How to Master Difficult Music When You Just Don't Have Enough Time

Now that we're back in school, the assignments are piling up quickly. It's as if a sleeping giant has suddenly come awake and is issuing demands left and right.

This applies to band class too. Many of my students have challenging set pieces to learn for winter concert band shows and fall marching band competitions. Not to mention performance exams and juries.

It can be overwhelming. In fact, it probably IS overwhelming, especially for a few of my students who have been handed some difficult assignments.

You know who you are!

But rest assured that it can be done. The process I use is three-step: Identify, Isolate, then Integrate.

No, I didn't invent this. But I use it and it works.

Begin by playing through the piece at a slow/moderate pace. When you hit those passages that cause the fingers to fumble, Identify them, then, Isolate them. Focus on practicing just the few measures at a time that you have the most difficulty with.

Practice each phrase in small increments, very slowly at first, building up speed only when it gets better. Use a metronome.

Then, Integrate: play the entire movement at a moderate tempo and if the difficult phrase sails by, move on to the next one.

Five minutes of total concentration in the mastery of a single sax problem is worth an hour of blowing notes once a week.

Now go practice. You can do this. We've done it before.

Key words:  saxophone, better practice tips, how to play better, learning difficult woodwind music