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The Confident Musicianing Podcast
4 Practice Habits That Make A Huge Difference In My Sessions
No matter what I'm working on, I know that if I do these 4 habits, the session will be more beneficial and enjoyable.
This episode is available as a blog post. Click here to read!
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Hello and welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast. My name is Eleanor and I am a British American oboist studying at the Royal Conservatoire of Scotland literally my dream school and it took me a long way to get there. I applied and auditioned for 12 schools in three different countries. It was a lot of hard work but, oh my gosh, so worth it. I want you to have the confidence to work hard in achieving your goals, so come with me as we go on this journey together. So sit down, pull up a chair, take a seat or, if you're on the go, welcome to the Confident Musicianing Podcast.
Speaker 1:Imagine this you are going to practice, except you get there and you're a little bit late and you have so much that you want to do and you kind of don't plan what you want to do. And you get into the practice room and you're like okay, I need to practice. And then you get out some music and you play it, but you don't really have any direction for it and then you just keep playing and playing, and playing. And then time's up and you feel like you really haven't done much and you also haven't enjoyed yourself. Does that something? Does that sound like something you want to do. Uh no, I don't know about you, but I don't want to do that. Now imagine this you have a practice session and you get there and you do something first that you really enjoy on your instrument and then you actually effectively plan your practice and you have practice rituals that make it so that you really enjoy your practice and you finish the practice having actually completed things that you want to do and you feel so much better for it. That sounds like a practice that I want to do and you probably also want to do it more than the first. So welcome to this episode of the podcast. Today we are going to be talking about just that Practice habits for me that make that difference. We will all have them and they will all be different, but today in the episode, I am going to share mine. So without further ado, let's get right into it.
Speaker 1:I kind of outlined a lot of them in those little scenarios, but the first one, planning what I'm going to do in the breaks this one is a bit of like a strange one. You might not have heard about this one before, but I have found that if I don't plan what I'm gonna do in my practice breaks, I tend to scroll. I tend to go on social media and especially since I create, you know, content on social media, I kind of justify it in my head of like, oh, I'm gonna do some editing, but what do I actually do? I don't do editing. Let's be real. I scroll and I don't know what you do in your practice break. But maybe you also scroll or maybe you do something that you know. At the end you feel very like, oh, I didn't actually rest in that practice break.
Speaker 1:For me, taking practice breaks is really important. I get some pain in my hand if I don't take effective breaks and that's just something that I deal with. I have a chronic illness that creates that pain and if I don't listen to my body and take those breaks and take them effectively, it can lead to some bad results for me. So I decided, after a practice break that was way too long because I had scrolls and I just felt so icky and yucky. I was like, alright, eleanor, we need to plan our breaks, we plan our practice, let's plan our breaks, and that really made a lot of the difference.
Speaker 1:So, for instance, if I am in a practice room with a piano, I play the piano. I don't play the piano. I don't play the piano Like I. That's not something that I do Like, like. Okay, let me rephrase I don't like. That's not an instrument I play. If you ask me, what instruments do you play? Piano is not one of them, but I love to just figure stuff out on the piano with actually no real skill, just for fun. And when I'm in a room, in a practice room, with a piano, that is what I'll do in my breaks. Maybe, if I'm somewhere without a piano, I will read a book or I will make a cup of tea or something like that. Like, really plan in what I want to do. If I'm in my flat, I might play a guitar or I, you know, just do things that I know. That will help me to be more rested rather than just endlessly doom scroll on my phone and then also I can see how long this break has been and I can be like okay, it's been five minutes or six minutes, let's get back into practicing. So if you haven't planned your practice breaks yet, maybe this is a good thing to take away from this episode, whatever that looks like for you, even if it's like I don't know, my mind just said folding origami paper, just something like literally anything, drawing, whatever it is. Just doing that thing that you enjoy doing for five minutes in your break is so much better than just scrolling or consuming content. You know, it's just like because that you can really feel icky after that.
Speaker 1:The next thing which I think is interesting is having your rituals. Having your rituals. So for me that's like a cup of tea. We have a cup of tea, I have it behind me. I actually just finished a practice session and that is the cup of tea that I was drinking in the practice session. But seriously, a cup of tea for me makes all the difference, I feel. Maybe for you it's lighting. If you can control the lighting in your practice environment, creating the perfect lighting space. Maybe you bring I have some friends who like bring lamps to practice rooms, like small ones, or doing something like that Maybe if you have a plant, like a tiny potted plant that you want to have in your session, something like that, that might sound maybe silly to other people, but to you it can make all the difference. Whatever that is, have that practice ritual. So for me it's having a cup of tea. For you it could be a whole number of things, a whole number of things. But like, having those things can be really helpful and experiment with it. Whatever it is, experiment with it, just like put new things and have new things and just see what works for you.
Speaker 1:The third thing doing something fun as a warm-up. Okay, okay, this one's a really good one because it really set puts me in a good mood for practicing. I feel especially like today, for instance. I was feeling very stressed, I was feeling very anxious. I woke up just with a lot of anxiety for no good reason, and I went through my day just feeling just like a pit in my stomach, just absolute anxiety, and I didn't know why. And so I decided okay, when I practice today, I'm gonna start out with something fun as a warm-up that has absolutely nothing to do with the actual repertoire, to kind of get these jitters out, whatever they are.
Speaker 1:And for me that is playing oboe to any music that I want, to Jazz music, soul music, pop music, anything that is not classical music, because I play classical music all day long. But you know, if I'm, you know, say, walking around the city and I'm listening to a cool song, a lot of the times I'm like I really wonder how oboe would sound to that, because my mind is just full of ideas, I suppose, and you know, when I do warm-ups, that's when I experiment with it. So that's something that I have found to be really helpful. I just put on whatever song I want to and I just play oboe to it, and I think at the beginning I felt like it was a waste of time. I was like I'm a classical music student at a conservatoire. I should be focusing on classical music.
Speaker 1:But, to be honest, playing and just jamming to whatever I want in the warm-up is actually very helpful technical-wise, because I have to figure out what key it's in in order to play the right notes. I have to think about the chord structure of the piece Well, it's a song but and especially if the song is very simple, if it's a pop song and has like four chords, like how pop songs usually do that really, four chords, like how pop songs usually do, that really. You know, once I have those, those chords down and the key down in my mind, I can really like have fun with it, and it's not too difficult to just have fun with um, and then when I do it, I usually like do arpeggios up and down, the oboe in said chords, or maybe I do like the scale and I go really fast up and down and I land on a node and I, you know, do whatever. That's really technically demanding and you can make it as technically demanding as you want to. But I found that literally jamming to pop songs for me can really help highlight maybe technical elements that I don't realize I need to work on. So maybe there's a pop song that has a specific arpeggio that I'm like gosh, I don't know the notes to this. Then I'm like, okay, well, maybe that's something that I can work on when I'm practicing arpeggios. It's something that can really highlight that and, especially since it's fun when you're playing to a song that you enjoy, you can get very good at that arpeggio because you're just having fun. So for me that's what I do, doing something fun as a warm-up. And maybe for you, whatever the fun thing is as a warm-up might be different. Maybe it's like I don't know nothing to do with what I was talking about, but for me, putting on a song, playing to it you know, testing things out, making mistakes, just having fun to whatever the song is, is a really, really, really fun warm-up for me, it gets you know me feeling good about playing oboe and it also helps my technique even as I'm doing it, which I think is a win-win.
Speaker 1:And the last thing? We have four things today. The last thing is remember. So remember when I said at the beginning I had give you the two scenarios. And the first scenario, one of the things that I said is you don't plan what you're going to do, so you just play whatever is on your stand, and then at the end of the session you're like, what did I actually do? I kind of just played the notes that wasn't were in front of me, without actually like having a goal.
Speaker 1:And so the fourth thing is planning your practice. Planning your practice this is something that I have been doing for a long time, and when I don't plan my practice, I can really tell, because it just doesn't feel as good. And in light of planning my practice, well, usually what I do is I just write down what I'm going to do and then I have a goal. Right, I have goals and know that, know what I'm going to do, and I also know when I have finished. So let's say, at the end of the day, maybe I'm feeling anxious, maybe feeling anxious and like gosh, I should maybe have practiced more. If I have planned my practice, then I know when I finish those sessions, when I have completed the goals, and that can really help me, at the end of the day being like well, we've finished our practice, because I can see the stuff that I have completed. And in light of that, I want to share with you a tool that has really helped me. If you're thinking right now, eleanor, I want to plan my practice, but tool that has really helped me If you're thinking right now, eleanor, I want to plan my practice, but I don't really know how Well, I got the tool. And that tool is a notable practice journal.
Speaker 1:I tried these practice journals about a few months ago a couple, I think yeah, quite a few months ago now and I just tried it out. I was curious about it. I was like, okay, let's give it a go. And I tried it out and as soon as I realized that they were working for me, I knew that I had to tell you about it. So these journals, like I planned my practice and I was able to realize when I had finished my practice and it just made my practice so much more effective and focused, because my brain knew what to do and it knew that we were practicing. So as soon as I found out that this was working, I knew I had to tell you about it and I knew that I had to give you a code. So, for 15% off of your journal, use the code ELEANOR15. That is E-L-E-A-N-O-R-1-5. For 15% off your order and do yourself a favor and get a practice journal. These things are so good. The link for this will be in the description, in the show notes. So if, if you're like I need to plan my practice and you don't really know how and you really kind of want it to be set out for you, so the literally you just have to fill in the blanks, this notebook is for you. So use code Eleanor 15 for 15% off your journal. Now you know me. You know that I wouldn't recommend products that I don't absolutely love. This code is an affiliate code, which means I do receive a commission with no extra cost to you.
Speaker 1:All right, so let's do a recap, shall we? The first thing is planning what I'm gonna do in the breaks, so that I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read, I'm gonna play the piano. I'm gonna do in the breaks, so that I know what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna read I'm gonna play the piano, I'm gonna play the guitar. I'm gonna make a cup of tea. I'm gonna do, you know, whatever it is, even if it's lying on the floor, planning what you're gonna do in those breaks so that you don't end up doom-scrolling.
Speaker 1:The next thing is have your rituals. For me, that's having a cup of tea. For you that might be, you know, having a specific lighting, or bringing something, you know, something that you like, like maybe a small potted plant or maybe a stuffed toy or whatever it is to your sessions. The third thing is doing something fun as a warm-up. Mine is playing to random music. It's a great way to start and it's also a great thing for realizing maybe technical flaws that you have that you want to work on. And the last thing is planning your practice, and a great tool with that is a notable practice journal, and the code, as well as the link, will be in the description in the show notes for you to take a look at.
Speaker 1:All right, that is about it for this episode. Thank you so much for hanging out with me today. As always, all the information and all of the links to do with this episode will be in the show notes, in the description, including the blog post that goes with this episode, as well as the link to get your notable practice journal. I hope that you enjoyed this episode. If you did, please do let me know. Show the love, however that looks like, on whatever platform you're listening to, subscribe, like, follow whatever it is, leave a comment. Just show the love. I'd love to see it and I'd love to hear from you and other than that, I will see you in the next episode. All right, right, take care, bye.
