Category Archives: Practice

The Last Rep

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I talk with Arnold Schwartzenegger every day. Ok, really, I subscribe to his newsletter and he’s talking to millions, but the man has a lot to say. And he’s done a lot of things, so I figure I might learn a thing or two.

One of the things he talks about a lot is the last rep. That’s exactly what it sounds like – the last repetition (of anything).

Why is the last rep so important? Because that’s where most of us develop that not so rare disease – imdoneitis (pronounced “I’m done! Itis”). We can see the finish line and with that vision, we peter out. We let that last repetition fall flat, and we’re not even paying attention. Whether we’re lifting heavy things, doing scales, or learning a tune, as we wind our way toward the end, the fatigue of repetition rises, and we just want to get it over with.

But that last rep is the most important – for just those reasons! It can be mind-numbing to repeat anything. We know that because of all the ways we have contrived to ensure we don’t lose count (I’ve heard of using pennies, buttons, cookies, or even an abacus! – because we sure don’t want to do even one single extra rep!).

We do high reps of fundamentals that we have worked so hard to get to the point that they don’t require attention. And that is why the last rep counts for so much! When it starts to get easy, that’s when we need to concentrate and focus even more. When we stop paying attention, we slip and that lets bad habits creep in. And then we’re backsliding!

I get it. Lifting heaving things will make us physically exhausted (a la Arnold), but it’s hard to really drive into the last repetition when we are doing fine motor and brain work. Rather than letting your mind wander, this is when we need to push up our focusing.

You’ll be amazed at how that last time through can be the best (and how it can also be the worst). By paying attention, you’ll not only get a useful rep out of it, but you’ll also gain insight into what is (and isn’t) working so you can focus your next set of reps.

And don’t worry, you won’t get bulky by doing more – you’ll get more streamlined and stronger – but who doesn’t want that?!

Give it a try – lean into your last rep. What do you learn about what you’re working on? Let me know – I’d love to hear about it!

Flexibility

When you think of flexibility, you might see ballet dancers or gymnasts in your head. But flexibility is just as important for us as musicians! Being flexible will not only make us more supple for moving around the harp but will also let our brains be more nimble while we’re arranging, composing, or just trying to get out of a sticky wicket we’re backed into (aka flubbing in performance!).

There are plenty of exercises to do to make your body more flexy but today let’s work on making our minds more agile! For agility, we need to be able to think fast, generate a bunch of options, select the one that will work the best at that moment and execute. And all of that takes practice.

Now you might think that just regular practice should do the trick. Afterall we’re always changing pitches, rhythms, fingers, etc. And yes, that will help you be more flexible, but wouldn’t it be easier to be good at it too? For that, we need specific practice.

Here are a few of my favorites:

For scales, I like playing Russian scales. When that gets easy, shift to Chasing Squirrels. Russian Scales are a piano thing I stole – while RH plays a 2-octave scale (up and back), LH plays a 1 octave scall (up and back) – keep playing until you end up where you started. Then flip (LH does 2 octaves while RH does 1). Chasing squirrels is basically the same except, you change direction whenever you wish while also changing which hand is playing 1 or 2 octaves. You can up the ante by playing contrasting scales (start with C and Am). It’s fun. It’s frustrating. It works!

For reading, I like playing backwards. There are two ways to read backward – the hard way and the harder way. For the hard way, start at the last measure and play each measure as it comes (e.g., play ms 40, then 39, 38, 37, etc. until you get to the first measure). This does take a little getting used to. If you need a real challenge – the harder way is to play it really backwards by reading right to left (last note of measure 40 until you get to it’s first note and then move to 39, etc.) – this is ridiculously hard, but it will keep you thinking! This is one activity I honestly wish I had started when I was new to reading because it requires a lot of mental flexibility which we can all use more of! (honestly, I don’t do this enough)

For rote tunes, I like to mix up the phrases. I do not recommend this for tunes you are still learning, but once you feel like you have the tune, then have at it. If, when you try this, the whole tune falls apart, you’re not there yet so keep practicing the tune straight until it is more learned. Sometimes this falls apart because you’re not thinking about the tune in phrases – not just the order of notes but how the ideas fit together.

All of these things will build your music making muscles! They are all a little bit fun and a little bit frustrating, but the point is to keep engaged and to continue to develop. Because this is a journey (as much as I hate that euphemism). But it’s true, you’re not going to “get there” you’ll only get better, more accomplished, and more comfortable…until the next thing you want to learn!

Give these a try and let me know how they go! If you’re completely lost, email me and I’ll help make it clearer (or send a video).

I still have not solved the comments conundrum but please don’t let that stymie you – send me an email with your comment, thought, input, observation, etc. Click here to do that.

Focus

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I’m a systems person – both by training and profession but mostly by nature. It’s hard to see individual parts when the gestalt is leading the charge. But sometimes it’s time to focus tight, see just one thing, and pay attention solely to that.

I can’t tell you how hard that was for me to say!

When we’re working on a tune – brand new or an old faithful, we can be tempted to dial out and try to work on everything all at once. Because most of the time we do need to take the global view, to watch the entirety.

But sometimes, this approach does not work. When you have a niggling problem, a challenge that is hiding (so you can’t figure out what’s going on), or you just can’t seem to remember the next note (or phrase or part!) the wide open system approach won’t work. And continuing that way will only be frustrating – and counterproductive! When the harder you try to work on everything and get nowhere, the only option is to take a new tack. This new direction is to work on one thing at a time.

Yes, that’s what I said. If you need to break out the layer you’ve been combining. Focus on one thin. That one thing might be:

Notes?

Fingers?

Rhythm?

Phrasing?

Repeats (returns/dismounts)?

Accompaniment?

Something else? (the list can be quite long!)

When you break out the elements of the whole, you can bring all your brainpower to that one thing, concentrate on it, highlight the challenges, and iron it out. Once it’s worked, it can be gently reintroduced to the whole. Gently! So that you don’t break your new answer or break something else!

So this week, select something you’re working on just now that isn’t coming together and try this for at least three days (you do have to give it time). Use focus to break the problem into bite sized pieces and see if that doesn’t help. See if your new option holds together when you gently release it into the whole – and let me know how it goes. What did you learn? What would you do differently the next time (because of course there will be a next time!).

Stuck

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Do you ever find yourself wondering if you’re actually getting any better? I often find myself thinking about that Pablo Casals quote about why he still practiced when he was an extremely experienced human. He said, “because I think I am making progress,”.

ut for us mere mortals, it can be really challenging to find evidence that we’re improving. We can get hung up on asking if we are growing as musicians. But what if we asked ourselves the question in a new way?

Rather than asking, “am I making progress?” we instead asked, “what don’t I notice anymore?”

Because if you have mastered a skill, it no longer consumes your thinking and your practice time. It has moved from an activity that requires constant attention to being an activity you do automatically – no focused thinking required.

This is true no matter the skill – playing harmonics, using a fork, signing your name – whatever you have done so many times that you no longer notice doing it.

That’s why it’s so difficult to see your own progress – it’s always there but it’s lurking inside all the things you no longer pay any attention to. In fact, all you see is where you haven’t gotten to – the gap between what you have learned, mastered, made automatic and what you have left to learn. Whether you mean to or not, you’re looking forward. And when you try to look back, you don’t see anything! And since you don’t see anything, you underestimate how much you have accomplished. Ugh, what a rat race!

This is one of the reasons that keeping track is so helpful – it highlights your movement in a way that helps you see that you’re actually moving! You don’t want to only capture the big wins – they’re easy to see. It’s the small incremental progress that is so important for you to see in yourself.

So, this week try to catch yourself growing! Be vigilant for things that are now easier than they were in your last practice. What did you play without having to ride herd on every little movement -that’s what you want to notice, capture…and celebrate!

You can also capture non-movement wins. Did you practice every day that you intended to? Did you maybe get an extra 5 minutes in? On a week that was unending, did you play through a tune – and enjoy it because it wasn’t a struggle? WIN! WIN! WIN!

So, this week, try this – name and write down three things that come to you automatically now that used to require effort even a month ago. Whether its consistent practice, near-perfect scales, or a successful performance, track that! Not goals, and definitely not wishes! Just a skill you are moving forward with.

What are we noticing, really? We’re noticing the small things that at one time were insurmountable (or just hard – let’s be real) but now are just a thing we do. What do you no longer notice? Let me know in the comments – I’m curious!

Do I have to?

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Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

When you were growing up, how did you feel about learning to write in cursive? Did you think it was a waste of your time? I know I thought it was stupid. Often now, with pen in hand, I think back on those hated lessons – and see how wrong I was.

Now when I look at my penmanship, I see more than ink. I see insights into my development as a person. I see what I feel is important to me. I see how I have changed as I’ve grown up. I see that I’m in a hurry!

Many of us only write with a pen to sign greeting cards, make lists of things to do, or pay bills any more(because we’re old!). But still, the writing we learned as children really has stayed with us. For all the angst we underwent, we have the product – something we use daily. But even in the face of that utility, we don’t focus on the positives that can come from learning something we didn’t want to do.

Just like when we’re working on our music. We have to focus, even on the things that aren’t fun. Or that don’t come easily. Or those things that don’t seem to relate directly to anything else that we think are important. But there’s really something to be gained by pursuing “learning the cursive” of our music. And it ‘s not just finally “getting” it – but also that wonderful feeling of conquering something that has stymied us until then!

So, this week, try pulling out something you don’t want to do or a piece you don’t want to play because it’s not fun. You know – the cod liver oil of practicing, the “Brussels sprouts” of our learning (this is a bad analogy – I love Brussels sprouts, but you get the idea!). Whether it is making your own exercise of a trouble spot, doing the lessons in a primer, or sitting and working with Madam Grossi, channel all that hatred of cursive. But this time, apply the wisdom you have gained from experiencing success from practice.

What is your “cod liver oil” of practicing? What has given you the kind of trouble that makes you avoid working on it? What are you going to work on? Let me know in the comments!

All that’s Left

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The melody is the thing.

I say it all the time – because it’s true. The tune is the melody and that’s what you want to push forward when you’re playing.

BUT…

We have the good fortune to play an instrument that is a platform for both melody and harmony. So, while you definitely need to get the melody out – after that, all that’s left…is left (harmony).

I almost hate to say Left Hand (LH) as if it is equal to harmony – because there is no rule that says the harmony must be relegated to the left hand. But it is fairly common practice, so we can shelve that line of thinking for another day.

That means that once you have deeply learned the melody, we need to add in that LH harmony. And to make that easy, fluid, practical, and supportive, we need to have strong LH patterns ingrained in us! There are loads of patterns available. Many are pseudodefined by the idiom of the music you’re playing, but that really only limits what you might think about playing. Without exploring the outer limits of harmony (we could do that another time if you ask), there are a number of LH patterns you could deeply learn so you can apply them at any time. These include:

5ths (often standard for Irish, Scottish, and Celtoid tunes)

1-5-8 chords (e.g., C-G-C or G-D-G using fingers 4-2-1)

1-5-8-9-10 (e.g., C-G-C-D-E or G-D-G-A-B using fingers 4-2-1-2-1)

1-5-8-etc (e.g., C-G-C-D-E-F-G (using fingers 4-2-1-4-3-2-1) or G-D-G-A-B-C (using fingers 4-2-1-3-2-1) or or G-D-B-A-G (using fingers 4-2-1-2-3)) and on until you’re done – I often go as far as needed to support the phrase and how I’m feeling it!

Boom chucks (this can be a triad, a 5th, a 1-5-8, or whatever, but played in two segments – boom (bottom note maybe) chuck (top two notes) or vice versa

Blocked chords (yup, just go to town on the whole thing at once!)

Alberti Bass (if you’re not familiar with this pattern, it’s a quintessential Classical pattern that is usually cheerful and upbeat sounding, played from a broken chord (e.g., 1-5-3-5, 1-5-3-5 repeated throughout the chord progression)

Walking Bass in single notes, octaves, 10ths, etc. (just like it sounds – “walk” up or down from one note to another (used a lot in pop tunes)

Once you have learned these patterns, oh, the places you’ll go! Because when your fingers can confidently place and play these patterns, you can change them up, reorder them, play simple or fancy chord progressions, and be comfortable moving around to support your tune.

So, my challenge to you this week is to spend a little time practicing each of these and getting a feel for any you don’t typically use. While you’re at it, try to name the feeling that each pattern evokes for you. Does the scale you’re in change your thinking (does a minor boom chuck make you feel blues-y or meh? Do you always love a broken 1-5-8 chord, or does it sometimes need something more?). Are there other patterns you use that we should add here to share? Let me know in the comments!

Have a comment? Here you go:

Speed Demon

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Are you chasing speed over competence? Have you (wittingly or unwittingly) become a speed demon?

I hope by now you have relented and incorporated Scales into your practice as a warmup! They make the case themselves simply because they are essential, central, and so easy, you have to wonder why you wouldn’t do them!

There is one little thing that bears mentioning though. Because, while it’s easy to fall into this trap, it can kill all your gains in an instant! What is this little thing?

Speed

Somewhere along the line we decided that playing faster faster faster meant being good. After all, if you were good, you wouldn’t be slow. You see it in every instrument – being a speed demon hot shot is a goal even in elementary school and middle school.

We have talked before about slowing down while learning new music. And the importance of working slowly through challenging passages for getting all the notes, rhythm, fingering, and phrasing accurate – and then moving into playing more quickly.

But what about when working on technical elements? Well, that might be when taking your time and staying in control is the most important. We know that all our music is made of up the patterns we practice when we do the “grunt” work – so we should be expending attention and energy when we do it!

There are so many things of which to be cognizant while doing this “grunt” work. Things like posture, breathing, being relaxed, finger order, complete closing, memory, tone, legato, timbre, and more. And that’s a long, but incomplete, list! Each time you do a good, complete, focused scale you learn a little more about your harp, the notes and their relationship to each other, and frankly, about yourself!

So take the time to do your scales with care, not speed (technical exercises as well). Focus on whatever you are trying to learn – whether that is using the right finger at the right time; keeping all the notes even in time, in rhythm, in volume; using a rhythm pattern; getting different weights out of each hand; learning to hear the interplay of notes in different intervals, or just to learn when you have warmed up enough to be ready to take on the stuff you need to work on. These are all important things. Being able to play faster is one of the things you need to learn – but it’s certainly not the only thing!

When your scales begin to be easy, change what you’re trying to learn – so that you are always learning. Did you start playing the harp so you could get stale? Probably not – so don’t let it creep up on you! Don’t leave out getting faster, but don’t let it be your be-all end-all either!

Take your time. You’ll be glad you did. With a little of that time, drop a comment about if you’ve been chasing speed over competence? If so, what changes will you make? If not, how do you keep improving? Can’t wait to hear from you!

Love to Love You

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I know I’m always saying it, but you might not believe me – I love to hear from you! Most of the time I’m living here in my own head, so it’s good to hear what’s going on in your heads!

I’ve written a lot about getting your practice time in. Recently Sharon mentioned that she struggles to understand why getting practice time in is so hard for some people. Most of us are adults, so we don’t “have” to practice like we did when we were kids and a parent “made” us do it. We have freely (and lovingly) chosen to play our beautiful instrument. We are adding it to our lives because we have always wanted to play it, because it speaks to our hearts and souls, because in our mind’s eye we can see ourselves behind it making incredible music. Some, like me, play because at the beginning, it was there (sorry I don’t have a better, more romantic origin story – I really did start playing because while we were drinking wine in a hot tub, someone suggested it, and I had a little free time that week). It is an instrument we love to love.

Sharon has a good point – why would you not make time for something you love? When you fork out many days’ salary for an instrument and pay quite a bit for instruction, why wouldn’t you spend as much time with your new crush as possible? When she began playing (as an adult), she not only looked forward to playing but also did play nearly every day. So, reasonably, she doesn’t understand how people can keep distant from their own true love! I don’t blame her for asking!

She’s got a point – as a teacher it can be frustrating to have students come in unprepared. It’s also frustrating to see a student get stuck, especially in elements we think of as easy or simple, that are steppingstones to more challenges. And as a teacher, it can be heartbreaking to watch a student’s own frustration as they don’t make progress.

I’m of two minds here. Of course I want my students to burst into bloom, playing ever more difficult music, generating their own compositions, flourishing as musicians. I’m not a monster!

But I also need to be the teacher they need. To recognize why they are sitting here with me. To facilitate their learning – whatever it is they need to learn today and in the long run. To be honest, students don’t come to me to prepare for their Juilliard auditions. They don’t come to me for coaching ahead of their Carnegie Hall debut.

They come to me because they have a yearning. Some of them are not even sure what that yearning is, but they feel it is connected to music of the harp. Some have played an instrument as a child, so they have some cognizance of the need to practice. Others have never played an instrument and honestly, practicing is a foreign concept. But they each have their own (differing) definition of success – and I must honor that…and play my role in aiding their journey.

All my (adult) students are professionals in their fields. They’re not strangers to discipline or hard work. They range from early career to retirement, and they represent divergent fields from engineering to non-profit administration.

They also have, you know, life to take care of. They face pressures from being laid off to moving, caregiving, care receiving, and more.

And yet, they yearn.

Are they challenging? They are, to a one, creative, intelligent, and curious. They make me think about the harp and music (and sometimes life) in new ways. But that’s about me – what’s more important is about them. And what they need to learn as we sit together.

Of course I want them to become proficient at playing the harp, but here’s what else I want them to learn:

  1. Creating makes you feel whole.
  2. Learning new things requires bravery – that you already have and just need to exercise.
  3. While it’s nice to play really well, until then, it’s ok to play just ok.
  4. Comparison is the thief of joy.
  5. Often what feels like no progress is just processing.
  6. I cannot be disappointed in you – only you can be disappointed in you.
  7. Hard things have big, juicy rewards.
  8. What was hard yesterday will be easy tomorrow and be replaced with something even harder.
  9. When you’re being attacked by multiple things, it’s easiest to take them on squarely but one at a time – so if practice slipped this week, so be it!
  10. You can’t pour from an empty pitcher. This is something you selected for yourself – honor that.
  11. When life hands you lemons, flex! (if you’re not “prepared” for our lesson today, I’ll think of some other way to torture you! 🙂 )
  12. No matter how much you think I don’t want to review this again or that I’m bored with you, this piece, this technical element – HA! I have endless reserves of “again” – I use them all the time when I’m practicing and I’m happy to share them with you!
  13. A little bit every day is so much better (and sustainable) than an hour the day before your lesson.

Students will often say:

“I didn’t practice again – you’re going to fire me!”. 

Nope, you’re not getting out of it that easily! I reply:

“I will only fire you if you don’t practice and then come in here and whine, ‘I don’t know why I’m not getting any better’! Until then, let’s (do some musical activity that isn’t necessarily just playing whatever you didn’t practice).”

Having said all that, there are many reasons that practice gets skipped. I’ve found that in new students it is often because they don’t understand that they have made a commitment. And it’s like getting a puppy (but without the cleanup). But a puppy will whine, cry, and piddle on the floor while your harp will just sit there going out of tune.

Other students haven’t made a “permanent home” in their schedules for practicing, so they are in a catch-as-catch-can situation – and then it’s midnight and while lunches are packed, laundry is folded, and teeth are brushed, the harp is unplayed. It’s sometimes difficult to “find” that time. For this, I suggest getting up 15 minutes earlier for some you-time (I know, ugh).

Sometimes, practice grows in our heads. We don’t have an hour to practice. And like a callus, this concern grows with friction. Well, duh, who has an unplanned hour? It can be difficult to carve out time for something you’re doing for yourself, that has no monetary value or an immediately observable domestic value. For this, I often give “counter-homework” in which their practice is to sit on the bench but NO PLAYING! Just plant the tush onto the bench and then walk away. The next week might be to set a timer for 2 minutes and play pentatonic improv, but when the timer dings, get up and walk away. No extra time. This is a gentle reminder that when you (finally) get on the bench, you want to be there! Making the time dear helps highlight this.

Just so you know, I have it on good authority that the practice police are not going to give you a ticket if you break up your practice into smaller segments. You can do scales for 2 -3 minutes in the commercial break of the show you’re not going to give up watching. Do technical exercises for 3 – 5 minutes (which is actually less than the time for the commercials on PBS! (yes, I watch too much tv)). Want 10 minutes to work on your new tune? That’s about how long it takes to boil pasta (it will cook without you watching it and you get dinner at the end!). When we acknowledge that practice does not require a monolithic chunk of time, that we can control it and still learn, then it gets easier to squeeze it in!

Enough of my pontificating, Sharon had a good question – if you’re not practicing, what’s stopping you? Are you bored with your tunes? Do you have a technique question that’s getting in your way? Do you think some version of, “this is pointless, I’m never going to get there (however you’ve defined “there”)? Do you dread your lesson time? Are you not gelling with your teacher? Do you struggle to fit it into your day? Are you no longer in love with your harp? Things that get in the way tell you a great deal and knowing the why can help with the what of “what to do”.

If you’re struggling, your teacher already knows – and wants to help! So, you can always ask. If you don’t feel that would be a productive conversation, you can ask me!

Do you find you often don’t get to practice? I’d love to hear your thoughts. If you have a chance to try some of the stuff I’ve listed here, I’d love to hear how that worked out for you! Sharon and I are very interested to hear your thinking about the thing you love to love, so please let us know in the comments!

Boring

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I hear you – you don’t (all) love playing scales.

One of the reasons people don’t like to play scales is that they are “boring”. 

Boooorrrrriiiiiinnnnnnngggggggg

Here’s the problem with that thinking – boring is not a bad thing!

Wait, what?

It’s true – boring has some important positive qualities, all of which can make playing easier and better!

What are these qualities? Let’s take a look – they come in two flavors – one cognitive, the other creative.

The first of these – cognitive – means that you do not need to apply your full attention when playing your scales. When you have played something long enough, you have learned (something) about it. It feels like playing is getting easier (we’ve used this metric before!). Eventually it will be so easy you might think it is “boring”. But being bored is a really just a feeling of tedium, not an indication of thinking of the elements of playing. When tedium sets in, you actually have learned enough that your brain is looking for a new challenge. That means you have spare capacity to do or learn more. That’s why we have more complicated versions of each scale as well as other scale related exercises. This is definitely something to pursue. And it can go on forever – because once one thing is easy, there is room for expansion and adding to your effort. Once it’s easy, there’s no end to the things you can do to make your scales more interesting!

The second flavor is creative. When you have achieved an ease of play as mentioned above, you can use that foundation for creative exploration! Being bored is a great place to start when you want to be creative. That same freedom you have from being bored will allow you to come up with new ways to play your scales. Or you can use those scales to come up with new melodies. You can also use these strong scales to come up with varying harmonies – the possibilities are endless!

So, the next time you are thinking your scales work is boring, instead shift your focus. Develop a take on making them more effortless so you have the spare cognitive capacity to take them farther. Or use them as a launch point for creative exploration. Keep in mind that you can also bring the two together – using your freed capacity to be more mindfully creative.

What do you think? Are you going to go for freed capacity or creativity or both? Let me know in the comments!

Build a Habit

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We just past Quitter’s Day – the day by which most people have let their resolutions fade out and die. It’s depressingly early in January to have given up. But really, days are long, especially if you’re trying to make a change in your day…or your practice…and motivation and willpower can only hold on so long.

How do we make a different choice and skip right over Quitter’s Day so we can continue to grow?

We develop habits that reinforce our continuing to keep going!

What makes a habit? Repetition and intention, focus and routine all build toward consistent learning, growth, and performance.

Pablo Casals was asked why he continued to practice given that he was 80 years old at the time. He answered that he thought he was making progress! And he lived quite a while longer, so he had loads of time to practice. He had a practice habit and so should you!

So, what’s the easiest habit we should have but might not? What will get us to confident, fluent playing which comes to mind as an appropriate end state for all of us. Let’s build one strong habit that can support that and helps throughout our harp lives.

Let’s build a daily habit of playing scales.

We learn from a young age that scales are boring. And they are if all you do is rip through them mindlessly! But just a little bit of thinking and they become not only a technical challenge but also brain work and a portal to music we know and music we haven’t learned yet.

Typically, we think of doing scales at the start of practice time – and they do make an excellent warm-up. But there is no rule that says you can’t do them at the end of your practice – like a desert. Or, for that matter, you can do them in the middle as a break between other tasks and learning.

No matter when you do them, scales are a tremendous habit to build. And once you have a small, strong habit built, others can follow. When will you do your scales? Let me know in the comments!

Practice steps

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It’s January, so it’s still appropriate to be looking back at where you’ve been to help you look forward to what your next steps should be. As a teacher, I know that we are all over the map with this – some students already have a list of things they’d like to work on, pieces they’d like to play, events they’d like to participate in, etc. Some others look blank. So, who’s right?

Like so many things, there is no right answer, only the answer for you. The downside to not having thought about this is that you might drift because you’re not heading anywhere. Of course, the downside to having already made a list is that you can be too focused and could miss out on serendipitous opportunities.

Indulge me – jot at least a couple of things you’d like to work on this year (if you haven’t already). Could be technique improvements (because we can all use that – bad habits are slippery!). Might be to tackle a piece you have always admired but have been intimidated by. Maybe it is a social goal, like inviting people to play ensemble pieces together (formally or informally). Or possibly you feel like you need a challenge that will test not only your playing and learning but will really stress your mettle?

Once you have a couple of ideas, take a look at them – probably some are smaller, shorter term (I want to learn to play (insert beautiful but very easy tune name here)) and some will be bigger, longer term (I will play with others in ensemble).

Then you’ll need to suss out the steps that will get you there. For our short-term example that might be that you’ll need about 6 weeks total to study, learn, practice, polish, and finish that tune. In our longer term example that might be to identify 3 pieces of level appropriate ensemble music, find 3 people you would like to play with who are at or near your level of play, invite them to join you, assign the parts, learn and practice your part, set a meeting schedule and place, and secure a place to showcase those pieces. Obviously more steps, some that require 5 minutes, some that will require a little effort over some number of weeks.

Both long and short term require that you keep an eye on where you’re going while also monitoring your progress, being honest in your assessment of your activities and development, “fixing” things, and checking that the gap is narrowing (or not).

Once you’ve got the activities, you can then build out your practice time. We all want to be efficient with our practice time, so interleaving these steps will make a good practice plan – include steps for both small and big ideas. Look for ways to “double up” and hit multiple ideas with one activity (I’m looking at you, technical exercises!). This way too, you are never practicing just to practice – always narrowing the gap from where you are to where you’d like to be.

All this will be true whether you’re working with a teacher or coach, or are guiding yourself. How will you incorporate small and large steps into your practice? Let me know in the comments!