Practice Journals

As members of an instrumental performing group at HMS, much of our success depends on

the individual work you do outside of class. As apart of your grade you are required to practice at
least 90 minutes per week spread out over at least 3 days !three separate journal entries".
Much of the value of practice comes from the !equency of practice rather than just the amount of
minutes practiced. Therefor, practicing 30 minutes per day, for three days, will be more valuable to
you than 90 minutes in one sitting. You are, of coarse, welcome to practice well beyond whats
required. Setting goals for practice is key to being productive with your time. You must know what
you are practicing and what your objectives are before you begin. You will also receive practice
assignments and playing test material in class so you will have specic things that you will need to
work on.

Practice journal instructions:

1. Decide what you are going to practice and set achievable goals before you begin.

2. After practicing, reect on what you just did and ll out the prompts on your journal entry
template "provided#.

3. Be specic when answering the prompts. Avoid general phrases like, I practiced rhythm, or I
worked on music for the concert. Give specic measures of a piece of music you practiced and tell
me what your goals where.

Sample journal entry:










You will be graded not only on meeting the required minutes, but on the quality of your journal
entries. The more specic the better. If you dont feel like you have made any improvements
simply reect on why that may have been and that will be something well talk about in class.
Conversely, if you feel like there is nothing that needs to be practiced, come see me and I can give
you some ideas. ; # I will be collecting practice journals every Wednesday. So your weekly journal
entries will cover Wednesday through the following Tuesday.




Student Signature:_______________________ Parent Signature:_________________________
What improved?
I improved on keeping every note even while
playing very softly on the snare drum.
My rolls are sounding more even this week
than before.
What did you practice?
I worked on keeping a steady beat while
playing very softly in the opening section of
Ravels Bolero with a metronome.
After that, I practiced making my closed stroke
rolls sound smooth at different tempi.
What needs work?
I still need to work on playing those measures softly
at a faster tempo. I was at about 132 bpm. I need to
get up to 160.
My arms still get tired when playing rolls for even a
short amount of time. I need to work on endurance.