How to Practice - By DVS Instructor Corie Auger

This post has been a bit of a process for me to write. It’s taken me quite awhile, and the reason is that I feel very strongly about what we’re discussing in today’s blog: how to practice. There’s a lot I want to say, pulling from my experiences as a student, performer, and teacher. Distilling all my thoughts into one cohesive blog post has taken time, but I think it’s worth the wait for this one.

It may come as a great shock (or perhaps not) that the greatest vocal growth you’ll experience will most likely not happen in the studio with your teacher in one big light bulb moment. You stand to achieve the greatest amount of growth through your own consistent, diligent practice sessions, developing coordination over time.  The goal of this post is to help you learn what effective, efficient practicing really looks like. I’ll also point out some helpful resources so you can explore more of the
issues we’ll talk about today on your own.

First things first – set aside time to practice. This seems like a no-brainer, but far too many students count warming up in their car as their daily practice time. Set aside time to work on your singing and nothing else. Get to know your instrument – it’s the only one like it on the planet, and it’s entirely yours. To develop the fine-tuned technical skills a singer requires, you need all your wits about you. The important issue here is making sure you have time dedicated to you and your instrument, so
for now we’ll worry less about the specific amount of time, but I’d recommend no more than 20 minutes at a time, three or four times a day.

So now you’ve found 15-20 minutes somewhere in your busy day and you’re ready to spend some quality time with your instrument. Great! Now what? If it’s your first practice session of the day, you might spend most of that time warming up. An athlete preparing to train warms up before the workout to avoid injury and ensure a more successful training session. Right now, YOU are the athlete – a vocal acrobat, intent on performing some amazing feats. Warm up.

But Corie, you say, I’m not sure how to warm up my voice! What sort of exercises should I use? Think back to my last blog post: remember that recording you took of your lesson? Remember those silly vocal exercises your teacher made you do at the start of your lesson? Use those. Teachers use specific exercises to help your voice warm up and often simultaneously face a technical issue head on. Be mindful here: you must learn to listen to your voice with discerning ears. Let’s say, for example, that you sing a particular scale and it doesn’t feel quite right. If your teacher were there, how would they advise you? What tools have they given you to help when something feels tight, under-energized, stuck? Use those tools! Go back and do the scale again.

You must learn to practice mindfully, deliberately. Oftentimes, this means slowly.
There is an awful lot of thought involved in a mindful practice session. Nothing about practicing is accidental. Work to make every sound you make intentional. No more auto pilot!

So you’ve mindfully warmed up, and maybe you have five or six minutes left in your first practice session of the day. How do you spend it? Mindlessly singing through a song until you hear something you think could be better, so you stop to fix it? The idea of deliberate practice helps us reinvigorate our practice sessions – instead of just singing along on autopilot, try choosing a very specific section of one of your pieces. This section is probably so short it’s not even an entire phrase. Perhaps theseare the notes leading up to the big high note at the end. Maybe you’ve chosen the
opening four notes, or a section that feels particularly exposed and vulnerable. Whatever section you’ve chosen, you’re going to spend the next five to six minutes making sure it speaks just as you’d like. Perhaps you’re focusing on having definitive vowels, or feeling the breath move freely, or you’re making sure the soft palate stays raised – whatever the focus for this section, give it all your focus and energy. This is deliberate practice. It is slow, systematic, goal-oriented, highly repetitive, and a very active and thoughtful process. You’ll likely feel a bit fatigued at the end of it.
Congratulations – you’ve completed your first deliberate, mindful practice session!

In your second, third, and fourth sessions, you might spend less time warming up the voice and more time working with specific sections of repertoire, but the mental approach to your work should be similar. These shorter sessions require a lot more focus, but done well, you’ll notice rapid improvements in your technique, and your ability to transfer that technique to your repertoire.

As I mentioned earlier, I’ve tried to distill my thoughts on practicing down to the bare bones. There’s so much more I could say on the subject, but for today, I’ll leave you with the reminder that practice doesn’t make perfect – practice makes
permanent. It’s up to you, not your teacher, to determine what skills you make permanent.

Turn off the autopilot. Happy practicing!




Sources and Resources:
Ericsson, K. Anders. “Deliberate Practice and Acquisition of Expert Performance: A
General Overview.” Academic Emergency Medicine, vol. 15, no. 11, 2008, pp.
988–994.
Harnum, Jonathan. The Practice of Practice: Get Better Faster. Sol Ut Press, 2014.
Horsey, Simon. Practice Makes Perfect: The Keys to Success on Any Musical
Instrument. Lulu Press, Inc., 2011.
Klickstein, Gerald. The Musician's Way: A Guide to Practice, Performance, and
Wellness. Oxford University Press, 2008.
Kageyama, N. (2017, July 24). How Many Hours a Day Should You Practice?
Retrieved October 14, 2017, from https://bulletproofmusician.com/how-
many-hours- a-day- should-you- practice/