Sure-Fire Practice Techniques

Dr. Faythe Freese, Professor of Organ

The University of Alabama
Lecture Notes posted on www.faythefreese.com
Copyright Faythe Freese

When Pablo Casals (then age 93) was asked why he continued to practice the cello three hours
a day, he replied, Im beginning to notice some improvement.

Preliminary Remarks: Welcome! As we progress through the
session on Sure-Fire Practice Techniques, you will probably have
questions. Please save them for our dialogue portion during the last
5 minutes of the lecture.

Disclaimer: This Sure-Fire Practice Techniques Session contains
suggestions to improve and render your practice sessions more
efficient and productive however, it is not the final word. Every
musician has his/her own preferred methods of practice. Some
techniques covered here will work well for some musicians and less
well for others. Also, I encourage you to invent creative, new ways
to practice.

Introduction: There are no short cuts to learning repertoire!
Music is a discipline. The goals of complete musical
understanding and technical perfection (if there is such a
thing as perfection) can only be realized by developing
intelligent methods of study and practice until they become
habits.

According to education research, there are four components
of self-regulated learning that are especially important for
academic performance:

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a. Metacognitive strategies for planning, monitoring and
regulating cognition; This means that the student has
the ability to plan, monitor and regulate his/her
learning activities through self-awareness of cognition.

b. Management and control of effort and concentration;
and

c. Specific cognitive strategies such as rehearsal,
elaboration and organization of the material.

d. Success in learning music also depends on self-efficacy.

Simply stated, self-efficacy means that the student knows
what needs to be done to accomplish his/her goals and has
the perseverance, drive and motivation to follow through,
even in the face of failure. Finally, the student must possess
the ability to assess progress.










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Here are some Eternal Principles and some techniques to
utilize during your self-regulated practice:

A. Eternal Principles:
1. Keep practice fresh: Avoid mechanical, unthinking
practice and repetition. Keep your practice fresh. Five
minutes of mindful, brain-engaged practice is far more
productive than 4 hours of mindless drilling. Mix up
your practice techniques.

Try to read your body and determine what it needs next
to move your music to another level. Try practicing in
shorter segments such as 30 minutes to an hour, three to
four times daily. Stop and rest, carefully reading and
thinking through a section of study. Avoid hasty
practice, keep tempos slow until your mind, hands and
feet can negotiate the notes.

2. Practice immediately after your lesson while things your
teacher said to you are still fresh in your mind.

3. Try to avoid playing incorrect notes from the very start.
If a wrong note is played, complete the phrase and then
repeat the passage correctly several times. Also, try
stopping on the corrected note and say the name of the

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note aloud. Caution: Do not stop and fix wrong notes as
they occur, this becomes a difficult habit to break.

4. Build tempo AFTER phrases and sections of a
composition have been mastered at a slow tempo.
Return to slow, detailed practice of phrases that are not
yet solid and repeat this procedure in subsequent practice
sessions.

5. Always practice at a steady tempo. Do not play easy
passages fast and difficult passages slowly.

6. Place brackets around difficult passages and devote the
most time to these sections.

7. Practice in segments, stop and rest at the first sign of
tension. Get off the bench and do something active away
from the console. Work out in the gym, mow the lawn:
think about the music away from the console.

8. Once the notes have been learned, register the piece and
begin to practice pressing pistons. Pushing pistons is
another learned muscle skill for our hands and feet.
Drawing stops, pressing pistons, opening and closing
swell shades and other mechanical devices should be
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rehearsed regularly to master the necessary motor skills.

9. Practice on consecutive days. Generally, you cannot
skip a day or two of practice and make it up on day three
with triple the practice time. Practice in consecutive
days otherwise, time lost equals notes lost.

10. Practice with the score but away from the organ.

11. Play your music for others, solicit comments. Persons
who are not musicians may offer fresh insight however,
keep in mind, not all comments are appropriate so be
discerning. Practicing alone in a practice room is totally
different from playing in front of someone.

12. Avoid distractions: Turn off your cell phones. When
your focus is deteriorates, change your place of practice.
For instance, move to the couch and study the score.
B. Practice Management Plan: Set goals and Manage Your
Practice Time: Determine a final tempo goal and mark it on
your music. Prepare a Practice Checklist, Practice Diary,
Practice Log or Weekly Practice Evaluation: Devote a specific
amount of time for technique, learning new music,

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memorizing and polishing music. See the Sample Organ
Practice Checklist on Page 3. Set daily practice goals, such
as, I will learn the notes of this piece at this new tempo, or
today, I will register this piece and learn the piston pushes at
half tempo.

C. Getting Ready! Score Preparation
Mark Fingering: How? At the University of Alabama, I
make fingering assignments in which, generally, fingering
choices are based on the economy of motion principle. A
few days before their next lesson, students hang copies of
their fingered scores on my bulletin board. I check the
scores. At the next lesson, we have a fingering lesson in
which we review the portions that could have an improved,
more economical fingering. When you take the time to
mark fingerings and pedaling in your repertoire, follow the
fingering and pedaling markings that you have notated. If
after a week or so of diligent practice, the markings do not
work for you, then and only then, change them. Once you
have decided on your fingerings and pedaling, do not
deviate, always use the same fingering and pedaling. It
saves time. Preparing your score works for both early and
modern fingering.


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D. Warm-up Your Hands and Feet! Daily!
1. Manual Scales on Piano and Organ
2. Pedal Scales
3. Arpeggios on Piano and Organ
4. Technique books such as Hanon and Czerny are
recommended.
5. Remember: A great technique is the straightjacket that
will set you free.
E. Learning the Notes: Generally, the following Numbers
1-6 are easier for beginning organists. Numbers 7-14 are
more advanced techniques, which does not mean that only
1-6 can be used by beginners and 7-14 cannot. Use all of
them alone and in combinations:
1. Hands Alone
2. Feet Alone
3. Hands Together
4. RH and Pedal Together
5. LH and Pedal Together
6. All Parts Together
7. Select odd registrations in each hand to bring out the
lines (and mess with your concentration)
8. 4 flute for clarity


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9. Dotted or Uneven Rhythms and Metronome at slow
tempo; L=Long, S=Short; Slow rhythmic practice
increases control and speed of the learning notes. The
long, accented notes build muscle memory and get the
notes into the fingers that play those accented, long
notes. By switching to a different rhythm in subsequent
repetitions, the long notes are taken by alternative
fingers, thus enhancing the muscle memory and getting
notes in those alternate fingers. Care should be taken to
play legato with arm weight to further promote the
learning of notes with this method. Changing rhythms
with each repetition also promotes a mindful, brain-
engaged, and productive rehearsal.
Suggested rhythms are:
Eighth and Sixteenth Notes: LS, SL
Triplets: LSS, SLS, SSL
Four sixteenths: LSSS, SLSS, SSLS, SSSL
Any pattern you can make up.

10. Backwards Practice with and without metronome
demonstration. (See Page 4, Prelude in e minor)

11. Inside Out Practice with and without metronome
demonstration.

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12. Slow to Fast Practice with metronome demonstration.
(See Page 4, Sonata in d minor)

13. Isolation of trouble spots using E9, 10, 11 and 12
above.

14. Piano Practice: For every 15 minutes of organ
practice, practice one hour on the piano. Use organ
finger technique. (Dont forget: Practice SCALES!
Practice ARPEGGIOS!)
F. Polishing the Performance
1. E7-14 above

2. Practice with eyes closed

3. Practice with dominant eye closed: EMDR(Eye
Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing).

4. Score Visualization (Mental Practice: Covert or
imaginary rehearsal of a skill without muscular
movement or sound away from the organ.

5. Slow practice at half or tempo.

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6. Dead manual practice, and hearing the music internally.

7. Record and listen critically with a score to yourself.
G. Maintaining at Performance-Level (Many of the above
techniques can be used here)
a. Slow Practice

b. Play at to tempo
c. Isolate challenging segments and practice slowly and in
rhythms.
d. Play the work to tempo only once during the day.

H. Bringing the Music Back
a. All of the above

EXTRA ETERNAL PRINCIPLES
The following are not related to learning repertoire but are
important, especially for developing organists:

1. Sightreading is one of your most important skills.
Sightread daily. Sightread your entire hymnal starting

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with 10 different hymns a day. Sightread stacks of
repertoire every day. Practice reading straight through at a
tempo that you can manage most of the notes, no stops, do
not stop to fix anything, keep your eyes moving forward on
the page! Daily for 10-15 minutes.

2. A second extra eternal principle is: Practice your hymns
daily. Practice your hymns as much as you practice
repertoire. Hymn playing and sightreading are your bread
and butter.
I. Exchange of Ideas and Question and Answer Period