Balance Practice and Play | Fiddlosophy #5

During your sessions, find a balance between practice and play. I suggest spending roughly three quarters of your time engaged in focused deliberate practice, and then the rest of your time engaged in play.

I talk a lot about Deliberate Practice on FiddleHed..

  • Chunking
  • Going slow
  • Spaced repetition
  • Ear-training

Deliberate Practice lays the foundation for play. Freedom!

Play gives you the motivation to practice.

They are complementary.

Deliberate practice develops your skills.

This leads to musical freedom, or play.

Give yourself permission to play

See it as a core activity for learning and creating music.

 


Practice steps

Allow for 5-10m of Play for every 20 minutes of Practice.

Or dedicate one session to Play for every three sessions to Practice.

A few ways to play…

Improvise with a pentatonic scale over a drone

If you’re unsure what to do, just add as many variations as possible to the scale. Then change the note order. Continue to play with variations like:

 

Play a tune or scale with as many variations as possible

Use the same variations listed above but now do it on a tune. Start with a single variation on a small chunk. 

Then it becomes a choose-your-own-adventure. Add the variation to other chunks. Or add different variations to the same initial chunk.

 

Dronopoly Game

Play many tunes that share the same drone note. For example, with a D drone, play Arkansas Traveller (D Major) and then Bonaparte Crossing The Rocky Mountains (D Minor). It’s fun to switch from major to minor without changing the drone.

Play reminds you to not be so hard on yourself.

Play helps you integrate and connect what you learn, opening you up to new possibilities.

As we grow up, we tend to stop playing. Give yourself permission to play, both with music and life.

 


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Further learning

 


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