How to Practice (part 1)

Learning how to practice is an art form. It takes time, patience, and a lot of trial and error. Having a strong "practice ethic" as I like to call it, makes for a strong understanding of your voice and learning style. Let's start by breaking down how often you need to practice and how to set goals for your practice.

Frequency of Practice

People always want to know how often they need to be practicing and as much as I'd love to give them the exact answer, the reality is that everyone needs a different amount and type of practice. When I think about how often people should be practicing, I like to think in terms of weekly goals instead of daily goals. This means that when you look at your week, you want to make sure that you've gotten enough practice between Monday and Sunday. The reality is that we will have to miss days in the week because, well, we are humans who have lives. So instead of beating yourself up because you miss a day of practice, think more broadly and look at how much practice you're getting in throughout the week.

How often you practice depends on your current goals. There are instances where a daily practice routine is essential. If you are in a training program, are prepping for a role in a show, or working on building a new vocal skill, you will find practicing daily incredibly beneficial (with taking a day off during the week for rest, of course). These are situations where I encourage daily practice in order to solidify the new skills being learned or in order to build up some needed stamina in prep for an upcoming role.

Scheduling your practice sessions into your calendar is a great way to make sure that you are making time for your vocal work. At the beginning of the week, look at your schedule and plan time to practice each day (with one day off for rest). You might find that one day you have an hour in the afternoon to practice, but the next day you might only get a fifteen minutes session in the morning. That's ok. Planning ahead will help you find the time to practice throughout the week.

When working on reinforcing a new vocal skill, the more often you practice the new skill, the faster your body will learn. So, sometimes practicing three times a day for ten minutes at a time will yield faster learning then practicing for a solid hour. Moving back and forth between longer practice sessions and multiple shorter sessions is also a great way to accommodate an ever-shifting schedule.

If practicing seems impossible on a certain day, try and focus on doing something good for your voice instead. Maybe this means amping up the hydration, doing some straw phonation when you take a water break, or taking a vocal nap. If you're not getting to practice, then at least you're doing something good for your voice.

Focus of your practice

The most important aspect of practicing is goal-setting, which is two-fold. The first aspect is your overall goal–what are you actually looking to accomplish in your practice time? Are you needing to learn a new song for an audition? Are you working on building stamina? Are you working on a new vocal skill? Are you trying to get off-book on a song for a cabaret? It's important to know why you are embarking on the practice session.

The second aspect is acknowledging smaller, mini goals as you work. Some might call these targets. (My friends over at VoiceScienceWorks talk a lot about target practice here) What is the target of each vocal exercise you are doing? What adjustment did your voice teacher give you last lesson and how can you incorporate it? What should you be focusing on as you work through that challenging phrase? These mini-goals allow you to be present and focused as you work through your practice session.

I always tell my singers that there are no magic exercises. You must know the goal of the exercise and be mindful as you execute the exercise. Just doing exercises with no understanding of the purpose won't give you the improvements you're looking for. You should be aware as you sing, noting things that feel in line with what you want and things that feel a little off. Use the tools you've been given by your teacher to adjust your singing to fall more in line with your goals and targets.

It's also important that you work through exercises that are geared towards your development. This is where working with a teacher is essential. Your teacher is tweaking and adjusting both the exercises and the goals of the exercise during your lesson. This allows you to have a specific plan of action for your growth. The random video on youtube with over a million hits might not actually be what you need to get better. You need the extra set of eyes and ears that a teacher provides.

If your overall goal includes repertoire work, you can spend less time on exercises than repertoire, but they should still be part of your practice. Just singing songs will not always do the trick when it comes to improving your vocal skillset. The most effective way to build a stronger voice is through vocal exercises. On a day when rep work is needed, you might do more of a simple warmup before diving into your repertoire practice. This is an effective way to approach a repertoire session. If you go back to the idea of looking at your practice as having more of a weekly goal rather than a daily goal, then you can make sure that your week includes practice sessions that have both repertoire and exercise goals.

Part two will break down exactly what to do in the practice room and how to make the most of your time in a practice session, so stay tuned!