Practice Challenge 2014-2015

Because I'm slightly crazy, but mostly because I'm trying to help my students practice more and practice better, I'm running a challenge program this year.  I'm hoping that it will also make my own practicing and blogging more frequent and meaningful.  You can read the details below.

Practice Challenge 2014-2015

Jeannine Robinett

Objective:  Increase the frequency, efficiency, and effectiveness of practice for students and teacher. 

Dates:  This program will run September 2, 2014 through May 29, 2015 for students.  (June 5 for teacher.)  

Who can participate?:  Any student currently studying in the Robinett Studio. 

How does it work?:

1. Students who want to participate use the Robinett Studio Practice Journal (available in the File Area of the website)to organize and record their practice. Write on the back or use additional paper as needed.   
2. At each lesson, participating students turn in a Practice Journal for the previous week.  
3. After my last lesson of the week, I review all the Practice Journals and select the one with the highest number of qualifying minutes of practice.  
4. The following week, I match the number of minutes and the practice strategies the student used as I do my own practicing.  I will also blog about my practicing, probably one blog for the week, but it may be more.   You can read the blogs at http://jmrvoicenotes.blogspot.com
5. The person with the highest number of winner weeks for the year will receive a certificate of recognition and a prize.  The prize will most likely be a book about music or a Groth Music Gift Card.  

Requirements:

1. To count a day’s practice toward this challenge, all columns of the Practice Journal must be filled in for that day.  
2. Approved practice strategies include any listed in your lesson notes from me, or in the handouts in the File Area of the website.  Exceptions are listed  below.  
3. If you did not fill in all columns when you used approved practice strategies, or if you used strategies from the exception list or came up with your own ideas, please count those minutes in the “Other” category for your totals. 

Exceptions and other details:  

1. If a student has longer than a week between lessons, I will use their top 7 days in determining the winner for that week.  
2. The upper limit for practice time to be counted for this challenge is 90 minutes per day.  There are two reasons for this.  First, I can’t commit to more than 90 minutes every day.  Second, young voices don’t need to be practicing more than that, and excessive practicing can tire out the voice and actually slow progress.  
3. Listening to, or reading about music can count as up to 10 minutes of approved practice per day, IF your listening/reading comes from the listening list and suggested reading list found in the File Area or is approved at the lesson prior.  Any links I include in your lesson notes related to songs you are currently working on will count as approved listening and reading without the time limit listed above. 
4. Although these may sometimes be helpful, the following practice strategies DO NOT count towards your total number of minutes for this challenge:  singing in the car, singing in the shower, singing in choir or rehearsals for a show, singing while doing chores.
5. When we have a full calendar week off school, I will most likely skip that week for this program.  For example, I will use the winner from the week of December 15-19 to structure my practice for the week starting January 5.

The Practice Journal looks like this, but is set up as a table.  Evidently that formatting doesn't copy/paste into blogger. 

Robinett Studio Practice Journal

Student Name:       

Include name in blog & other recognition:  YES  NO

Lesson date:

Assignments or goals for the week (These can include technique, song study, reading, listening, etc):

1.

2.

3.

Date	Goal (s) for this practice session	What did you work on and which strategies did you use?	How long did you practice?   (approved/other)	How did you feel about what you did?  What did you learn today?  How did you improve?

Total # number of minutes from the approved strategies:

      Total number of other minutes related to your music: 

GRAND TOTAL:
Are there any questions or concerns that arose in your practicing that you need discuss with your teacher at your next lesson?