Looking to make the most of your practice this summer? Tired of letting time get the best of you in May, June, and July? Ready to navigate practice challenges with ease? You’re in the right place!

Here are my top 5 tips for practicing over the summer! I was a music major for 12 years in college, so I had a lot of summers to encounter barriers and learn to handle them. I’ve also helped countless students have more success practicing over the summer than I did as an undergraduate student.

Check out the tips below!

1. Practice Before Noon

After noon, events and activities are more likely to derail your best practice intentions. With the lighter school workload over the summer, there’s no reason to say no to an impromptu Sonic run or an evening movie, but there’s also no reason to let fun summer events keep you from practicing regularly.

Common Roadblocks to practicing before noon:

Don’t have much time in the morning? Warm up in the morning and then practice in the afternoon or evening!

You Like to Sleep In – No problem! If you know this about yourself, planning to practice at 8 am is silly and practically guaranteed to fail. Pick a time that you are generally awake, such as practicing right after a late breakfast.

2. Have Music to Play & Personal Goals to Achieve

It’s helpful to have plenty to work on over the summer because “What should I practice?” is the quickest way to kill your practice. You end up spending all of your energy figuring out what to practice and then you don’t have any left to actually practice. Ask me how I know this. 🙂

How to find Music to play

I like to have 1) my go-to warm-up, 2) at least two solos, 3) be working on an etude book, and then 4) also be practicing other core areas like sight-reading, orchestral excerpts, intonation, and technique.

• FluteTunes.com
• IMSLP.org – check out Reinecke, Telemann, Mozart, Quantz, Stamitz, etc.
• FluteWorld.com – Popular compilation books
• SheetMusicPlus.com – Digital downloads
• Libraries: National Flute Association Library & InterLibrary Loan (ILL at A-State)
• Piano accompaniment on YouTube: Color is the Piano has some excellent piano recordings of popular pieces!

Common Roadblocks to having music to play:

You Don’t Know How (or What) to Warm Up – Totally normal. It’s only an issue if you don’t resolve it. Check out my complete guide to crafting your perfect flute warm-up at the button below!

You Avoid Sight-Reading Like the Plague – Practicing sight-reading does not have to be tedious. Why not practice sight-reading by purchasing the sheet music from your favorite movie? Or read through repertoire that you really enjoy listening to?

You Don’t Know What You Want to Play

1) Consider picking music that will help you grow and improve in some way! Etude books are designed to help musicians address specific performance issues like articulation, intervals, technique, and phrasing. Pick etudes or repertoire that help you reach your performance goals or strengthen a weakness!

2) I like to pick one whole-summer piece and at least one short-term piece that can be learned more quickly. That way, I do not have to wait the entire summer to be able to play all of my repertoire. Mix up the difficulty and the length of your pieces and etudes so you get bursts of satisfaction throughout the summer!

How to set clear & Meaningful Goals

Speaking of bursts of satisfaction… Goals give you this, too. ESPECIALLY when they are specific enough for you to be able to check them off as “complete.” Daily goals that help you achieve your long-term summer goals will help you “move the needle” closer to the finish line!

SMART goals – Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Based

Set your intentions for the summer, write them down, and then consider giving yourself some milestones every 2 weeks to help you stay on track!

Common Roadblocks to setting goals:

Your Goal Was Too Vague – Once you notice an issue with your goal, don’t throw it out. Fix it!

You Missed a Milestone – Did you get a little behind? It happens! We’re human. Maybe your goal was too ambitious, or maybe there were some summer practice barriers that tripped you up. Identify the issue and come up with solutions to prevent it from happening again. Then, either adjust your milestones so they are achievable or increase your practice time to catch up!

You Can’t Tell What Needs Work – Record yourself and listen back! If you think your rhythm is a little off, count aloud and find where your tempo/rhythm is changing. Listen for where your tone might become a little thin or where your articulation is unclear. You have the ability to be your own teacher by making it easier to hear exactly what you’re doing in a recording!

No One Knows My Goals, So Why Bother? Let’s discuss this in more detail in #3!

3. Create Accountability & Community

Have you ever considered why it’s so much easier to practice during the school year?

Ensembles, lessons, and other scheduled music events motivate us to practice today and not put it off until tomorrow! There’s often the added motivator that we do not want to be unprepared around our peers.

The community and support while in school help, too. We see and hear other musicians practicing and we can feel inspired to work hard, as well. With other musicians around, we’re less likely to feel like a lonely musician trying to do it all by ourselves.

Here are some suggestions:

Join a practice group on Facebook! “Etude of the Week” by Katy Wherry and “Solo of the Month” by Mark Wallace are excellent. These groups are filled with musicians who record and post videos of the featured etudes/solo, and the members are highly supportive. Both are positive and encouraging communities! You can also ask for constructive feedback, but no one will offer it unless you say so. (There’s also Etude of the Week: Amateur Edition with beginner/intermediate-level etudes.)

Create a practice account on Instagram. There is a huge music practice community on Instagram! When you post practice videos, it’s a fun and low-key way to track your progress over time. You and your friends can also post comments and encouragement! Check out the #100DaysOfPractice challenge on Instagram to see musicians all over the world working towards 100 (non-consecutive) practice days!

Join the HabitShare app. This is a free and easy-to-use app where you can log your habits and share your progress with friends! For example, set up a flute practice habit, choose how often you want to practice (or which specific days), and then share it with a friend in the app. They’ll be able to see how you’re doing and offer encouragement!

If your friends log that they’ve practiced, you get a notification, too! It’s a nice reminder that others are practicing and you can, too. Bonus: This app also offers some really cool statistics over time!

Use a proven time-management strategy. Lots of people struggle to manage their time, but you don’t need to figure out how to manage it from scratch! Try one of these methods and discover which works best for you.

• Pomodoro Technique – Uses 20-minute blocks and short breaks to Great for creative thinkers and anyone burnt out from work/school
• Parkinson’s Law – Work will expand to fit the time allowed. This isn’t a time management technique, but understanding it is highly useful for procrastinators and those who work well under pressure.
• Time-Blocking Method – Block out when you will do each task during the day. Great for working musicians and analytical thinkers.
• Getting Things Done Method – Breaks down each task into actionable steps. Useful for those who struggle to focus on one thing at a time and who might feel overwhelmed by daily activities.
• Rapid Planning Method – Trains your brain to focus on a vision of what you want so you can make it real. Great for working musicians and anyone with long-term goals.

Descriptions of these methods and how to use them can be found at the link below!

4. Make It Easy to Start Practicing

James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, shares that the best way to make something a habit is to make it as easy as possible at first. Then, when the habit is established, you can build on it. (Atomic Habits is an AMAZING book, by the way! 10/10, would recommend)

If practicing ever feels hard, here’s what you can do to make it easy:

Plan to practice for just 5 minutes. Set your timer, and at the end of the 5 minutes, decide whether or not you will continue practicing. Most of the time, once we start, we will want to keep playing (because we love it!).

Put your phone out of sight. Studies have found that “having a smartphone within sight or within easy reach reduces a person’s ability to focus and perform tasks because part of their brain is actively working to not pick up or use the phone.” Basically, even if you aren’t getting notifications, your phone is still distracting you.

Put your phone under your chair or somewhere you can’t see it unless you’re actively using it as a tuner or a metronome, for example. And while you’re at it, set it to “do not disturb” mode, or create a specific focus mode for your practice so you can practice in peace.

Start (and end) with something really appealing! There’s nothing like starting your practice with something truly exciting with zero baggage. Who cares if Lizzo’s About Damn Time sounds bad? It’s fun to play! Here are some more suggestions:

• Swap your long tone warm-up for Leia’s Theme from Star Wars or Window to the Past from Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban!
• Breathe and stretch while listening to your favorite Harry Styles song.
• Practice your B minor scale with a YouTube backing track called “Tasty Hard Rock Guitar Backing Track Jam in B Minor.” (Yes, this exists, and it has almost 1 million views!)

Only you can make it fun!

No one else will do that for you, but you know exactly what you enjoy, so get creative!

Try not to let two days in a row go by without practicing. This is a personal rule of mine and it helps me immensely!! After two days pass, practice momentum is low, so it’s much harder to get started again.

5. Don’t Be Afraid to Take a Break

(But do have a plan for when to return)

Once you’ve achieved a certain level of playing, that level is always going to be within your grasp. Taking a break isn’t going to destroy your future or permanently damage the coordination you’ve built up. However, the longer the break, the more your muscles will forget, which means it will take longer to build up this coordination and stamina. Keep this in mind!

Many musicians find 5-7 days without playing is plenty of time to come back feeling refreshed. If you’re burned out, you might need 10-14 days. HOWEVER…

Sometimes we don’t need a break from playing the flute, we need a break from what’s fueling us to practice (shame, fear of failure, feeling behind our peers, etc). The summer can be a break from those harmful perspectives without necessarily needing to take a month off of playing.

Most often, we don’t need a break from playing music. We need a break from how expectations during the school year make us feel. For example, we might need a break from the pressure of deadlines, the feeling of “needing to make progress” each day, or the feeling of “never having enough time.” Try to give yourself a break from what you actually need time and space from!

Practice over the summer generally feels 1) much less stressful without pressing deadlines, 2) more free and exploratory, and 3) more luxurious because you have more time to achieve your goals. You also have time to implement all of the suggestions your teacher made throughout the year!

Common Roadblocks to Taking a Break:

You feel guilty for not practicing. If you’re going to take a break, truly take a break! Give yourself permission to not practice or you won’t get the rest you need from the grind. Don’t let this balloon and fill up the entire break. It’s miserable and unnecessary!

Your playing skills are rusty when you return. Be patient with yourself and trust that you will get your abilities back. Start by strengthening your air and core support! These are often the first to become rusty. Then focus on finger technique. Identify which areas need strengthening **without judgment** and work at it bit by bit. It’ll come back!

I’m here to support you over the summer!

If you need ANYTHING over the break, please do not hesitate to email or reach out. 🙂

I’m happy to listen to your recordings, help you solve issues, and give you suggestions on what to practice. If you haven’t practiced for a while and you’re getting increasingly panicky, don’t keep that inside. It happens sometimes, and can eat away at you. Let’s schedule a lesson or create a plan to get you back on track!

Flute Lessons

I offer lessons over the summer, and so do many of my students! They can be weekly, every other week, once a month, or whenever you need/want them. Zoom or in-person. (As long as you have a stable internet connection, we can do a whole lot over Zoom!) You can get started by visiting our Contact Page!

Summer Community Recital

We’ll have a casual recital at the end of the summer where anyone who wants to play their summer music can perform! This will include A-State students and members of the community in Arkansas! If you’re interested, please reach out at our Contact Page!

The recital will be low-key and supportive. If your solo has piano accompaniment, you can play with a recording on YouTube (that way you can practice with it). Color is the Piano on YouTube records the piano parts of many prominent flute works!

Date TBD for Early September

Thanks for reading, and Have a fantastic summer!!!