The Silent Practice Technique

the silent practice technique

The silent practice technique simplifies your practice in some ways by eliminating certain aspects of your playing. This helps you focus on certain aspects of your playing, especially your fingers. It can be done on any instrument.

Silent Practice on the Flute

This is taught to be done in band while the director is working with another section. It’s helpful for when you just can’t get those fingerings down. While sitting, you put the head joint on your left shoulder and rest the foot joint on your right knee. This provides a stable resting place for your flute while you run through just the fingerings.

Silent practice can also be practiced on a pencil. This is very handy for things like sitting in a waiting room or in a car for a road trip. Nice for when you don’t want to disturb others, but need to run through your piece.

Each of the silent practice techniques have their own purpose. The mechanisms take extra time to push down and allow to come back up, while the pencil doesn’t have mechanisms to deal with. Practicing with a pencil helps create faster fingers. Silent practice on a real flute helps your brain to process the extra time it takes to deal with the keys.

If you also want to practice your articulation, go ahead and create an air stream and do your articulations along with the fingerings. It’s still beneficial to not have to worry about your tone.

Etiquette Note: Some people like to run some air through their flute while they do this. Please don’t. It’s rude because sometimes you accidentally make a noise. It also creates embouchure confusion.

Silent Practice on the Piano

One way to do silent practice on the piano is to use an electric piano, turned off, or with the volume all the way down. I used to do this all the time when I was playing organ for church, during the sermon. I turned off the organ and ran through everything for the second half of the service. Sometimes I just ran through the harder stuff.

The greatest part of this is that you’re not worried about sound or dynamics. It’s just your fingers. It simplifies your practice.

Another way to do this is to print out a keyboard. I found one here. Use it on a table top. This is much harder than using an electric piano that’s turned off because the black keys aren’t raised, but it’s still an option. Because it’s harder, it might be more beneficial, especially if you’re using the paper keyboard for mental practice (hearing it in your head while using your fingers to play).

Just as with the flute, each of the silent practice techniques have their own purpose. The keys take extra time to push down and allow to come back up, while the paper version doesn’t have keys to deal with. Therefore, practicing with a paper keyboard helps create faster fingers. Practicing on a turned off electric keyboard helps your brain to process the extra time it takes to deal with the keys.

Conclusion

As of this writing, playing an instrument is the activity that uses the most of your brain function. It’s powerful for your brain, but sometimes you need to simplify it before you can get the notes down. That means taking certain aspects of playing out of the equation so that you can focus on the things that are giving you problems.

Author: Tarah

I started playing flute in 1988 and piano in 1991. In 1996, my high school chose me to teach flute and piano to a partner grade school. I was chosen for a similar program in college. Tarah Schoell has always loved sharing her music and guiding others to learn new things. Because of this, she went to college to be a music teacher and has a B.S. in Elementary Education with a Concentrate in Music from Martin Luther College in New Ulm, MN. Tarah uses her music education degree to teach from her flute and piano studio, play in various professional and community ensembles, and run a blog on practice techniques at thequarternotes.com. She is active in the Omaha Music Teacher’s Association because she likes to support her fellow music teachers and use the monthly continuing education opportunities.

21 thoughts on “The Silent Practice Technique”

  1. I am typically to blog writing and i truly appreciate your material. The post has really peaks my interest. I am going to bookmark your site and keep looking for brand-new details.

  2. After I originally commented I seem to have clicked the -Notify me when new comments are added- checkbox and from now on whenever a comment is added I get 4 emails with the exact same comment. Is there an easy method you can remove me from that service? Appreciate it!

  3. I am the manager of JustCBD company (justcbdstore.com) and am seeking to broaden my wholesale side of business. I really hope that anybody at targetdomain give me some advice 🙂 I thought that the very best way to accomplish this would be to talk to vape shops and cbd retail stores. I was hoping if someone could recommend a dependable site where I can purchase Vape Shop B2B Data I am currently looking at creativebeartech.com, theeliquidboutique.co.uk and wowitloveithaveit.com. Not exactly sure which one would be the best choice and would appreciate any assistance on this. Or would it be simpler for me to scrape my own leads? Ideas?

  4. I am the manager of JustCBD Store company (justcbdstore.com) and I am currently planning to expand my wholesale side of business. I really hope that anybody at targetdomain can help me ! I thought that the most suitable way to accomplish this would be to talk to vape companies and cbd retailers. I was hoping if anybody could recommend a reliable website where I can purchase CBD Shops B2B Marketing List I am currently examining creativebeartech.com, theeliquidboutique.co.uk and wowitloveithaveit.com. On the fence which one would be the very best choice and would appreciate any advice on this. Or would it be much simpler for me to scrape my own leads? Ideas?

  5. I?m satisfied, I need to state. Really hardly ever do I experience a blog site that?s both enlightening and also amusing, as well as let me tell you, you have actually hit the nail on the head. Your suggestion is impressive; the problem is something that not nearly enough people are speaking intelligently about. I am really happy that I came across this in my search for something relating to this.

  6. There are certainly a great deal of details like that to take into account. That is a fantastic point to raise. I provide the thoughts over as general ideas however plainly there are inquiries like the one you bring up where one of the most vital point will certainly be operating in straightforward good faith. I don?t understand if best practices have emerged around things like that, but I am sure that your task is clearly determined as a fair game. Both kids and women feel the impact of simply a moment?s enjoyment, for the rest of their lives.

  7. I was extremely pleased to find this web-site. I wished to many thanks for your time for this remarkable read!! I absolutely appreciating every bit of it and also I have you bookmarked to have a look at new stuff you post.

  8. I simply want to say I’m new to blogging and site-building and honestly savored this page. Very likely I’m planning to bookmark your blog . You surely come with outstanding article content. Thanks a bunch for revealing your web-site.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *