No one taught me how to write my own technical exercises. It’s something that I figured out on my own by teaching from the technique books that go along with the methods for Faber, Alfred, and Bastien. I know that I’m not the only one who helps their students learn this technique, and I’ve never seen a source that formally teaches how to do it.
Several Philosophies on Technical Exercises
There are lots of different philosophies about how to use technical exercises and whether to use them at all. First let me say that I’m a huge supporter of technical exercises (besides that article, also see here), I’m just presenting some different philosophies around them.
Philosophy #1: You don’t need technical exercises, just repertoire.
The people who feel this way have several reasons for it:
- It takes too much practice time away from the repertoire.
- It causes pain from repeating a pattern too much with bad form.
- The patterns that are taught aren’t necessarily found in music that they play.
- They’re boring.
Philosophy #2: Use a technical studies book.
These people know that, while these technical studies might not necessarily come up in the repertoire that they’re currently working on, they’ll eventually come across the patterns that are taught in the book. They religiously practice them daily as part of their warm-ups and excel because of it.
Philosophy #3: Write your own Technical Exercises.
Some of these people agree with the people in Philosophy #1, but have seen the results from the people in philosophy #2. Some of these people were entrenched in philosophy #2 and discovered that they could write their own technical exercises, and started doing that occasionally.
The Steps to Write Your Own Technical Exercises
Step 1: Identify the problem.
You’re playing along, sightreading your new piece, and, BAM! A tough section hits you straight in the eyes.
This is Mozart’s Concerto #1 for flute. The circled section is what we’ll be working with today.
Step 1: Divide the notes by 3 or 5, overlapping.
In this instance, I chose to divide them up by 3. This makes the technical study easier.
If you want to divide it up by 5, there will be less studies. It’ll be a little bit harder, but you’ll learn it faster.
Step 2: Write out the first study.
Make the first section into repeating 16th notes so that each note gets the chance to be first on the beat.
Step 3: Repeat Step 2 for each note division.
Step 4: Play it.
If you run through the whole thing once (with repeats), you might be able to play the excerpt correctly. If not, keep practicing at it. You can even decide to practice a different section per day five times while playing the rest of it once.
You may have to change up the rhythms to get it into your fingers, but you’ve done the lion’s share of the work just by writing it out.
Why Writing Your Own Technical Exercise Works
The important factor in this exercise is that each note gets a chance to be the first on the beat. Your brain automatically gives preference to the first note of the beat and accents it. You’re changing the accent of the pattern, therefore evening things out in your head.
Another factor is that as you write out the notes, your subconscious mind sees patterns that it didn’t see when you first read through the section.
The final factor is that you’re using your creative energy to write something, so your subconscious deems it as important. To your subconscious, writing your own is more relevant to your practice than a technical exercise that some dead guy thought might be helpful a long time ago.
Final Note:
Once you’ve written your own technical exercises a few times, you can start doing it in your head rather than on paper. It won’t be as powerful for the subconscious mind, but it’ll save you 5 minutes.
