Practicing Like You're Creating Your Own Recipe

For the life of me... I can't follow a recipe without changing something. It's just the way I'm wired. Now baking is a different story, but even then once I'm used to a certain recipe, I love to add something in or substitute this for that. 

I guess I like to spice things up...so they say. I think I just need change. It's the same with practicing. 

We get those general rules about how much we should practice, what we need to practice on each day, etc. And they are all good, correct and applicable! We need to practice slowly, do scales and exercises and work on our pieces each day. So why does it all feel so "blah" sometimes then if we know what we're supposed to be working on!?

Well...I think it means that it's time to spice things up a bit...change the recipe! 

Changing a recipe involves a bit of adventure because you don't really know what the outcome is going to be, you just know that you want the food to taste different and better. There are times when you change it and the food tastes so good that you don't want to change the recipe any longer...you've found the perfect mix. And then there are the other times...

We can do the exact same thing with our piano practicing...and find a whole new level of enjoyment and excitement about practicing!

Let's say you are the really good student who practices at least 6 days a week and you work on everything: scales, exercises and pieces. You even include some music theory and might try a brand new piece each week too. Even when we do all of this (which honestly most of us don't accomplish this very well every single week)  we can become sort of blah about our practicing and our playing/performing will suffer because of this. 

What you need to do is spice up your practice routine and add in some new and/or different ingredients!

Here are a few ways that you can accomplish this:

1. Change your practice time. Instead of one long practice session, divide things up into 2 sessions. Designate one to be for technique and the other one for pieces. 
2. Make Fridays "Free-Fridays" where you play only new music and don't work on your regular repertoire on this day. 
3. Take Monday's off. If you are a weekend practicer and have a heavy schedule on most Mondays, take this as a day off from practicing and allow your subconscious to do its work while you focus on other things. 
4. Have a "review" day. This day you would only review everything you've worked on during the week; don't take on anything new on this day. This gives you a chance to see what you've accomplished during the week as well. 
5. Create your own type of "boot camp" where you decide that you're going to learn all of your major scales in one month, and spend most of your time on that task instead of trying to learn a lot of new material when you're doing this intense type of work. 
6. Pick a "perform" day where you ask family and/or friends to listen to what you've been playing and do this as your practice session one day. 
7. Play whatever you can without your music. If you are practicing on scales, try playing whatever scale you're practicing for memory. Next, try including some chords and arpeggios for memory. Don't worry about what you can't play for memory...just see what you can play without your music and enjoy that feeling. 
8. Select one practice session each week to try and compose your own music or improv some tunes that you heard on the radio. This will actually include what you've been working on that week in your regular practicing, but you might not be that aware of it at the time. It's a fun way to put your knowledge to the test. 

What other things can you think of that you can add to or change around in your own practice routine?

The point in all of this is to find the best way for you to practice to accomplish your goals...so don't be afraid to change things up, add in some spice and put your adventure hat on...you'll love the results in your piano playing!

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