How to Practice Effectively: A Guide for Flute Students
I am constantly debunking the belief that practicing is all you need to get better. Let’s be honest here - if you’re mindlessly running through and spending hours in the practice room, you might get better, but you won’t get better nearly as quickly as if you’re practicing mindfully and effectively. This means taking your practice a step further and taking some very specific steps. Practicing properly, setting goals, taking notes, chunking, etc. lends itself to mastery - instead of simply running through your repertoire over and over again with no actual plan of action, we break things down into smaller parts, therefore building skills faster and in a more methodical manner. In this article, I will cover how to create an effective practice plan, from building the correct environment to choosing what to practice, self-evaluation, and working through challenges and motivation.
Setting the Stage
First and foremost, remember that a suitable environment for practice is key. Designating a room for your music endeavors is wonderful, but not always possible, so creating a space for yourself may feel challenging at times. I would highly recommend if you don’t have an office or a “music room,” dedicating a corner to your music. Leaving a chair, a music stand, the music you’re currently working on with any accessories you need, and your flute (in its case or on a stand) in that corner will allow you to jump right in without having to gather supplies. Make sure that your space is well lit and well ventilated - honestly, being able to see and also to breathe is important. I don’t recommend practicing in a closet! Sometimes practicing in the bathroom can be fun because the acoustics make you sound really nice, but I wouldn’t recommend doing that all the time. That said, make sure all of your materials are together, organized, and ready to go in one spot in your house - be it your office, a music room, a corner in the living room - wherever makes sense for you to be able to walk right into and get practicing with very little trouble. Make sure that your area is free of distractions - I recommend a sign on the door stating that you’re practicing or telling everyone in the house to give you some space. It’s also important to turn your electronics either off or into Do Not Disturb mode so that you’re not distracted by notifications or scrolling. If you use an iPad for your music, make sure all other apps are closed (consider turning on a Focus mode specific for your music time if available). Once you have your space put together, it’s time to think about scheduling.
It’s important to set consistent and focused time slots for your practice - even putting them into your calendar and repeating the same time slots every week. You can have your phone automatically go into Do Not Disturb during your practice time so you’re not distracted, and let the people in your household know “I will be practicing my flute from 8:00-8:30 on Tuesdays and Thursdays” or whatever your practice routine dictates. It’s also important to choose realistic goals. We cannot do everything and achieve everything in a single practice session, so break it down to one, maybe two big goals. They can include working through a specific chunk of repertoire or increasing your Taffanel & Gaubert #4 speed by 5 clicks. Write those goals down and plan your practice session around hitting those goals. Remember, it’s important to balance practice time and breaks. Plan at least once a year to take a 2-week break from playing to allow your brain to settle on everything you’ve learned. Take one day off a week and do something fun that isn’t flute-related. We often feel like because flute is fun, we can’t burn out, but I assure you that you can absolutely burn out doing something you enjoy.
The Building Blocks of Effective Practice
Warming up. Warming up is important to practicing at the highest quality and learning the most that you possibly can from your practice sessions. Warming up not only gets your brain into the correct space for practice but it also gets your fingers moving freely, brings your tone to optimal quality, and gets your lungs activated for the best possible practice time you can have. Like stretching before exercising, warming up is vital to a great practice session so it should be included (even briefly) in every single session. Start with some breathing exercises and finger exercises to help with all of this.
Box breathing - in for 4 (as deep as you can), hold for 4, and out for 4. This helps regulate the nervous system as well as activate the diaphragm and stretch the lungs.
Breathe in and BIG SIGH out - be loud and make a noise like you’re doing a vocal warmup. This helps reduce tension in your throat and neck.
Chromatic scales - two-octave chromatic scales can help warm up the fingers and get them moving and active, improving dexterity and coordination.
Long tones - not only does this serve as a warmup, but it also serves as a tone exercise, forcing you to mindfully pay attention to what’s going on in your tone today. Work your way up or down chromatically, with and without vibrato, and try to match your tone color and quality across your range.
Technical Exercises. Technical exercises are hugely important in building finger strength, tongue strength, dexterity, and ease in your playing. You can use these exercises not just to build agility, but also to work on easing tension while also maintaining control. It’s a delicate balance, but technical exercises will help do these things for you.
Scale practice is a must. Choosing one or two scales/arpeggio sets per day to practice in different patterns and articulations can help build your skills fast. If you aren’t sure how to really make this happen, start with Taffanel & Gaubert or Reichert daily exercises for flute.
Etude practice is crucial. Etudes are short melodic pieces designed to teach a specific concept. They help build not just technical skills but also musical interpretation. Rotating through etudes weekly can help build these skills quickly. Choose an etude book and worth through them in order. Typically, they’re written in a progressive manner.
Repertoire. Working through repertoire can be intimidating, but if we break it down into manageable chunks, you’ll be able to work your way through it methodically and quickly. Manageable is different for everyone - it may be that you are breaking it down into tempo sections, or even as small as lines or phrases. Make sure that the sections are workable for the amount of time you have to give and what your goals are.
Slow practice makes fast playing, so make sure you’re not trying to jump right into your piece at the prescribed tempo. Play it slow, play it correct, then bump the tempo up as time goes on so that your fingers learn the tricky passages correctly without having to go back later and fix sloppy technique.
Strategies for Effective Practice
Tackling your practice sessions with strategy in mind will help keep you not only on task, but hitting your goals. So, let’s talk about how we do that.
Goal-Oriented Practice. With goal-oriented practice, we set clear objectives for ourselves that can easily be measured in a “pass or fail” sense. Remember, failure is not a dirty word. If you fail to achieve one of your goals in the allotted time, you know you either get to try again tomorrow, gaining more experience, or you get to restructure the goal because it was not achievable in the prescribed timeline. It’s okay to adjust goals as needed, but when we do achieve a goal, we need to celebrate! Celebrating the wins, big or small, can help keep you on track, motivated, and curb burnout.
Metronome Practice. I don’t recommend using a metronome 100% of the time, but particularly when we’re developing a pulse, it’s important to play with a metronome so we can feel our pulse and subdivide correctly. It’s important not just to practice the easy rhythms like half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes, but to vary your practice with dotted rhythms, septuplets, and other odd rhythms that require practice in order to feel. I like to use dice for this. There are dice with rhythms drawn on them that you can roll, creating a pattern that you can then clap and play with a metronome. It’s important, too, to start slow. Begin your practice with the metronome at the lowest tempo that makes sense for you to play at, then slowly move the needle up. Slow practice makes fast players.
Recording and Self-Evaluation. It’s important to periodically record yourself, listening back to identify where you would like to improve. Remember, we’re our own worst critics, so be kind to yourself as you do this, but do so often. You can write notes about your tone quality, intonation, and expression. Remember, you may think you sound expressive or loud or in tune from your own ear while you’re playing, but you sound differently to those listening around you, so it’s important to hear yourself as an outsider. Once you’ve made those notes, you can create goals and implement playing changes based on your evaluation.
Overcoming Challenges
Progress takes time and some days it can feel like you’re getting nowhere, but rest assured, you’re making strides. Recording yourself while playing can help you hear those changes happening (make sure you space these out weekly or monthly), but it’s important to remember that little changes can take a long time to fully implement, so keep at it. It’s important to take breaks to regain focus and composure. When your head or heart are telling you no, it’s okay to say no to playing your flute. Sometimes you need a break and that’s 100% okay. Sooner, rather than later, talk with a teacher or mentor about your frustrations and what is getting you down. Don’t just suffer in silence. It doesn’t help you.
Long-term goals are a great way to stay motivated. Keep them somewhere you can see - in your music room on the wall, taped to your music stand, as a reminder on your phone - wherever you’ll see them regularly. This will help you stay engaged and motivated to keep working hard, even when you don’t feel like it. It’s also important to explore a wide variety of musical genres and styles to help your brain stay engaged and find new things that you can get excited about. Don’t spend a year playing Baroque era pieces - play some 20th century pieces, pop pieces, jazz, tango, etc. There’s so much out there to play that there’s absolutely no need to be bored exploring the same techniques over and over again. Don’t forget, too, to reward yourself and celebrate the wins and milestones. Lots of times we don’t give ourselves enough credit for achieving things because we feel like it’s just “what we are supposed to do,” which isn’t fair. Life is short. Celebrate when you do something you set out to!
It’s important to avoid burnout, but it’s easy to fall into without realizing it. With that, prioritize quality practice over quantity of practice time. You can sit in the practice room for hours running through your repertoire mindlessly, but all it’s going to do is make you tired and feel like you aren’t getting anywhere. That said, if you are mindfully practicing, paying attention and being active for shorter periods of time, you’ll be less likely to burn out. With that, incorporate relaxation and exercise into your practice routine - meditations, body scans, mindfulness activities, etc. will help you to be more mindful about what’s going on in your practice and feel better throughout the process. It’s also important to exercise so that you feel your best - take a walk, do yoga, etc. to ensure that you feel your best in every practice session. Finally, take breaks and pursue your non-musical interests. It’s okay to not play your flute for a day or two when you aren’t feeling it or when you want to do something else. Experiencing life is important and that includes outside of the practice room.
Final Thoughts
Build the right sort of space for your practice
Schedule your practice and let others know so they can also hold you accountable
Warm up, technique and tone, etudes, and repertoire are all important keys to a successful practice session
Set goals and make them visible
Practice with a metronome
Record yourself and take notes on your playing. Compare your recordings down the line
Effective practice is better than long practice hours
You’ll enjoy your instrument more and you’ll move forward more quickly
Try implementing these strategies and see your flute playing transform quickly. I believe in you!
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