Sometimes I have no idea what I should write here. I could launch on how the blank page is terrifying but instead, I decided to poke around the web for a better idea, and in about three clicks, I had it!

I came across a page on journalling. It had a load of prompts to help goad you into writing in your journal. That’s pretty helpful. But farther down on the page, there was an interesting list that I decided could be molded into something that would be helpful here. It had a list of prompts for each day. That is, there were day specific prompts that could be used to move your journaling along.

What does that have to do with us? Well, we can use the same approach to tailor our practicing. If we view each day of the week as having a focus, we could tailor our practicing to achieve more (and maybe with less work?). As I thought about it, I was reminded of the childhood song in which each day of the week had a chore – washing clothes, ironing, sweeping. While we were singing around the Mulberry Bush we listed what we were supposed to do each day of the week. Better still, it’s changeable so we can fit in our own chores – our practice chores! If we listed our “chores”, we could be focused while still getting in all our practice, and meantime probably learn something while seeing progress over time.

What might we put in our song? Technical (scales and etudes)? Reading? Musicality (phrasing, dynamics, expression)? By the time we get to the mid-week, when we’re losing sight of what we’re doing, slogging through relentless repeats, our song could help us stay on track. We shouldn’t forget to include fun (tunes we know and love), accomplishment (tunes that are just coming along), or joy (tunes that remind us why we love to play). And by week’s end we would have gotten to everything and been left with pride or satisfaction (acknowledging our work)!

Once we know these, we can sing our song to ourselves (nothing wrong with using the melody from Mulberry Bush – or writing your own!). If you can’t recall, here’s a starting point:

Here we go round the mulberry bush, The mulberry bush, the mulberry bush. Here we go round the mulberry bush, Practicing on a music day.

This is the way we play our scales, play our scales, play our scales. This is the way we play our scales, Practicing on a Monday.

This is the way we phrase our tune, phrase our tune, phrase our tune, This is the way we phrase our tune, Practicing on a Tuesday.

Etc for Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

This is the way we play for joy, play for joy, play for joy. This is the way we play for joy, Practicing on Sunday.

You can put your tasks in any order throughout the week. You can even use a different time frame if it’s right for you (2 weeks? 3 days? What’s right for you?). It’s up to you how many stanzas your song will have. The point is to keep focus – it might be just what your week needs.

What would your lyrics be? Can’t wait to hear! Send me some of your ideas!