5 Practice Tips for Beginner Woodwinds

We all know how important regular practice is for any new skill, but many beginners don't use their time wisely and as a result don't improve as fast as they could. The quality of each practice session is more important than spending hours playing. In fact playing for too long in one sitting can lead to bad habits. Check out our tips below for how to improve your practice time and learn more in less time! Remember, before any practice session or rehearsal you need to make sure you have a good reed and a working instrument!

Tone is Key!

Most beginner players, especially those who don't take private lessons, overlook the #1 most important thing when playing a woodwind instrument: tone! If your tone doesn't sound like your instrument is supposed to sound then it doesn't matter how fast you can play or how well you can read your music. I suggest adding a warm up to use every time you practice to help improve your tone and air support. This will make a huge difference in your playing!! Here are some ideas for warm ups.

• Long Tones- No matter how many notes you know at this point you can do this warm up! Set your metronome to 60 bpm. If you need a metronome check out my gift list for clarinet players! Decide which notes you are going to work on. Can you start on the lowest note and play up chromatically? Maybe a Bb Major Scale? Or just the first 5 notes on your instrument. Play each note for 8 beats. It seems like forever but there is a lot to think about during that time! Focus on your tone: is your air steady and strong? is your embouchure correct? is your note in tune? does it sound like your instrument is supposed to sound? Doing this every day will make a big difference in what you notice about your sound and how you can adjust it as needed!

• Octave/Register Key Exercises- Even if you don't know the notes in the second octave you can do this on any woodwind instrument. It will be a little different based on if you have an octave or register key or if you just need to change your embouchure to change the pitch like on flute. The main idea is the same as long tones. Start your metronome and play the lowest note you know on your instrument for 8 beats. Then hit the octave key or change your air to play the higher register for 8 beats. Make sure that your air stays the same or gets faster. If you are having trouble getting the higher note make sure you are using enough air and have enough mouthpiece in your mouth. The goal is to keep the same volume and tone in both registers.

• Single Reeds-Try Moving your Reed Down-If you are not getting a clear tone and you have tried multiple reeds chances are that you aren't using enough mouthpiece and air. One trick to get a better sound in this case is to move your reed down a bit and practice like that. Usually on saxophone and clarinet you want your reed up against the top of the mouthpiece so that only a pencil like of mouthpiece shows when you look straight at it. If you move it down so that there is the space of a fat sharpie line it will make it harder to play. It probably won't sound good! It will make you use a lot more air and mouthpiece to get a clear sound, then when you put it back where it is supposed to be it will sound much better! Try this with any of our other exercises to improve your tone!

• Articulation Exercises-Often beginners can get a nice sound on their instrument but when they add in tounging something changes. Some common problems are moving the jaw when tonguing or loosening the corners of your mouth. Some people may also move the tongue into the wrong position when they tongue which changes the tone and pitch on the instrument. Because of this I hightly recommend adding articulation exercises to your practice routine. You can find many articulation exercises online simply by doing a quick search. You can also just play through one of your songs without changing notes. Just pick one note and play the rhythm on that note. Make sure that your jaw is set and doesn't move when you tongue. If the sound changes, trouble shoot what you are doing differently when you move your tongue. Maybe you are letting up on your air or moving your tongue too much.

Count your rhythms!

Many young students go home to practice their music but don't go through the fundamental steps and as a result learn the song or etude incorrectly. I suggest going through the following steps every time you play a song atleast for the first couple of times you play it:

• Count the rhythms with the metronome-make sure you stay with the beat!

• Say the note names and move your fingers to the rhythm. Make sure it sounds like it did when you counted the rhythm just with different words!

• Sizzle or say tah,tee or doo based on your instrument. Make sure you do it to the rhythm and keep moving your fingers. This will help you practice articulation.

• Try to play it!

• Identify what you did wrong and practice just that bit. Then try to put it all back together. Remember if you didn't play with good tone that is something you need to go back to fix!

If you follow these steps as a beginner eventually you will be able to follow fewer steps and you will have the fundamentals to become a good musician!

Record yourself.

Many young students make mistakes without realizing it. Sometimes we are so focused on playing we don't realize that what we don't sound like we're supposed to. Recording is a good tool to fix this issue. Just like you should check your work in your math class, when you think you can play a part you should record yourself and listen back to it. Is your tone good? Were all the notes and rhythms correct? If you're not sure, maybe ask for a recording of how it should be played and listen to them together. Write down what you need to work on. Recording is a good practice tip for all musicians from beginners to professionals.

Practice smaller chunks of music and link them together.

Sometimes our brains can't handle the whole chunk of music and practicing it all together doesn't help us get any better. We just keep making the same mistakes because it is too much information for the brain to process and remember at once. To help overcome this problem you should practice trouble areas in smaller chunks.

Identify your small chunk. Maybe it is only a couple of notes. Maybe it is a couple of measures. I suggest not doing over 2 measures at a time. Set the metronome on a tempo slow enough that you can follow along. Count the rhythms and follow the practice steps above. Play it with the metronome atleast 3 times correct. Everytime you mess up you have to start over :). Once you can play it at that tempo you can speed it up 2 beats per minute or if it is already fast enough go on to linking it together. Keep doing this until it is the right tempo.

Practice your small chunk until it is good, but you're not done yet! If you just try to put it back in the full song chances are it still won't be right. You need to link it together by practicing the transitions. If you did a couple measures start one measure before and play it in that chunk. Then do the same by adding the measure after. Maybe go back to the beginning of the section and start from there. If you only worked on a couple notes add the couple of beats before and after. Don't rush the process. Taking time to learn it will mean you won't have to go back and redo it as much. It will save you time in the long run!

Play the hard stuff!

Many beginners want to go home and play all the stuff they already know how to play. Maybe you want to show your parents or you just like playing the fun stuff that you can already play. Lets be honest, all musicians do this, but it doesn't help you get better. During lessons or rehearsal circle the parts that you need to work on and stick to your plan. Only by putting in a little hard work and getting better at the difficult music can you really improve and make all music fun!

I hope that you try a few of these suggestions in your next practice session! Let me know what works for you!