What's the best way to practice long pieces?

November 6, 2008 5:42 PM

Instrumentalists: How do you practice long pieces?

So in my violin studies, I've graduated from playing simple 16- or 32-measure pieces to actually playing LONG ones, sometimes 100 measures or more. How do you practice such a piece? How do you break up and go over the different sections? How often do you find it useful to go all the way through the piece from beginning to end? When you have a difficult phrase or two and practice it over and over again, how many measures before or after it do you play? Any other techniques in playing long pieces are welcome! I'm a bit overwhelmed by all these notes. :) Thank you.

posted by Melismata to Media & Arts (11 answers total)

I don't think there's a single optimum method; by the very nature of practice, it's not the same for any two people. I can provide a few pointers, though:

- Slow practice is essential. You want to be able to play it all the way through slowly before playing it at tempo.

- Don't play the piece all the way through the first time. Split it up into individual sections.

- Play one measure before and one note after hard sections.

These aren't much, but hopefully this helps. I haven't played any bowed instruments, but the fundamentals of practice should stay the same.
posted by LSK at 5:53 PM on November 6, 2008

Start by playing the whole piece once, at tempo. Anything that you cannot play at tempo, mark with a red pencil. Passages that are difficult because of speed, I would recommend:

-Get a metronome
-Find the speed you can play it perfectly.
-Each time you play it perfectly, go up one notch (4 bpm)
-Each time you make a mistake, go down two notches (8 bpm)
-Repeat

I don't think, for me personally, that one measure is sufficient - play a few measures before the difficult part, so you won't slip up on the beginning.

Good luck!
posted by eleyna at 6:22 PM on November 6, 2008

I used to record myself playing. When replaying the piece, if a section came out that didn't sound right to me, I stopped the tape and focused on that section.
posted by answergrape at 6:33 PM on November 6, 2008

As far as playing the parts before and after: I just play the notes leading into the tough section. I generally try to split it into the smallest possible parts, and move progressively bigger when I get those. If there's a tough note jump in a run, I practice that. Then the run. Then the notes leading into the run. Then the whole phrase.

There aren't any rules, just do
what you need to get it right. Fight the temptation to only practice the bits you like.
posted by Solon and Thanks at 7:21 PM on November 6, 2008

Definitely don't feel like you have to play the whole thing at once. So many musicians piss away practice time by "running things down". Of course you should be able to play through start to finish (and a lot of times, putting things in context makes them harder or easier), but isolate the sections you have trouble with. Don't feel like you need to always start at the beginning. Try working back from the end, or from a particularly hard section.

Other practice tips, from a 4th year music student:
-- if it sounds great, you're not practicing, you're just playing. As Solon says, don't just play things you like or sound good on.
-- use a metronome and tuner, but don't rely on them.
-- listen to lots of recordings to help establish what your ideal violin sound is like. Always be thinking about this, no matter what.
-- for the love of all things good, don't ever not play music, by which I mean, don't feel like you're just practicing to practice. Other musicians may disagree with me on this, but I don't see a lot of use in practicing technique (or etudes, or whatever) for its own sake. There is music in everything -- find it. Practicing is so much more fun and rewarding when you start looking for these things.
posted by rossination at 7:43 PM on November 6, 2008

I played the cello and practiced enough to have the opportunity to perform at Carnegie Hall.

The best practice is perfect practice.

First of all, the music you attempt should be within reach of your technical proficiency. Sight read the piece. Play the whole piece a few times. Slow and fast.

However, to really learn the music, you basically have to memorize it.

That usually requires taking the piece slow and remembering the difficult parts.

Perfect the easy portions. Work on the easy stuff so it comes naturally to you. You won't have to work on these parts much later on. Be able to play the easy part at or faster than the given tempo.

Then focus your time on the difficult passages. Play them very slow, making sure you hit each note correctly, and speed it up gradually until you can do it at tempo.

Then develop your transition from easy to difficult segments. This is where you would play a few measures before and a few measures after.

Having a tape or CD of what the music "should" sound like helps too.
posted by abdulf at 10:06 PM on November 6, 2008

I would recommend Madeline Bruser's The Art of Practicing.
posted by tamarack at 10:39 PM on November 6, 2008

I definitely would practice the little bits and pieces that gave me trouble. I played wind instruments, which likely have different points of difficulty than the violin, but I would even play 1- or 2-measure parts over and over again to get the fingerings to feel comfortable.

I think abdulf's suggestion of finding recordings can be a great one, especially if you are getting in to ensemble work (and I hope you do, if you haven't yet--playing in a group is really wonderful and invigorating). Knowing how the pieces fit together into a whole and how it is supposed to go and having that image in your head really help get you more comfortable with the music.
posted by that girl at 5:51 AM on November 7, 2008

There's an awful lot to be said in favour of constructing a narrative in your head for longer pieces, but rather than have me witter on, listen to Vengerov. The whole Playing by Heart programme is worth watching really and hey, you're in luck.
posted by mandal at 6:20 AM on November 7, 2008

-- if it sounds great, you're not practicing, you're just playing. As Solon says, don't just play things you like or sound good on.

Great then I'm always practicing.

First a little, thence to more. (though the goal is not to accustom yourself to playing badly, which is what Mithridates' goal would be.)
posted by vilcxjo_BLANKA at 8:05 AM on November 7, 2008

A tip I got that worked well for me is to learn the piece from the end towards the beginning. That is, learn the last bit, then start a little earlier than that and play to the end of the piece, then start a little earlier than that and play to the end of the piece, etc. It helps avoid that feeling of petering out when you start at the beginning and then get to the stuff you don't know so well.
posted by dfan at 11:20 AM on November 8, 2008