Some practice hints

These are some things that have been working for me. They might work for you, too.

1) Even if it doesn't seem productive, practice all the songs you're liable to have to perform at least once each every day. On Tuesday night, not having much time to practice, I was going to limit my big band practice to the two pieces we are going to play in the February concert, but I decided to at least have a look at the third piece that the director gave me. I input the main line in my music program to get the rhythm right, and I practiced all the main phrases except for the obviously difficult ones (two of the, say, six or seven phrases). I didn't expect we would be playing it on Wednesday, but it turns out that the third piece is the "break the monotony fall-back song" for the band, and they love to play it. So when we got sick of playing one of the tunes, we did decide to play the third piece a little bit. Good thing I had looked at it the night before. I actually held my own. Then we played four pieces in combo, so yesterday, I played all seven songs over a period of about an hour. Today, since I will have some time, I'll actually work on improving. But they are sort of getting better by sheer exposure.

2) Practice right before bed, even if it sounds bad. They say your brain forges the neural paths from a day's learning while you sleep. I've noticed that even when I can't play something, even hardly at all, if I practice it more or less right before I go to bed, even if I just keep making mistakes and making mental notes of those mistakes, the next day, it goes smoother. If I'm not drinking while practicing, as I have been doing of late, the effect is even greater.

3) Mix hard drills with easy drills. This seems to give me some positive reinforcement. I work at something that I don't do particularly well, like a stride left hand or full octave scales in both hands, and after that I run through some simple arpeggios and drills, or a straight up scale or two. There was a time I couldn't really play much of anything on the piano, and the realization that now I can play these drills that were once, essentially, impossible, reminds me that I'm not wasting my time on the hard stuff. Someday, it too will be soundly based in my repertoire. (Who knows what ridiculously esoteric and difficult stuff I'll be practicing then.)

4) Never forget to reward yourself. After practicing rootless voicings over and over, I always like to go back to one or two songs with straight up, rooted, full chords. Let's face it: Repeated rootless voicings on solo piano, although they sound great at times, are desperately tiresome after a while. The ear and brain really crave resolution and 3-5-7 harmony when they are continually fed 3-6-9 harmony for any length of time. Give your brain, nerves and muscles what they want, and when the pressure and spotlight are on you, they'll give you what you want.

I'll have more practice tips soon.