how do y'all practice

[hopefulauditionpasser]

on my grind to pass auditions.

is slow practice, the metronome and rhythmic variation all there is to (technical) practice.
trying to expand my horizons!

hopefulauditionpasser

[brogers70]

That's a pretty general question, but I'd say, sure, there are lots of other methods, depending on the technical issue. So in no order (since I don't no what your main interest is)...

1. For increasing relaxation and fluidity in rapid scalar passages - practice very slowly, first pressing down on the key with lots of force and tension for the full duration of the note, then press down the same way but relax completely halfway through the duration of the note, then do it striking the key and relaxing immediately. This teaches your body to focus on the sensations of tension and relaxation and to aim for relaxation. But don't do too much of it at any one time or you might get hurt.

2. For big chord jumps, like the LH in Chopin waltzes, for example, there are lots of things to do. Practice throwing the hand in one motion from one chord to the next, but on the destination chord, just land on the keys without playing them for a moment, then play them. Or just practice the lower note of the starting and destination chords, or just the middle or just the upper, and all possible combinations. Practice the jumps with the eyes closed.

3. For voicing, play the voice you want to bring out forte and legato and the other notes pianissimo and staccato.

4. Rhythmic variation itself contains lots of possibilities. I find that if you have a long stretch of sixteenths, practicing them in rhythms like long-short-short, short-long-short, and short-short-long (3-rhythms) or the similar set of 5-rhythms, really forces you to think about every note, shows up just where you might be having trouble making a quick transition between notes, and engrains the sequence of notes in your memory better than just doing 4-rhythms or simple dotted rhythms because they go against the natural 4 note groupings in a run of 16ths.

5. Playing a fast passage slowly but with a rapid finger staccato will often help me identify individual notes that I've been overholding, and just learning to get off them fast enough helps my speed.

6. If you have a big difficult jump, practice making all possible jumps that land with, say, a fifth of the target. That will give you a better kinesthetic sense of how far to jump than simply trying to repeat the written jump again and again.

That's just a few. There are all sorts of fun, interesting ways to practice - messing around with them is one of the things that makes practice be something other than a grind.

[hopefulauditionpasser]

thanks for the in-depth response.

it seems to be what makes great practice is more self-reflection and analysis then.

yunchan lim said something along the lines that for him, practice was like a purifying ritual, and it resonated with me lots.