How to Practice Efficiently in a Short Amount of Time

Whether you need to learn something quickly or just want to spend more time outside the practice room, practicing efficiently is something we can all get better at. Here are my tips on how to practice as efficiently as you can in a short amount of time!

Watch me put these tips into action here!

Listen

The first thing to do when practicing in a short, limited amount of time is to listen to a recording and do some score study. If I know what the music sounds like, I can learn it so much faster! When we listen, there are a few things we want to pay attention to:

1. Overall style – what era is this piece from, where was the composer from, and how do those dictate the style of the music? Is it legato, staccato? What kind of vibrato should you use?
2. Tempo – this one is self explanatory, but how fast or slow is the piece? If you have the time to listen to a few recordings, are there large variations in tempo?
3. If the piece is not solo (so orchestral, chamber, etc.), how does your part fit in with everyone else’s? What roles are you playing? Solo, bass line, inner voice, weaving in and out?
4. Anything that sounds different from what is in your part – is there anything you hear that doesn’t match what you see? Maybe a different note, dynamic, articulation, or maybe a cut? Be sure the score and the recording match, and if not, check against another recording and investigate.

Look over the music

Get a general sense of what’s going on. You’ll look for similar aspects as you did during the listen—style, tempo, dynamics. Can you immediately pick out the hard sections? And can you think of any fingerings and bowings before even playing through it?

Sightread slowly

Only play at a tempo where you can comprehend what you’re doing. Identify more of the aspects you looked and listened for earlier. What else do you encounter? What is difficult, and what is easy? Answering that will tell you what you should and shouldn’t focus on.

Practice slowly to get to know it

As a string player, this means getting used to the notes, fingerings, and bowings, or coming up with fingerings and bowings if you don’t have any or if the music isn’t straightforward. Play slowly to learn and tune the notes–you want to build the correct muscle memory. Learning the music correctly will help you learn faster in the long run, because you won’t be spending time correcting things! I find it’s helpful to go a little slower than I think I need to so my brain has time to really process what I’m doing.

Focus on the hard sections – don’t dwell on the easy sections

Identify and isolate exactly what is giving you trouble. It could be a shift, a bowing, string crossings, finding a note. Whatever it is, find a way to isolate and practice just that problem, and then put it back into context.

REPETITION

Repeat hard sections as much as you can to build muscle memory. Slow repetition will help you get it up to a faster tempo quicker! I find repetition is kind of like organizing your mind. The more you play through something, the more it makes sense and the better you get to know it. The more correct repetitions you complete, the more likely it is you’ll get it right each time you play through it.

Practice in layers

Focus on just one thing at a time – just intonation, just bowings, or just dynamics, for example. This is the order I like to practice in:

Notes -> bowings -> articulations -> dynamics -> phrasing

In more vague terms:

Foundation -> again -> detail -> more detail -> bigger detail

Take short, frequent breaks

Taking short breaks often will help you keep your focus, which is what you absolutely need if you’re trying to practice as efficiently as you can in a limited amount of time. When I say short breaks, I mean short—like, 30 seconds. Don’t check your phone, just take a step away, drink some water, stretch, and then go back to practicing. Just taking a very short breather can make a huge difference in sustaining your focus!

Think with the end goal in mind

How fast should this be? How does your part fit in context? What bowstroke will you need, and is what you’re practicing now going to work when you play the music up to tempo? Be sure that the way you’re playing under tempo is the same way you’ll be playing up to tempo.

Find patterns

Finding patterns in music is one way that I can really quickly learn music. If I see that the same theme occurs three times in a piece and I learn that theme once, then I’ve learned a good chunk of the piece already! Finding patterns can also help you identify what is exactly the same, what is similar, and what is totally different, which can save you a lot of time and brainpower later on.

Try it in a consistent tempo to see where the trouble spots are

I know I’ve stressed the importance of slow practice, but it can also be really informative to try it at performance tempo (or at least a bit faster than you’re comfortable playing it) to see exactly where the trouble spots are, and if the fingerings and bowings you’ve been practicing actually work at the desired tempo.

Write in anything you need

Write in absolutely anything that might help you, even if it seems stupid. Writing things in your music might feel like cheating, but performing with sheet music is basically an open note test. 🙂 I find that writing in fingerings and bowings right away helps keep me from flipping between different options and from feeling indecisive. Just writing something in helps narrow down confusion, and if I don’t like what I’ve written, I just erase it and write in something that works!

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I hope these practice tips were helpful! Let me know down below if you have any tips I didn’t mention, or if you have a story about a time you had to learn a piece really fast! If you’d like to watch me put these tips into action, watch the video here. Happy practicing!