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Very helpful site that allows you to have a metronome anywhere you have a computer.



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Get the most out of your lessons by following these basic principles.

#1. "Fostering the Love of Music." 

It is not just a catchy company tag-line.  It is our overriding philosophy here at Opus Music.  We believe that it all starts here.  If you've taken lessons before elsewhere and you've been looking for a new teacher, we believe you need to come back to this concept.  For all of us who play instruments, it all started by a simple and pure love of what music is, what it does and what it represents.  Love music first; the rest will come naturally.  Once you have this love, you have to take care of it and help it to grow.  Sometimes, however, we spend all of our tme doing what we "have to do," to the exclusion of doing what we "love to do." 

Developing healthy habits that ensure that you can balance enjoying your instrument and improving on your skills is a very delicate process.  Talk to your teacher about what you are doing in your practice time.  Make sure you spend more time enjoying your instrument than you do dreading it. 

See article on "How to Practice"

#2. Listen to good music.

Go out in search of good music.  Live music to a musician is like gasoline to a car.  Listening to the music that you love and seeking out different types of music you might like is the healthiest habit to develop if you want to ensure success in learing an instrument.

Also, listening to others with a positive attitude will make performing easier as well.  If you listen to others with a poor attitude, you'll fool yourself into thinking that everyone has the same attitude towards you when you are performing. 

#3.  Find a teacher that works for you

It is so important that you get along with your music teacher both personally and professionally. 

#4. Tempo comes last.

Playing a piece at the correct tempo is the easiest thing to do.  It's all the other stuff (tone, rhythm, expression) that gives us the most problems and needs the most attention when you practice.  Therefore, tempo is the last thing to fix.  Start off practicing new pieces at 1/2 or even 1/4 tempo at first.  That is to say, painfully slow.  If you have a half note followed by a quarter note, it doesn't necessarily to mean play the second note faster.  You just have to hold the first note for exactly twice as long as the second.  That can mean you hold the first note for 4 seconds and the second note for 2.  Observe the proper rhythmic proportions, produce solid/good tones and make sure you play it with the proper expression (loudness/softness/crescendos, shortness/longness, vibrato, etc ...).  And do it as slowly as you need to to prevent making careless errors.

#5. Practice Makes Permanent
What is practicing, really?  It is a mental and physical process that takes something that is uncomfortable, unmusical and slow, and turning it into something that is comfortable, music and at the proper tempo.  How do we do that?  What is this process?  We can look at this somewhat like behavior modification, or conditioning.  If we perform one behavior at and overwhelmingly greater frequency than another behavior, our habits (even our whole being) will gravitate towards this repeated behavior.  Knowing this, we can deliberately and consciously create for ourselves positive and edifying habits that will make our lives better.  If we think of practicing this way, isn't it a far more noble and exciting thing than just mindless repetition? 

Sounds easy enough, doesn't it?  But be careful that the things you do in your practice time are in fact positive.  Do you have a lot of negative thoughts running through your mind every time you make a mistake?  Do you get angry every time you come to a difficult passage?  Does your left shoulder or your face get tense whenever you're concentrating on a new technique?  Well, just like how your mother warned you that if you make silly faces then your face will freeze that way, these nagging little "pet habits" can get practiced into your playing.  Rather, allow yourself to have positive thoughts as you run through your practices.  Let that become a new habit. 

If you practice like I have suggested in principles above (slowly first with solid tone and exact rhythms), you are teaching your brain that 1) you are capable of playing these notes correctly and 2) how to perform these actions with as little tension and psychological stress in between motions.  When you practice a passage faster than you can play with good tone and rhythm, you are telling your brain that you are okay with making mistakes often, that these stressful thoughts belong in between each note and that these mistakes are supposed to be there.  You're in effect, practicing how to make mistakes!  Don't do this. 

Practice being solid, positive and loving every minute of it.  Practice more days of the week than not.  Practice good habits and most importantly, practice enjoying yourself and loving music.  This is, after all, what everyone here at Opus Music wants for you and what you want for yourself!  You'll be happier for it.

-Jon Minei
Director
Opus Music of South Bay