your teacher.