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(2 votes) 
Regulars
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@stringy -
I can only say for myself your warm up would be extremely boring and tedious - that's mental exhaustion for me.
My suggestion is cut your scales, etc... down to only a couple times a week.
Possibly pick etudes and short tunes you know that use different Keys and challenges to concentrate your intonation on - mix it up & keep rotating in pieces you haven't played for a while, or had set aside.
Guess I tend to to try to kill 2 birds with 1 stone - fun and technical merit.
Hope you'll allow yourself "creative mental breaks", play some overly simple tunes that you can try changes/experiment on, just for fun!
Attitude is everything - hard work can be fun!
...be a little creative in everything you do.
- Emily
Regulars
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I aim to spend about one-third of my practice time on scales and etudes, which typically means 20-30 minutes when I'm on my normal practice routine (currently not doing it because of injury).
The way my practice sessions have been organized, for most of the time I have played, is: start with scales and etudes for 20-30 minutes, work on repertoire for 40-60 minutes, and then if necessary finish with 5-10 minutes of exercises on a single technical issue that I may have encountered while practicing repertoire.
I do not go through the entire set of scales and etudes I'm working on each time I practice, but rotate scales and plan to give each etude a certain amount of time each week. (I may practice an etude every day if I'm trying to improve one particular aspect of my playing.)
Similarly, I do not go over all of my pieces in any single session -- in fact, unless I'm just about to audition or perform solo, I don't play through the entirety of any piece more than once every week or two. I focus on shorter segments with the most time devoted to the trickiest passages, and have been known to spend an entire practice session on a single measure of music. If I were to play through everything I'm working on, it would eat up all my practice time without any opportunity to work in detail. Instead I just plan in advance to play through a piece on a certain day.
Regulars
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Thank you both for your replies, I am taking on board your advice, especially about rotating practice of pieces and working on specific parts rather than go through every single piece every time. I need to put in more quality and less quantity I Ithink, and as Andrew does with his, structure my practice better.
I have replied to this post once already today but for some reason my reply has dissapeared
Cant beat a sunny day
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You are right. Open-ended.... Controversial... etc.
It's entirely up to you. A fair amount of all three would be preferable. Not good to only focus on one thing. However, every piece you play is somehow consisting of scales and etudes. That is why it's so good to do them.
I can't emphasize the importance of practicing properly and not reinforcing mistakes enough .....
Etudes are usually designed to improve technical aspects necessary for playing and performing. Do I dare say that you really don't have to do etudes at all? There are plenty of people who have never worked on etudes and technique but still satisfy themselves when they play.
"The richest person is not the one who has the most,
but the one who needs the least."
