Learning a Large Amount of Music By the Deadline

I’ve gotten this question a few times in the past week or so, but not necessarily from students. The people have over-committed and need to learn a large amount of music in a specified time period. I looked at the time period and it’s definitely doable, but they can’t find a way through it.

It’s recital season, competition season, and musical season. What that means is that there’s a ton of stuff going on in the spring. Because of this, quite a few musicians get extra music to play for their activities, their friends’ activities, and maybe even get some extra gigs.

Whoohoo! Extra opportunities to play!

Sometimes this means that we accept too many opportunities to play and we have more to practice than we can handle. Here’s a plan to dig out of that hole.

Step 1: Make a plan

Here’s an old joke that doubles as an adage: How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. The adage portion of that joke means that if you have too much to do, make a plan.

This doesn’t have to be a formal plan, it can be a process inside your head. Here’s an example.

1. Practice twice a day (either morning and night or afternoon and evening).
2. Play through all pieces during each practice session.
3. Focus on one piece per session, putting extra focus on a different page or section per day.

It’s important to note – if you’re practicing twice a day, you don’t have to practice warm-ups and technique at both practice sessions. Once a day is fine for those exercises.

Step 2: Follow Your Plan

Figure out how to fit your practice times into your schedule. Keep a practice journal to keep yourself honest or stack your books in such a way that you know where you are in your process.

Not every day is going to be perfect, and that’s fine. Don’t beat yourself up for it. We’re human. Life happens. If you miss one of your scheduled practice sessions this week, it’s not the end of the world. Don’t miss more than a quarter of your practice sessions per week.

Step 3: Help Your Plan Along

There are several things you can do to help your plan along. Here are a few, I hope you can come up with more.

Take naps between practice sessions. It sounds counter-intuitive, but the naps help your body produce myelin which coats the new synapses you’re making by learning the new pieces of music. There’s more information on myelin here.

Work out every day. The article I just referenced in the last paragraph stated that working out also helps the body create myelin. It also increases blood flow to the brain, making it work more efficiently.

Use practice techniques. I go into this more in-depth here. Practice techniques different ways to work around your mind blocks. When I’m teaching them to kids, I tell them that they work like magic.

Watch your technique. You don’t want pain to sideline you while you’re doing all this extra work. Proper technique reduces tension which also reduces pain.

Take stretching breaks. I wrote in this article about how your brain only works optimally for 20 minutes at a time. Because of this, it’s a good idea to set the timer for 20 minutes and make sure you stretch in between your 20 minute sessions. This practice is actually prescribed to me by my doctor and I can really tell a difference when I forget to set a timer.

Conclusion

We get over-scheduled so easily. It’s hard to say no. It’s also hard to judge your limits. Sometimes we need a plan to dig ourselves out and learn that large amount of music that we promised we’d learn.

The end goal of this plan is to learn from our mistakes. This isn’t information to help you make your situation worse. It’s information to get you through a tough time so you can make better choices in the future.