The Practice Menu: A Framework for How to Practise the Violin
One of the most important skills any violinist can have is knowing how to practise! This one single skill can transform your progress, because if you always know how to improve then you’ll always be getting better and better!
A big part of knowing how to practise is being able to create a useful structure for each practice session that you do. A good structure should be a simple, solid framework that you can rely on to help you decide how to plan your time and what to do during that time.
But it should also be flexible. No one should ever dogmatically add things to their violin practice simply because they think it’s ‘the right thing to do’ or ‘because my teacher told me to’.
Instead, you need to be creative and switch around the tasks that you do from day to day, week to week – according to what will help you get closer to your goals… faster AND better!
Introducing… The Practice Menu!
One of our favourite analogies for this is The Practice Menu. Think about how a restaurant would compartmentalise their menu according to different types of food.
It’s necessary, isn’t it? If the chocolate cake was next to the vegetable tart which was nestling between the coffee which was next to the soup… well, you’d just end up confused!
You need a structure that makes sense. And just like with food, where there can be infinite recipes and dishes – just as there are infinite variations in technical exercises and pieces of music for the violin – there are some useful guidelines that are broadly correct whoever and wherever you are.
In most restaurants you’ll start with savoury starters and mains, some with sides. A sweet dessert will usually follow the main course.
Drinks will often be available on a separate menu, or at least in a clearly marked section. It’s clear, it’s organised, and it’s easy to choose what you’d like.
In your violin practice, try following a similar structure.
First begin with the STARTERS – the TECHNICAL part of your practice.
This is where you get your warm-ups done, but it’s also a time for building your technique (for example, practising new techniques that you haven’t mastered before) and maintaining (making sure that everything you already know is in really good shape).
Then you can move on to the MAIN COURSE – the REPERTOIRE – i.e. the pieces of music you play.
This is usually the biggest part of your practice. What you’re looking to do in this part of your practice is to analyse and improve the technical and musical issues that will make a big impact on how you play each piece.
When you’re having a meal, don’t forget the DRINKS! In our analogy, that’s the equivalent of performing.
Your performance practice is absolutely critical if you’re going to get used to playing to other people, but you’d be surprised how often people forget about performance practice entirely. It’s also a learnable skill, so with the right training you can eliminate performance anxiety completely.
Finally, don’t forget to reward yourself with some DESSERTS!
Whether it’s composition (creating your own music), improvisation (creating music by playing it in real time!), sight-reading, music theory or any other musical topic that improves your overall musical experience, make sure you leave time for creative activities that will expand your general musicianship!
Being really creative in your practice is a great way to stay motivated and make sure that you’re always excited about your playing.
The menu at a glance
STARTERS: TECHNICAL PRACTICE (warm-ups, building and maintenance) Warming up, maintenance, and development of technical ideas, including posture, scales, studies, and technical exercises.
MAINS: REPERTOIRE PRACTICE Working on technical and musical issues in the context of pieces of music, to help realise your imagination of what the music should sound like.
DRINKS: PERFORMANCE PRACTICE Building up performance experience by playing pieces from beginning to end under concert conditions, as if you were on stage.
DESSERT: CREATIVE PRACTICE Improvisation, composition, playing by ear, sight-reading, and any other creative activities that you enjoy, that will help develop your musicianship.
What should a practice session look like?
What should a session of violin practice actually look like? What should you be spending your time on? How do you divide up your time, to make sure that you get through everything you need to do in the time you have available?
When choosing what to do in your violin practice, think about how you might go about planning a meal. Each part of a meal has a different purpose, and contributes to how good the meal is overall. Each part functions in a different way, and is structured differently too.
The ‘main course’ is usually the most substantial part of a meal. It’s what grabs your attention the most. And it’s what takes the majority of time to prepare.
Practising your repertoire (the music you are learning) is likely to take up the majority of your practice time. You’ll want to resolve technical and musical issues to make sure everything is correct: in time, in tune, and sounding good.
Then you can work on your interpretation of the music, i.e. how you choose to shape the music in order to create a compelling and moving experience for your listeners.
Most of the time, you’ll want to warm up and get your body prepared and ready to play. So it makes sense to start with some basic body movements, and do whatever is necessary to get your mind, body, violin and bow aligned and working together.
This leads naturally into technical practice, i.e. maintaining the skills you already have (for example by practising scales and technical exercises), and building up new skills that you have recently learnt, and want to become part of your violin technique.
The sequence of your practice should change according to what’s most important to you on any given day. But very often, violinists will begin their practice with warm-ups and technical exercises because it centres the body and mind, and helps you to focus and get yourself mentally ready for an effective practice session.
Performance is a learnable skill, so we should leave time to develop it in our practice sessions. The more you practise performing, the easier it is to stand up in front of other people and play to them.
This is an entirely different skill to actually playing the violin. Your body and mind respond in a different way when you know lots of people are watching! So it’s important to allow adequate time in your regular violin practice sessions, to make sure that you are developing this ability through a process of testing and repeating what you can already do, under performance conditions.
Finally, you could eat a meal without a dessert, but it wouldn’t be so enjoyable or fun! Also, we need some time just to mess around, experiment and explore new ideas – this is critical for developing our creative skills and musicianship.
That’s why leaving time for creative activities is an essential part of good violin practice. This can include everything from making up your own tunes, to learning how to read music at sight, to joining in by ear and playing music without notation.
How much time should I spend on each task?
The answer to this question depends entirely on what your priorities are at any given moment, and where you are in your violinistic and musical development.
That’s why if you are a committed learner it is a very good idea to get personalised feedback to help with questions like these, from a teacher or from a school.
However, for an early stage learner in the first few weeks of playing, it makes sense to focus on mastering the fundamental technical skills, and to begin practising your first pieces of music. A half-half split of your practice time between technical and repertoire practice would be a sensible approach.
Once you have been playing for a few weeks, and can reliably play in time, in tune and with a good sound, then it’s sensible to introduce some performance practice and creative time into your regular practice sessions.
With the caveat that the exact time split will depend entirely on your priorities, and that for the best advice you should seek guidance from a qualified and experienced teacher, here is how an example practice session could look:
| Type of practice | % time | 30 min session | 60 min session |
|---|---|---|---|
| Technical practice | 25% | 7.5 min | 15 min |
| Repertoire practice | 50% | 15 min | 30 min |
| Performance practice | 15% | 4.5 min | 9 min |
| Creative skills | 10% | 3 min | 6 min |
Turning the menu into a practice plan
A practice plan is the menu written out for you, for the next few weeks. Ours has four parts:
- Short term goals. Three lines. What you want to be able to do by the end of the period.
- The plan itself. One row for each part of the menu, with the time you’ll give it and the tasks: Technical: warm-ups (about 5 minutes), building (about 5 minutes), maintenance (about 10 minutes) Repertoire: development repertoire (the pieces you’re learning now) and challenge repertoire (the piece just beyond you) Performance Creative
- A total, so the plan fits the time you actually have.
- A summary of the key objectives for this practice period, in a sentence or two.
Remember, a plan is just a starting point. Stay creative, let your practice routine evolve, and review it every few weeks so that it keeps up with your progress.
Print the menu out and keep it in the place where you do most of your practice, so that the structure of your practice stays front of mind!