Practice regimes....

[assemblyworker]

Sorry if this has been well covered here before, I did a quick search but nothing came up.

 

A friend was telling me today about the Pomodoro Technique, it's simple enough but could be a good process to try. It sounds like good sense, especially as I'm so easily distracted by the net, radio etc etc when practicing.

 

How it works, you have a timer set to 25 minutes. You work continuously until the timer is up, no distractions, take no calls, emails, etc. Then take 5 minutes timed rest doing whatever you like. You then repeat this over a two hour period and after the 4th session you can take a 30 minute break. You can then do whatever it is you need to do for the rest of the day, work unfortunately lol

 

I'm going to start this from tomorrow.

 

Does anyone here have some good practice tips?

[Darcyd]

I have a hard time focusing for long periods of time. I break down my daily practice into 20min sessions ( my schedule allows for a solid 1 to 2 hrs a day, every day ). That's about the longest i can hold strong focus for and actually work on developing new skills or tightening up old ones.

 

I also try to do my "practice" in the AM, i have wicked awesome energy then.

[Motek]

little and often here, 20 min cut, 10 minute browse, that sort of thing

[ericuk]

I just put on warflex electro beat and pretend to be qbert until I get bored.

 

Real story

[Backtrack]

2-3 weeks not practicing helps alot. Maybe sounds stupid but when you practice to much you become to repetitive and boring. It helps to forget your standard patterns. When you start again you have a fresh mindset.
I usually do 1-2 hours 4 times a week.
Sometimes I also decide that I cant do any specific techniques (usually skip any 2click flare variation). That forces you to think outside the box.
Use different BPMs. Don't get stuck in a certain speed.

[Steve]

When I used to love scratching, I would cut for hours on end. It was my main hobby, I guess you could call it. That was a long time ago, so all I had to go on was the scratching I heard on hip-hop records. I would try and break down in my head what the DJ was doing and then copy it, then I'd practice that one technique until I could kinda do it, then I'd just get better at it over time. It helped having friends who were into it, so Grae (2ndHand) would come round several times a week and we'd practice and make scratch tracks and stuff. So I had no particular regime - I just tried to understand and copy individual techniques, then because I loved doing scratching I would just get better from doing it.

[Dubba Dutchdj]

I only get the studio to myself for 3 nights a week, I hammer scratching until I get bored, then jump on Maschine until my fingers start to ache and repeat. I couldn't handle any more than 3 of those intense solo sessions a week, I get much more joy out of jamming and mixing with others.

 

2-3 weeks not practicing helps alot. Maybe sounds stupid but when you practice to much you become to repetitive and boring.

 

This is something I've stumbled across recently, after having the odd week break here and there I came back with something that actually resembles a nice flow, the individual techniques suffer a bit, but it certainly made me sound more musical. I'm still working on some new techniques, but once there down improving my flow is next on my agenda and considering Backtrack has one of the slickests flows in town I'm gonna take a leaf out of his book.

[L.O.]

I started using a practice tip that I read from Dj Shiftee in his Dubspot blog. Basicly you figure out what you want to work on, then look at how much time you have to practice each day.Then practice each technique for a certain amount of time. So if you want to practice 5 things, and you only have 1hr 15 minutes each day to practice, practice each technique or 15 mins.

 

Its cool and has helped me cause your only doing that thing for 15 mins (or however much time you choose). If your messing up, your only doing it for 15 mins. If your killing it youll be excited to come back to it the next day. Pretty much all I do now. But Im gonna give that Pomodoro technique a try though.

[Vekked]

I generally try to practice a lot of different things that all have to do with being on the decks. Main ones are:

1) ahh/solo scratching, which I practice by:
-focussing on techniques

-by just freestyling whatever on a beat that makes me wanna cut

 

2) juggling... again by:
-drilling techniques or trying to smoothen out new styles on certain beats that are my "standards"

-making routines with a new track that inspires me

 

3) drumming:

-usually technique drills like diff styles or rhythms

-drumming on a metronome, something I've been doing a lot more lately

 

4) scratch routine/composition practice... generally meaning practicing with samples that aren't ahh and trying to do something unique with them and not scratch them like other samples

 

5) weak hand cuts... self explanatory

 

I've found that working on a wide variety of skills/styles works best for me. I don't think I could force myself to practice solely ahh scratching day in and day out, but there are days when I have no interest/motivation at all to scratch but I can juggle for hours, and vise versa, and days where drumming just seems much more fun. It makes it much easier to practice when I have a bunch of options that I like for different reasons, and often times I'll be cutting and it'll give me an idea for drumming, or drumming gives me an idea for juggling, and then I'll start onto those...

The other thing I've learned is to never stop yourself when you're in the zone... that's where most of your progress comes from... like I don't progress the same amount each hour that I practice, sometimes I'll progress more in 1 hour than I have in weeks, or sometimes I come across a bunch of ideas when I'm on a roll that I couldn't have forced myself to otherwise... it just happens. So yea, cutting yourself off when you're on a roll creatively is like artistic suicide IMO.

[Darcyd]

How many hours would you say you do weekly on average Vekked?

[Jacken]

Practice is important but it's not a sport to have a certain regime. If you want to be a battle dj and a world champ sure it make sense but otherwise it's strange to have scratch trainings, regimes, diet and etc. Do it for fun and when you want to do it. Just my two cents

[assemblyworker]

So day two...

 

Just for clarification, I'm working on piano and Maschine... Gave up on kutz a while back due to being wack as fuck!

 

So been on 25mins scales on piano, 25mins drum rudiments, 25mins playing pieces from a score, 25 minutes working on live sets.

 

@ Jacken, I hear what you're saying about the fun element but I've been getting gigs doing electronics with established musicians so really feel I need to get some chops together, I feel embarrassed that my timing isn't as tight as the people around me and my music theory is pretty basic coming from a DJ/Engineer background.

 

Learning a traditional instrument later in life is going to be hard but the way I see it, if I go in on the fucker I should at least be competent in 5 years time, as long as I'm strict about practicing.

 

I had a fairly casual approach to cuts and refer back to wack as fuck comment!

 

 

Not got onto diet but in all honesty, if it was proven that eating a couple of extra apples a day would help me towards being able to play polyrhythms then I'd be on that!

[ericuk]

I think if you've got a good approach to learning THAT WORKS FOR YOU, then the more time spent doing that thing, the better you gone get.

 

I practice for an hour or two a week and I continue to make progress. I'm pretty sure if I practiced trying to be QBert for 2 hours a day, that my progress would be much better.

 

The other big influence in progress is being around like minded people. Jam with other people doing the same stuff and if you're about the same level (or they're better) you'll get heaps better.

[Vekked]

How many hours would you say you do weekly on average Vekked?

 

25-30 taking into account that usually 2 days a week on avg I don't get any practice cuz gigs or with the gf, etc. Weeks where I have nothing are more than that, weeks where I'm really busy I might get half of that.