How to Practice: The Ultimate Practice Guide

I'm super excited to be sharing this resource that will have a hugely positive impact on the productivity of your practicing, if you actually download it and put it to use!

This is The Ultimate Practice Guide, which will help you to organize your practice and keep you motivated to get the results you want, achieve your clarinet dreams, and have fun in the process!

To download the full handout, and watch a few videos I have made about practicing go to www.quickstartclarinet.com/practice.

I am also hoping to add more information and practice resources there as I go, so it will be a good place to check for all of my most up to date information on practicing.

So what is The Ultimate Practice Guide?

The guide itself is just two pages with one page giving some guidance and the other page being a template for you to fill out with your specific plan.

The first step is figuring out your current long-term goal. This can change, but it shouldn't be something that you can accomplish in one day or even one week. Think big with your goals. This would also be similar to what your clarinet dream is. Pick something that is inspiring to you and motivates you to get into the practice room.

If your goal is lofty enough, it may also be a little scary or overwhelming. That is alright. You want something that will challenge you, but to keep that challenge from becoming debilitating we are going to break it down into more digestible tasks.

Brainstorm everything you will need to do to accomplish your goal and come up with smaller tasks that you can work on a little at a time to move toward your goal. Get really creative here. The more you are able to come up with the more interesting things you will have to practice!

Once we have this big list of tasks we can begin working through them in our daily practice. If you can make progress on specific tasks each day, that is where the magic of practicing starts to happen.

Trying to accomplish a massive feat like being in the New York Philharmonic or building the Pyramids is daunting and overwhelming. Practicing 8 measures with a metronome, or laying one brick is much more manageable. If you do just that little bit every day, along with a little patience, you will reach your goal!

The other essential part of practicing (and building pyramids) is developing a strong foundation. This is why another part of the practice guide involves doing a good warm-up and really working on the fundamentals. Fundamentals are probably the best way to grow your ability on the instrument really quickly.

I hope this helps you to see how powerful getting your practice organized can be. There is even more information about this, including some tips for time management, in The Ultimate Practice Guide, and in my YouTube video about this: How to Organize Your Practice to Accomplish More in Less Time!

Click Here to Get The Ultimate Practice Guide (you can also scroll down on this page to watch my videos about practicing)

Feel free to share my practicing webpage (www.quickstartclarinet.com/practice) with anybody who you think would love some more information about practicing. It is great for non-clarinetists as well!

Happy Practicing,
Josh