Time to update my routine.

Mar 10

Every 2-3 months lately I review and revamp my practicing routine.

This was my routine for January and February:

40 minutes of mechanics:
- 20 minutes on the left hand.
- 20 minutes on the right hand – pick one day, fingers the next.
40 minutes of repertoire. I had three repertoire lists, and I tried to work from one list a day, in order.
- Songs I've written
- Standards and covers
- Fiddle tunes
40 minutes of composition, either improvising or writing.

My review led me to a few conclusions:

The work on mechanics was enjoyable and moderately productive, but it was getting comfortable. I was working on things that I could do reasonably well. I decided I needed to make it more rigorous.
Three repertoire lists is not enough for me to get to everything I want to get to, but it's still too much for me to practice. I felt like I was spending 5 minutes each on 50 different things, when I should have been spending 50 minutes each on 5 different things.
I wasn't accomplishing much with either improvising or writing.

So here's the new routine, which will be a work in progress until March 31, when I'll commit to it for April and May. Some things change, some remain the same. I'm cramming a lot in, and I'm still leaving things out.

Mechanics (40 minutes.) All with a metronome. That will raise the standard for getting it right. The Giuliani exercises and the Ted Greene material seem to require higher standards inherently.
- Right hand (fingers) 10 minutes – Giuliani arpeggios
- Left hand (10 minutes)- my own exercises.
- Both hands 10 minutes – one fiddle tune until I'm happy with it. So, maybe a new tune every two weeks?
- Both hands 10 minutes – work through a Ted Greene book. (at 10 minutes a day, I should be done in 20 years.)
Repertoire (40 minutes)
- Songs I've written, plus a few others I sing. Singing, playing, memorizing, remembering, refreshing. If I could only work on one thing, this is what it would be.
Project (40 minutes)
- This is a new project; the idea of having a category of practicing called “project” is new for me, too. I want to have two one-hour sets of solo arrangements of old familiar songs – Gershwin, Rodgers, Ellington, Porter, the Beatles, etc. I have a list, many of which I've already arranged, so it's not as daunting a task as it would be if I were starting from scratch.

Plus two five minute breaks to stretch and clear my head.