Violin Practice Fundamentals, part 1: Find Your Comfort Quotient Number

Prologue:

It has taken a good many years for me to hone good practice techniques, and even still I have much to learn. My earliest memories of practicing were “playing through” my Suzuki songs, one by one, with my mom accompanying me on the piano. My childhood practice methods didn’t extend to any degree of critical listening or reflection, much less thoughtful repetition.

My great “AHA” moment came when I was in middle school. It was the day before our studio recital and I had the stark realization that I couldn’t play through my recital piece without stumbles and hesitations. It was then, out of sheer desperation, that I finally did what I’m sure my teacher had been professing for years: I practiced. I actually remember dividing the piece into sections repeating each one many times until I got it right. EUREKA! It worked! My teacher said the next day after the recital, “I’m surprised you played it that well. You must have really practiced.” I assumed she meant I must have practiced hours and hours. In reality it was a relatively short session, (about an hour and a half, maybe), just a very focused one! Now had that experience truly become the pivotal moment where all the tried and true methods of efficient practice had become an institution of daily life, I would be a far better player than I am now. Sadly, it took a good many more years to rehabilitate old, ineffective habits.

Fast -forward about 30 years. As a teacher I’ve come to realize the importance of guiding a student through the practice process. I frequently "practice" with them in the lesson. We call those days " boot camp". It's kind of like the old adage: Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime. The following blog entries cover what I feel to be the basic principles of good practice habits.

Part 1: Ratings System: the Comfort Quotient Number

You’ve found a piece you would like to play. It’s a little beyond your present abilities. You could start at the beginning working your way through the snags as they appear. But as an intelligent person you already know it’s more efficient to find the biggest tangles first and proportion much of your time on them. The problem is that there usually are many tricky places. In the following videos I share my little system to determine those places of highest priority.

Step 1: Find Your CQ 10



Step 2: Ranking for Highest Priority