What is your practice routine?

Because I play several stringed instruments and teach, I don’t have a lot of time to languish over practice like I used to. So here’s my routine:

M/W/F - Irish bouzouki
Sun/T/Th - Fiddle
Daily - mandolin/tenor

1. I practice 10-15 minutes of scales and arpeggios
2. 10-15 minutes on new tunes I’m learning (Liz Carroll’s Diplodocus for example)
3. 10-15 minutes on sight reading
4. 10-15 minutes on review

I’ve been doing this routine for over 40 years.

What’s your routine?

I did play multiple instruments in the past but I decided that I will stick with one henceforth. (used to play a lot of guitar when I was younger). So now I only play the tin whistle. I always carry one around the house and since I work from my home, I can play a tune every now and then, when the mood strikes me (which it does many times a day). I mostly practice tunes but sometimes also ornaments, when learning a new one. So I practice in small chunks (often Sunday is my “new tune day” and I learn a tune from the list I keep of tunes to learn, which grows faster than I can learn them however). I guess it adds up to maybe a half hour to an hour each day.

I mostly stick with fiddle, but sometimes go on octave mandolin and songs (especially if there’s a gig on the horizon).
Mornings: Kreutzer #10 & 12, reels (alternate Irish and C’Breton)
Noon-ish: Slow airs
Late afternoon: Jigs
If I have lots of time, I go over sets with the metronome working slow (80s) to faster (90s-100-110).
Oh, yeh, weekdays. Sunday afternoon is session time.

I also work from home. I have a mandolin, a tin whistle, and a low whistle sitting nearby. I mostly leave the whistles alone lately - I’m very new at the low whistle and getting the piper’s grip down has been frustrating for me, and the cats don’t like the upper octave on my tin whistle - but frequently pick up my mandolin to go through a set or just play a tune for a while. I don’t have much of a regular schedule. I sometimes play for hours in a day and sometimes skip several days in a row. Lately I’ve been going through all the tunes I’ve learned, slowing them down, and trying out variations and ornamentations in my ongoing attempt to play the tunes “Irish.” I’ve started learning new tunes again, as well, after a hiatus of several months while I tried to work on my technique, ornaments, etc..

I also play bass in a band, and mostly practice bass at band practice (much to my shame), unless there’s a part I’m having a lot of trouble with and need work on, or if there’s a bass line that needs zazzed up a bit.

If my hands don’t hurt, I’ll practice for 15 minutes. Then they’ll hurt and I’ll stop. I might only manage this once a day but sometimes I can manage three or four times in one day. This has been my therapy for the six surgeries I’ve had on my hands in the last five years. Next month my right wrist will be fused then the “therapy” will start again.

Practice ?? I don’t know that I actually identify with it any more. I just pick up my fiddle and play it, learning a new tune every now and then. Most mornings my first coffee is going cold before I realise I am ‘practicing’. I also tend to carry my ‘D’ whistle in my pocket and blow a tune on it now and again through the day. Sometimes I pick up my guitar and strum a song or pick a tune, but if this is practice I don’t ever think of it as such. I just play and somehow keep improving.

Hi kathodus

Wow! Your cats are very clever!

“the cat’s don’t like the upper octave on my tin whistle - but frequently pick up my mandolin to go through a set or just play a tune for a while”

🙂 🙂 🙂

All the best
Brian x

…someone pays for me to play, I go along with my mates, we drink their beer, eat their food and everyone’s happy - that’s been my routine for the last 37 years - only harm it’s done is to my waistline 🙂

Between teaching 2-3 hours a week, and playing in two to three sessions, I wouldn’t say that I actually sit down to work on anything specific very often. Most likely would be new tunes that grab my fancy during the day, since I also work from home. But otherwise, the learning and improvement mostly happens in sessions nowadays for me.

Brian x - Haha! Even if I could edit my post, I prefer imagining my cats playing mandolin.

Learning tunes for joining sets introduced by others in the session or to introduce myself, once the tune is sitting under the fingers, I record it on the phone and then have it to listen to on the go. I find listening to the tune on loop over a couple of weeks is practice in itself to cement it without needing or being able to pick up the instrument.

There was a time when I spent a few hours a day practicing, now if I get 15 or 20 minutes on a normal day if I’m lucky.
Most of my real practice time happens at jams. I don’t sing so my participation is to catch a spot and fill it in.
I have just started joining a weekly session jam which is a very different approach to music, so I listen. play a few chord notes, and more and more I’m able to pickup the melody of the tune, this approach has helped me in so many ways. When I can, I am relearning tunes, and learning new tunes. The session usually last for a few hours. This would qualify as a practice routine for me.

I am also a multiple instrument person, guitar, mandolin, fiddle, banjo, whistles, concertina, my wife thinks I should open a music store, I keep telling her that they are for the grandson one day, and I am just keeping them in tune. In the summer I love to sit out on my bench under the tree, cup of coffee and what ever instrument grabs me that day and just disappear into what every comes out.

During the colder days, my kitchen table is my favorite practice room. I would love to have more time to play, but one thing I have noticed, sometimes just a few minutes a day really goes a long way..it’s amazing what muscle memory can do. Plus it keeps me in touch with the music.

Oh, I carry a D whistle with me all the time, I pick up my son in law after work and I usually get 10 to fifteen minutes to play while I’m waiting…time flies when you are having fun!

I hate precocious cats. Mine used to pick up my tin whistle.

I think of it all as playing. Never “practicing.”

Raising a toast to the lonely tele-commuters!

On flute, it takes a long time to get good tone and a good embouchure. Therefore, I spend a half hour to an hour just trying to get good quality tone by playing long-tones and arpeggios from lowest to highest note. Sometimes it comes in quickly; sometimes I have to put it on pause for another time. Or else I get to a comfortable place, and spend 2 or 3 hours playing new or old tunes.

Typically, I work on four or five new tunes at a time.

Or else, I work on tunes I know reasonably well, and I really like.

I like the practice machine on Alan Ng’s irishtune.info website, as it reminds me of tunes I need to work on.

I play (flute) about an hour a day, alternating among my instruments (one one day, another another day, etc.). About 10 minutes warming up with the exercises from June McCormack’s flute tutor and the OAIM teachers and the long tone exercise Richard Cook recommended here long ago. Then tunes, mixing up ones I know with ones I’m learning and playing a mix of tune types. I try to learn tunes by ear (i.e. from a recording I like), but write them down so that when I return to them later, I don’t have to start from scratch.

Work gets in the way so I have to cram most of my practice time in to the weekend. Although I use the word practice in the loosest sense of the word - in that I just tend to play lots of tunes and experiment with new sets. My main task is trying to get my memory to retain more tunes - and not lose the ones it has!