Technical Routine

[alysosha]

I want to contrast and compare the technical section of my practice routine with yours.

At the moment I practice major and both minor scales as well as root position arpeggios in all keys over 4 octaves. I spend 30 minutes of each practice session on technical. In this time I work on either one scale or one arpeggio. In all it takes me about 2 months to make a full revolution of the keys.

What do you think about this?

[Bob]

Sounds good to me.  Whatever works for you and your goals.

At the moment, I'm keeping my skills on life support.  Major and minor scales.  Arps.  8ves.  3rds.  Chord progressions. 

[alysosha]

Sounds good to me.  Whatever works for you and your goals.

At the moment, I'm keeping my skills on life support.  Major and minor scales.  Arps.  8ves.  3rds.  Chord progressions. 

So how long would spend out of session doing technical and how long would spend each element of it? I just wonder because sometimes i think spending 30 minutes on  a scale is overkill and i'd be better off forcing myself to spend less time and shift through my routine quicker.

[Bob]

I used to spend two hours a day on technique.  It can't be that anymore.  Maybe and hour to an hour and a half, including several breaks.

I don't think it's necessarily overkill.  Whatever you do is going to give you some kind of result.  Is just a matter of whether you want those results or whether you think playing music instead will give you better results.

[alysosha]

Two hours a day! Good man. I'm glad to hear this, does make me feel my effort is slightly more proprtional to my goals. Which are really just to have my scales and arps comfortably under my fingers so I can rattle them off cold, then I might get a bit more lax with them.

[Bob]

There's no end to technique.  Once they're under the fingers, then you can speed them up, playing them with more ease, change the pattern so it's a little more difficult, focus on better tone, etc.  No end.