Music Practice Routines

Introduction

Music practice is an essential skill to cultivate if we want to grow as artists. Practice can mean different things depending on our goals, our current progress towards those goals, and how much time do we have available to devote to it. Regardless, consistency is key when trying to improve a skill, and 15min daily practice is much more useful than 12h in a single day once a month. Music is an unbelievable deep topic of study. Mastering a single instrument can take a lifetime and one would still have room to grow. Music theory, composition, writing, technique, musicality, repertoire. We will never be able to know everything we would like as musicians in all these fields, but we can strive to improve in all or some of them.

In this page you can find a number of notes offering ideas for practice methods and routines. Ultimately, practice routines should be personalized to each individual, and in many ways there isn’t an “ideal” practice schedule or perfect method that will magically turn you into a music master, stay clear of anyone that claims it so. Putting in focused work will always yield results, sometimes faster and sometimes slower and that is fine! When learning ANY skill, we all go through plateaus and sometimes even periods of regressed development. As artists, we tend to feel like we aren’t making progress or that our work is bad and you ought to stop and consider that the first step for being good at something is being bad at it.

With that said, there are methods that sometimes can make us work more efficiently or practice multiple areas simultaneously.

Ask yourself the following questions:

  1. How much time can I set aside for practice? Daily practice will always be better, and more time will yield results faster than less, but “some” time will ALWAYS be better than “no” time.
  2. What are the areas that I want to focus on improving? Trying to do everything at once can be a recipe for disaster. Burnout is real and you can always alternate periods of study different areas of music development throughout the year. If you are having fun and have the time, go for it! Everyone has a different rhythm and availability. Choose 1 or 2 areas to improve and give yourself a period of time for those.
  3. What are my short and long term goals and ambitions? Not everyone wants or needs to play an instrument like a virtuoso, sometimes “good enough” is more than good enough! Sometimes fun or social interaction is the main objective. Maybe you just want to play the blues, maybe you are into jazz or heavy metal, or all of them. Do you want to learn to improvise and solo? Are you more interested in rhythm? Will you stop at nothing to be a world class composer? Do you want to be in a band or go to open mic nights? Be realistic but aim as high as you want, its better to believe in an utopia than give in to despair.
  4. Which time of the day would you be able to start? I personally advocate for doing it first thing in the day if you can afford it (or the earliest you can), specially if you are getting started. In my eyes, willpower is a bucket that refills during the night and slowly leaks out during the day, pouring out as we do tiresome or boring activities. Everyone is different and what works for me may be different than what for you! Also we all have responsibilities we can’t escape, so try to find a time that works for you, any time is fine. Try to schedule it if possible, put it in your calendar and make it a priority.
  5. Are you prone to distractions? I certainly am, which is why before I start I try to unclutter as much as possible, sometimes going as far as disconnecting from the internet or leaving the phone in a different room. Try to keep your environment clear of anything non-essential during your practice time. In the same manner, if you can try to leave things ready the day before. Having to connect a bunch of cables or even taking instruments from a case that is in a different room will increase the chance your mind will wonder and will be more difficult to start. This effect is very dramatic for me, having a guitar rack with my instruments on display will make me pick one way more often, and sometimes a bit of noodling can be inspiring you to go on a 5h songwriting spree.
  6. For how long will you be able to keep a schedule? I find it helpful to have periods of practice and soft “deadlines”. For example you can do monthly challenges (a jam a day, a song a week, etc.) or methods that go on for a semester, a quarter or a year. This is not strictly necessary, but think about it this way, you can always start a new period right after you finished the previous one, and this would be ideally what you would do.

Use those questions to guide you in creating a practice routing that works for you and remember that if the one you are doing doesn’t work out, you can always change it! Just make sure to give it a chance at least, don’t switch things around on the daily.

Without further ado, here are some suggestions for different areas of learning.

Instrument Practice

If you play an instrument (or several) and want to become proficient at using them and more directly translating the sounds and patterns in your head into sound, you must practice. It doesn’t matter which instrument we play, from guitar and drums to synths, sequencers and Eurorack modules (or even your computer!), all of them benefit from regular practice. Many of these areas of practices are often intertwined, and we can practice some of them simultaneously with different exercises.

Personally I’m a fan of trying to always practice in a musical context unless I’m drilling a particular technique or phrase that needs a lot of repetition. Even that, though, can be adjusted to make it more practical. I believe in specificity, so if all we do is play scales up and down, that’s the sound that will more easily come out when we are improvising or noodling around. Instead, I prefer to prepare and practice lines/phrases, different scale patterns, and practice arpeggios by following a chord progression.

Knowledge

Knowledge of an instrument can take many forms. In a guitar one may want to learn to find all the notes in the fretboard without hesitation but knowing how to play scales and arpeggios in different positions or registers is applicable to many instruments. When practicing scales and arpeggios, try to not just play them up and down mindlessly unless you are learning them for the first time. Instead, use different note groupings, different ascending and descending patterns, etc. Have a chord progression running in the background and play to that, hearing where the chord tones are the contrast and consonance between the notes we are playing and those within the chords we have. Experiment with different arpeggio voicings and extended notes (9ths, 13ths) or skipping some (no 5ths). The same idea can be applied to chord practice, try not to stick to the same sounds every time and internalize how each voicing sounds like. A very useful exercise is to visualize and/or even sing the notes we are trying to play before or simultaneously as we play them (Check out George Benson for context).

Knowledge can mean learning how to access different sound shaping tools in a synth, how to sequence or adjust parameters and what each of them do. This is better practice by avoiding presets and trying using dedicated sound design sessions to create different styles of sounds. If using presets, trying to start with a sound you like and modify it with intent, knowing what would you like to achieve before start turning knobs. With that said, sometimes random knob twisting can lead to happy accidents and help us achieve new sounds we wouldn’t come up with necessarily.

Knowledge is also understanding how to maintain and repair your instrument when such thing is needed, this is somewhat a more difficult skill to practice unless you work on a repair shop or similar, but I try to do all maintenance of my instruments myself whenever possible.

Knowledge may also be understanding the language of the style of music we want to play and the vocabulary that is employed in it. Learning classic licks/phrases, chord progressions, songs (e.g. 12-bar blues) and the common lingo is important to be able to communicate with other musicians within the same style. Build your vocabulary not only by playing and creating, but also (specially) by listening to other artists in the style and internalizing the lines in our own playing. This also applies to electronic music! You aren’t making Drum-and-bass if you don’t know how the instruments interact, the sounds they typically have or the speed you are supposed to play it as. DnB is not DnB if you play it at 50bpm isn’t it?

Technique

Ah yes, technique! The obsession of music players all over the world, sometimes by necessity, sometimes by a sense of wonder, and often times practiced for fitness. If you are playing fast Rachmaninoff passages or learning guitar shred solos you need to have a high level of technique. If you are playing blues, you may want a certain level of technique for specific phrases but you could express yourself just fine with simpler and carefully chosen notes. Ask yourself what kind of level you want to have for the music you are interested in and don’t get obsessed with being the fastest player in the world if you don’t need to. I try to aim to be able to slightly go above the target speed that a song calls for, as it gives you a buffer. After all, if you are able to play something at 120bpm, you should be able to play it easier at 110.

Speed is just one part of the study of technique. It is important that, at whichever speed we are playing, everything sounds clear. Focusing only on speed without listening to our tone is a recipe for sounding sloppy. Play only as fast as you can without making mistakes and with all your notes ringing clearly and in tune. I won’t go into much detail for specific techniques for different instruments, but things like guitar bending or vibrato, vocal falsetto, or violin bowings require their own dedicated practice time. In the context of computer or synth music making, technique could involve learning shortcuts for your DAW, practicing performance transitions in your synths or any number of parameter automation/live playing. I’ll repeat it again, speed is not the only technique we need to focus when practicing an instrument.

When practicing technique, specially in dedicated sessions, make sure you spend a bit of time warming up with slower exercises and stretching. Often physical health is ignored in practice routines but with a bit of care you should be able to practice for more time and more often while avoiding injuries. When injuries do happen, please try to address them as soon as possible and understand that they can take time to fully heal. Adjust your playing and practice as necessary.

Try to always practice with a metronome or some rhythmic pulse of some kind (playing to drums or a pre-recorded rhythm). The key of improving speed is progressive increase and patience. You will not be playing fast in a day just because you set your metronome to 300bpm. At the beginning of the session try to stablish your baseline for the day and do your exercises at that timing only increasing the speed if we can play everything smoothly and mistake free. Be relaxed, as strain is the enemy of speed, but be mindful that as we approach our limits we will be more tense. Try to reset yourself if this happens. It is sometimes helpful to push past the limit where we are comfortable for a bit and then dial it down a notch. Keep in mind that your biological rhythms change everyday, and just because yesterday you could play a passage flawlessly, it doesn’t mean it will be the same today. Be kind to yourself, take breaks and have slower sessions when this happens.

To more effectively build muscle memory, favor practicing lines and short passages. A long solo is, after all, a connection of multiple smaller motifs. Don’t lose sight of the big picture though and don’t forget to practice your transitions and full performances once the smaller sections are under control.

Composition and Writing

There are many ways of starting a music track and all of them are valid. Some times you can start with the theory, some with a melodic or rhythmic motif and some with the harmony. Sometimes you just noodle around with an instrument and magic happens!

Try to setup at least an A and B section that you can use and arrange instruments so that there is variation happening every 4-8 bars. This is highly style dependant, but is generally a good rule of thumb. I like composing by layering instruments together and then dressing the parts down, sometimes stripping them down to the bare minimum and arranging from there. Everyone has a different process so do what works for you!

Try to study existing pieces and copy their structure or instrument selection. Study your heroes and learn different styles. Drench yourself in their compositional motifs and use them as your own.

In any case, set a dedicated time for music writing and composition in your practice routine. Focus on creating, instrument selection and initial arrangement. Think big picture rather than details (We leave that to the production and mixing stage).

Repertoire

Learning new songs is not only fun, it is also very rewarding. The music and vocabulary will drip into ourselves and they will come out when producing our own original material. We don’t always have to learn full songs, sometimes we can use some time to just focus on extracting some melodic lines or chordal ideas. Try to play with other people if you can, but if you don’t there are many ways of playing along to different sound parts, from dedicated programs to MIDI tracks to using song stems or just covering entire songs by yourself!

The goal of developing a repertoire can vary a lot from person to person, and depending on the complexity of the pieces, learning a single song can take months or you may be able to cram the study of 10 different ones in an afternoon. For full songs, I would again suggest breaking pieces down into sections that can be study piecewise.

I would also include in this section practicing your own material, if you are preparing a set or concert for example. Only because you made it doesn’t mean you will be able to perform it mistake free on demand!

Music Theory

The study of music theory is by no means necessary, but knowing some basic fundamentals can make a big difference. I have a whole page covering many of the facets of theory, but remember to use music theory as guidelines. Use your ear to have the final say in what you do.

Part of your music routine could consist in analyzing existing pieces in the context of music theory, extracting the chords and/or keys that are in that piece and perhaps how could it be reharmonized in a different context. You could then use that knowledge to arrange the song in a different way or use different instrumentation.

I personally can’t see theory without the practice part, they need to be studied in conjunction for fun and profit (the profit is the fun, generally, but also growing your own understanding). Try to pick one topic and explore it for a bit instead of trying to take everything all at once.

Recording and Production

Regardless of your interests with regards to producing full songs, any musician will probably want to familiarize themselves with the recording process. From recording ideas and demos to full blown orchestral arrangements there are some general fundamentals that hold true. The most fundamental is: “if it sounds good, it is good”. Who cares that a guitar was recorded with an “el cheapo” stratocaster through a solid state practice amp if the results sounds just right for the track. Conversely, do you really need all that fancy analog equipment if you are just interested in making chiptune style music in an Amiga tracker? (For the record, sometimes you do! It’s all a matter of flavor and the sound you are looking for in your art).

If you just want to remember an idea, the voice recorder in your phone is more than adequate. I use it all the time for small riffs and the like. If you want to share your music though, it is wise to invest into some basic recording equipment and learning how to use it. You don’t have to become an audio engineer or a wizard to be able to obtain clean recordings, a basic or second hand audio interface and understanding how to properly set your signal levels is in many cases more than enough to get you 80% of the way. There is always processing that can be done, but starting with a good quality signal will make things much easier and expand your options later on.

You can just record with Audacity, but learning the basics of a Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) will massively open the doors for creativity. Any DAW is fine, there is no right or wrong, really, and the concepts are very much transferable if you switch in the future. Practice recording to a click track and doubling your instruments. It is a humbling experience sometimes, but the good news is that you can always try again! Do as many takes as you want and choose the best one, but don’t get obsessed with perfection. They will never be perfect, but you can always try to improve on the next one!

Try to improve your recording qualities everyday and make sure you finish songs. Leaving songs half-finished doesn’t let you see their full potential. Quite often a bit of automation or some transitions can tie things together. At the same time, be happy to discard ideas that no longer work in the context of the overall piece, you don’t have to include everything you initially recorded! Finishing 10 songs that sound OK will make you grow more and produce overall better work than trying to perfect that 1 track for 100 hours. Be prolific, and remember that you don’t always have to share what you do, some things you can keep for yourself. It is not wasted effort if you finish a song you no longer like and don’t release it, but sharing to a few friends or colleagues can be helpful for the feedback they can offer.

Study and practice the fundamentals of mixing and mastering, like equalization and compression and how/when to use them. No mix is perfect and with time you will train your ear to see what you like and what sounds best. Also with regards to mixing, you probably don’t have a fully treated studio with perfect flat response monitors and that is ok. Learn to use the tools at your disposal and their limitations and how to compensate for them. I mix on headphones 99% of the time on my home studio and once I have something mostly finished I monitor the mix in studio monitors, the living room TV, my phone speaker, and a variety of headphones. You can do it in your car if you want or in a boombox in the bathroom. Take notes as you listen and try to find a happy balance for the devices your music will most likely play on. You can also (and probably should) use reference tracks in your style and tempo/key that you know sound well in those conditions and try to match your mix to it.

Methods

Superchops (Howard Roberts)

The Superchops method by Howard Roberts is a 20 week program that helps you practice your technique, repertoire and improvisational skills in a musical context. I ran this method once 10 years ago and it was one of the most useful exercises I went through during my formative years. It is so good that I’m running it again on 2023 to try to get my guitar chops back to what they once where. The method is focused on guitar and jazz improvisation, but the concepts apply to other instruments, so realistically anyone can follow along. You can download the out of print book here.

The method consists on spending 50 min a day on practicing improvisation over a series of chord changes. You spend 10 min recording yourself playing the chords and then play 3 rounds of improvisation over them. The kicker is that you are supposed to play only straight eight notes non-stop (no phrasing, no bending, no rhythmic variation). Later you can use triplets instead. It can be boring and frustrating to see yourself repeating the same lines and realizing the limitations in our vocabulary, but it is well worth it.

You are supposed to start playing at a very very slow tempo and gradually increase the speed as the week progresses. Make no mistake, this is a hard program, and as speed catches up you will realize the shortcomings in your technique and the limits of your vocabulary. Removing phrasing/rhythm from the equation helps us work in our note choices and trying to target the chord tones for the current harmonic context. Playing scales or even chromatic notes is fine, but focusing on each chord change can really pay off.

The songs included in the book are unnamed but they are actually known Jazz standards:

Each second week uses the previous week’s tune transposed to a different key. If you are not into Jazz, you can choose your own preferred songs. Who cares? Just try to put in the work and trust the process. For my own work I’ll follow the songs presented in the book the first week and instead of transposing I’ll choose a different song of my liking.

I’ll use this opportunity to practice my all 4ths tuning, so I’ll also be using my own voicings for the chords. The suggested voicings in standard tuning are really varied and sometimes quite hellish to play, but they can make for a good exercise.

A note of caution, this method may (and probably will) require way more commitment than 50 minutes depending on your existing knowledge of the instrument. I’ll try to prepare the voicings and practice some arpeggios, triads and lines to run through these chords. It may also end up taking more than 20 weeks and that’s ok! Skipping a day is fine, but the book recommends that you stick to the 6 on 1 off daily routine.