Strategies to Get More Out of Your Practice Sessions
Written By Dr. Paige Madden
Practicing is one of the most important (and frequent!) things we do as musicians. But given that we typically practice on our own, it can be difficult to know if we are practicing the ‘right’ way, and tough to diagnose specific strategies that will help us improve efficiently and achieve our goals.
The following outlines ten suggestions to incorporate into your practicing, formatted as fixes to inefficient habits I commonly see in students I work with. These strategies are a starting point, and this list is in no way exhaustive – we all learn differently, and there are lots of different ways you can practice music! Start with these ideas if you’re feeling stuck, and then feel free to get creative and find other techniques that work well for you.
Table of Contents
Meet Your Instructor
Dr. Paige Madden (BSP Educator) is an active percussion performer, educator, and arranger currently based in Ypsilanti, Michigan. She holds degrees in Percussion Performance including a doctorate from the University of Michigan, a masters from the University of Central Florida, and bachelors from the University of Oregon. As an avid chamber musician, Paige is a founding member of the Terracotta Duo, an innovative percussion and double bass duo that thrives on commissioning new music and arranging works for their instrumentation. After her time playing in the Oregon Marching Band drumline, Paige has since stayed involved in collegiate drumline through teaching, working primarily with the University of Central Florida drumline and Saginaw Valley State University drumline. In the MI area, she has appeared with local orchestras including the Lansing Symphony, Jackson Symphony, Adrian Symphony, and Michigan Philharmonic, and has performed internationally in Trinidad in the 2025 Panorama Large Band Finals with the Shell Invaders Steel Orchestra, as well as in Berlin, Germany. Paige can be heard on albums such as Michael Gordon’s Field of Vision and Alexis Lamb’s Yes, and..., and frequently commissions and premieres new music.
Paige currently serves as Director of Percussion at Saginaw Valley State University, Lecturer of Percussion at Eastern Michigan University, and Lecturer of Percussion at Purdue University, Fort Wayne.
Common Habits and Recommended Solutions
Always starting from the beginning of a piece and strictly working chronologically.
Though it’s tempting, you don’t have to start at the beginning of a piece and practice it top to bottom. Instead, practice what’s in the roughest shape, even if it’s in the middle or end of the piece. Identify the toughest spots and consider why you’re having trouble - be specific. Then, break the problem down from there. Once that spot is ironed out, find the next tricky chunk. If you’re always practicing what you’re worst at, you’ll see a high rate of improvement!
Learning the pitches and rhythms of a piece first without dynamics, musicality, etc.
If I was baking a cake, I wouldn’t put flour in a tin and stick that in the oven, then take it out and add eggs and bake that, then take it out and add sugar before putting it back in the oven, and so on – that would produce the world’s grossest cake! Instead, we put all ingredients in the tin, mix them together, then stick that in the oven for however long is needed to bake the cake fully. We can approach our practicing the same way by “baking in” all the variables early on while learning the piece, and therefore avoid having to learn a piece multiple times. Practice a phrase with the dynamics, shaping, playing zones, technique, character, etc as you’re learning it at the slower tempo to solidify good habits and musicality. Then, they’ll already be in your muscle memory as you speed it up (this will help with consistency in execution when you’re under pressure in a performance too!).
Practicing too fast!!
Go slow to go pro! This is one of the most important practice tools we have, but it’s one that takes patience – most students don’t spend long enough at a slow tempo before increasing their bpm. Slow practice is the key to being able to play things fast and consistently! Check that you’re playing things accurately, consistently, and musically, before bumping up the tempo. Even then, increase the tempo only in small increments. You can briefly try things at performance tempo to figure out roll speeds and make sure stickings work, but then go back to your slow practice speed.
Improper use of a metronome.
Especially as percussionists, our sense of timing is crucial. As such, it’s a good idea to use a metronome more often than not to instill good timing and consistency. However, we also want to make sure we aren’t overly dependent on the metronome. In most cases, you should use more metronome in the earlier stages of learning music, and start to use it less in the later stages once you’re playing it at a higher level. As you increase your proficiency, you can test yourself by alternating reps with/without a metronome, increasing the amount of time between clicks (starting on quarter notes, then half notes, then whole notes), experiment with rubato, etc.
‘Cramming’ instead of practicing consistently.
Consistency is key! Even just 20 minutes of practice every day will yield much better results than 4 hours one or two days a week. Our brains need consistency to build up the neurological pathways and truly learn a new skill. We have all ‘crammed’ before an exam before, but unfortunately, it just doesn’t work in music. As much as we may wish there were, there are no shortcuts to practicing, and no substitute for putting the work in consistently!
Practicing aimlessly for an indeterminate amount of time and without specific goals.
Have specific goals every time you practice! Structure is great for accountability, efficiency, and focus. Take a moment before playing to identify specific goals in your music that you want to accomplish in that practice session. So much about music can be subjective and feel ambiguous – the more data-driven and structured your practice can be, typically the more you’ll get out of your session. Scheduling out the timing of your practice time can also help you stay focused and on task. Practicing aimlessly = taking the long route to improvement.
Also, if you are preparing a piece for a certain occasion, work backwards with a calendar to figure out your timeline. Consider: when do I perform the piece, when do I want to finish learning notes, when do I need it playable at tempo, when do I want to be halfway done with it, etc.
Spending time on what you’re already good at.
Divide your music into red, yellow, and green sections based on your proficiency of each phrase/chunk of music. Spend most of your time on red, until you get it upgraded to yellow. Spend the second most time spent on yellow, until you get it upgraded to green. When the whole piece is green, you’re on your way to being performance ready! You can still play the stuff you’re already good at and enjoy, but use it more as brief maintenance or even as a reward or a ‘cool-down’ rather than the focus of your session.
Using the same practice technique on every single thing you play.
Music isn’t one-size-fits-all, and what works well for one piece of music may not be the most effective for a different piece. Have a toolbox of practice strategies and pull out the ones that are fitting for a certain piece/instrument/occasion/level of preparation.
That being said, there are also practice techniques that are pretty widely applicable and will often be useful (my two main go-to’s with my students lately have been: when in doubt, start by going slower, and taking smaller chunks). Just make sure you’re being thoughtful about how you’re practicing, and ask yourself, ‘is this an effective practice strategy for this piece of music? Is there another strategy that could be more effective?’
Not doing any work on your music when you don’t have the instrument to play on.
Get creative! Percussionists often struggle with consistent instrument access, but we can’t let that bring our progress to a screeching halt. There are lots of ways to practice and improve away from the instrument. Mental practice, floor practice, pad practice, singing and counting, using books or other items at home to create surfaces that mimic timpani/drumset/multi set ups, etc.
Only practicing exactly what’s on the page.
When you run into a tough spot, don’t just play exactly what’s on the page. Instead, identify what exactly is tricky about that chunk of music, and pull out that fundamental skill/technique to turn into mini-exercises that help work on that aspect (this usually makes it stick in your brain and hands better long-term too, by building the skill itself that will transfer broadly across your playing rather than only drilling that specific piece.)
Again, these suggestions are just a starting point and some ideas for if you find yourself falling into these common inefficient habits. As with anything, we get better at a skill over time with practice – and that includes practicing itself! The more you do it, the more you’ll find what works for you and what is most effective. Happy practicing!
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