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Playing music during the summer holidays

Summer has arrived, school and exams have finished. You can now relax and take some time off. You might think that there is no need to practice until the beginning of school in September. However, taking a long break from playing will make for slow progress when you resume in September.  Read further to find out what you can do instead.

Revise

 

You now have more time to correct bad habits and mistakes you may have made during the last term. Did you play your recent pieces perfectly or was there something you could have done better? Without the pressure of upcoming lessons and exams you can now take the time to revise the pieces that you’ve played at your own pace and see if you have any new ideas on what you could do differently about them. 

 

Extended sight reading

 

Get your music books and slowly read through some new pieces. You do not have to learn them perfectly. Think of it like slow sight reading practice.  You can also go to the library and pick up any music books you like - classical, jazz or pop. Bromley library has the best selection locally. Play the beginning of a new piece slowly. Always keep in ming the time and key signatures, tempo indication, dynamics, rhythm and phrase markings. Next time you practice, play through the same piece again, correct any mistakes and this time extend it with a few more bars. See if you begin to feel more familiar with the piece. Do the same again on another day until you reach the end. Once you are confident with the score, begin a new one.

 

Start something new

 

There is no need to wait until the beginning of term to start learning new pieces. Discuss with your teacher what you might like to play next term and begin learning your pieces early. You have a lot more time to look into them now, rather than once school starts. Take advantage of the extra time and the freedom to learn a piece more gradually. If you are preparing for an exam in new school term, start learning scales and arpeggios so you need not worry about them later on.

 

Lessons

 

If you are taking a break from music lessons during summer, speak to your teacher about what you could play in the summer holidays. Have they given you a list of pieces to work on? Is there a piece you would like to play, but have been too busy to learn until now? You may still want to arrange some lessons with your teacher during the summer break so you can maintain your focus.

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