Playing tight - getting a feel for good timing
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Consistency is key - this is how you create your own personal artist routine
Would you like to learn something new? Or develop yourself further to take your musical expression skills to a new level? At the same time, are you struggling to achieve your goal because you just don't know exactly how to start? If this applies to you, it is extremely helpful to integrate your project firmly and regularly as a routine into your everyday life. In this article you will find out why this is so important and how you can do it.
Why regularity is so important
You surely know the saying "Practice makes perfect" or the phrase "A master has not yet fallen from heaven". A regular routine is essential when it comes to sustainably acquiring new knowledge and new skills. You can only get really good at something if you practice on a daily basis - and there are several reasons for this.
You are what you do repeatedly
First of all, it makes much more sense in psychological terms to practice 20 minutes once a day instead of several hours at a time once a week. The reason why this is so has a simple but valid reason: For every artistic craft - including making music - a certain set of skills and internal processes must be built up. The aim of the matter is that this gradually integrates into our "inner system". The more often we train a new, unfamiliar process, the more we adopt it. So at some point it becomes very easy for us and passes into the area of our unconscious competencies. From then on, what we have learned is no longer difficult and can be mastered, so to speak, as if in sleep.
Quantity over quality
Just think about how you learned to walk or ride a bike. At the beginning every step was arduous and you certainly had to concentrate hard to avoid falling. At the same time, you must have landed on the floor every now and then. Then you did not give up, but learned from your experience and tackled the matter again. Make use of this childlike learning attitude again and don't expect too much from yourself. When it comes to learning new skills, the motto is “quantity over quality”.
What is your goal?
Before we get to developing a weekly routine, we should first check what exactly your goal is. Let's say you want to learn to sing professionally (just replace singing with your own targeted subject). Go inside yourself and ask yourself what your specific goal is. Make sure that your goal is within your own sphere of influence or action. For example, would you like to record your own song or do you dream of getting people excited about your singing via YouTube? Now try to formulate your goal well-formed according to the following SMART scheme. Ideally, you should briefly take a pen and piece of paper and write down what you think of about the respective aspects when you think of your goal and imagine that you have already achieved it:
- Sensory-specific - What can you perceive visually / auditively / physically
- Measurable - Clear criteria for target achievement
- Attractive - Does your goal motivate you / does it feel worth striving for?
- Realistic - your goal appears achievable
- Scheduled - Formulate a specific date to achieve your goal
If you notice that your goal is very big, you should definitely consider intermediate steps that you can also formulate according to the SMART model. Which learning steps are necessary in advance to achieve your goal? Write everything down and make a small table to provide an overview of when you want to have achieved which of your learning steps. For example like this:
- By day X in a month I had learned the singing technique of belting.
- On day Y in two months I also added a total of four whole tones to my pitch register.
- By day Z in three months I also learned to accompany my own singing on the keyboard.
Here it is helpful to work your way from back to front in chronological order, i.e. from your main target point in time towards the present.
The time has come - develop your own routine
Now that you have formulated clear goals and intermediate goals, we can finally get started and develop your own artist routine. Take a look at your first intermediate goal (in my example, learn to belting in a month). Ask yourself what steps are necessary to learn this goal within the targeted time frame. In the case of the singing example, the first step could be to find suitable exercises with the help of your singing teacher (or something equivalent on YouTube). In the second step, you can use a weekly plan to get an overview of where you can accommodate the selected exercises in your everyday life.
Remember that just 20 minutes of training a day is enough. Perhaps you are already singing and have warm-up exercises that you can follow up with the new exercises? Maybe it suits you well during your lunch break if you want to clear your head from thoughts about work anyway? Fixed times and processes help immensely to integrate small exercise and teaching units into everyday life. So you don't have to constantly shovel new appointments and don't waste time with additional planning.
Make your routine as nice and comfortable as possible
You have permission to make your routine as beautiful and attractive as possible. Do you love delicious tea and candlelight? Make it your ritual to prepare your favorite tea and light a beautiful candle before each exercise session. Do you like to exercise or do you like to be outside in the fresh air? Combine your exercise unit with these activities or, after the exercise time, reward yourself with a short exercise unit or a short trip to the fresh air. If you make sure that you enjoy the daily session or that a reward awaits you afterwards, you will look forward to it every day - and that is the best motivator!
Make your successes visible
In the whole thing, it is important to reduce the demands on you and to make all individual steps visible. Write down what you set out to do every day in small steps in your weekly plan and mark every step you have made. In this way you can make your progress visible and also gain an overview of your learning process.
Make your routine your own
Ultimately, you know yourself best. Use your weekly plan routine and reflect on your learning process - this way you can find out more about how your work ticks and can adapt your plans to suit you. Keep in mind that they are not set in stone, just for guidance. If you notice that something is not working in the time allotted, be flexible and keep adjusting your plans to reflect the current status. Nothing is more frustrating than pulling through a thing and losing all fun in the process. Access to a topic can also change if you feel like it - the more exciting and pleasant the learning is for you, the better you will make progress! Have fun and success with your project!
Common routines
If you prefer to work on projects together, routines can also be created together. On our music portal you will find many different artists who are sure to be happy about a joint project and maybe even have very individual tips ready for you for better routines.
Originally published on June 15, 2021, updated on March 4, 2023
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