7 ways to keep your practice sessions interesting

Even if you’ve never set foot in a gym, imagine if you went there with weight issues. You’d have to train a lot, diet, and record calories, weight loss, etc.
Why not keep a similar journal for your musical pursuits? You can record your successes, failures, goals, etc. If you’re struggling with something, set a deadline to overcome it. It might seem like these things will just stay in your head, and you wouldn’t need to refer to a journal. But if you lead a busy life, it’s always possible to overlook something. When all your practice activities are structured on paper (or tablet or computer), it’s much easier to keep track of them and systematically progress towards success.

If you don’t have a regular band or project, try to get involved in various gigs. It could be filling in for a musician in a friend’s band at a particular concert, participating as a session musician, or just doing a small solo show at a local club.
During performances, you not only continually learn something new, but they also immerse you in the real world, where you can test your new skills, compare yourself with others (in a good way), learn something new about yourself, and get some feedback.

This may sound obvious, but sometimes goal-setting doesn’t get as much attention as it should. But if you don’t have a specific goal, why are you practicing?
Imagine that your music practice is the “real job” that the outside world scares you with. Why not? Isn’t this where you want to achieve real success? To achieve them, you need to approach goals with utmost seriousness. The action diary from the first point of this article will help you with this.

If you adore, for example, blues piano, and practice it daily, that’s great. But sooner or later, you’ll find how limited you are.
Of course, we all want to show real class in a particular style, become the best, etc. But think about how much music there is in the world, and how much useful stuff (for your favorite style) you can glean from it, just by trying to learn something new. ‘Fear’ in this context doesn’t mean being afraid of something hard; it means being afraid of the unfamiliar. You don’t necessarily have to nail complex solos from compositions that don’t inspire you at all, and you’re sure you’ll never play anything like that. But there are many styles from which you can easily learn techniques.
If you play every day, try to turn to something new once a week (yes, an action plan will not hurt here either). Let your style be the priority, but every week you will slowly expand your horizons.

Returning to the fitness theme. Finding someone with whom you can occasionally play instruments is like finding a buddy to go to the gym with. It’s a kind of “no strings attached” game, where you won’t throw around ambitious words about conquering the world and creating the perfect rock band. If you can find someone to work on your technique with, who can motivate and inspire you, then you’re lucky. And it’s not about that person sharing your philosophy, view of music, and tastes. The most important thing is that they are interested in the process of playing and comfortable to be in the same room with.
After all, if you’ve ever played in a band, then you know how much you can learn about yourself by collaborating with other people. YouTube lessons, sitting with a guitar and a computer – all this is great, and sometimes it really gives a feeling of magic, but you still remain alone with yourself, not getting any feedback. When you’re with someone, something new is discovered. In other words, doors open that would have remained closed in other circumstances, and which you might never have known about.

Keith Richards eats an English shepherd’s pie before every concert. What kind of acid trip did he come up with this idea on? It doesn’t matter. The important thing is that he came up with this ritual for himself and tries to stick to it. And it means something to him.
In fact, our days often consist of following our own rules, and we don’t even notice it. Morning coffee, a special breakfast, shower, and all that. All these are more or less practical things, but remember, what more subtle things have you developed in yourself over a lifetime? Surely, some “strangeness” will be revealed… Russian philosopher and mystic G.I. Gurdjieff once said that to move to a new level of daily existence, you can rearrange your simplest habits. For example, if you’re used to hanging your coat on one side of the door, find another place for it, and try to get used to it. At first glance, this tactic seems crazy. But unnoticed by the eyes, many interesting processes are launched in the brain simply because you have minimally changed the usual order.
The same is true with music – if you’re used to playing in one corner of the room and feel reluctant to play at the moment (although you know you need to), just try to move to another corner! If you’re used to drinking a bottle of beer before a lesson, just give it up – or start drinking a glass of wine. Whatever your daily rituals are, try to periodically conduct an experiment and change them.

In addition to the previous point – the structure of your rehearsals, the sequence of your actions should also periodically be subjected to examination and change. Usually start your exercises with theory or repetition of what was done before? Great, it’s time to start improvising for 20 minutes before coming to the “routine” tasks. And vice versa.
Whatever your habits and practice schedule are, try to change them periodically – that way, it will be much harder for rehearsals to bore you, and your desire to train and learn something new will only grow!