Besides yourself and your instrument, the practice notebook is the single most important tool in your practicing.

I know, I know, those of you who have been playing for a while, or who are already in music school, or, gasp, professionals, are thinking, “Practice notebook? You mean like those charts I used to have to fill out for band practice? In fifth grade?”

Well, no, not exactly. This is not a chart you fill out and post in front of class, in order to separate the “good” students from the “bad.”

Instead, it is a notebook that you keep for yourself, where you can keep track of all of your hard work, all your ideas of things that need work, and best of all, that you can flip back through from time to time, to see how much you’ve done.

So here’s my story about practice notebooks: I ran the New York City Marathon in 1999—my one and only marathon so far. I had never trained for anything like that before, so I just followed the plan for beginners laid out by the NY Roadrunners Club—I followed it to the day, and kept track on a wall calendar of all the running I did, how far and how fast (or how slow, depending on your perspective), and how I felt each time. The deal with marathons, for beginners, is that you don’t actually ever run 26.2 miles until the race itself—your longest training run is usually 20 or 22 miles. So, as the marathon approached, I was freaking out about whether or not I was ready, since I was going to be running a distance that was a full 4 miles more than my longest run to date. So, just imagine how calming it was to flip through my calendar and see all of the running I had done, and know that I had run every run the NYRRC says to: it was proof that I was ready for the marathon.

I ran the marathon, it was fun and exhausting, and a few months later I was getting ready for a big audition for a ballet orchestra, as well as preparing for a solo competition. It was a lot to prepare, all the ballet music was new to me, and I was really having a hard time managing it all—and once again found myself pretty freaking out about whether or not I would be ready. I was bemoaning that fact to my good friend Polly, who responded by saying, “Did you learn anything from the marathon that could be helpful here?” My first reaction, honestly, was “What the hell kind of cheap do-it-yourself-life-coach question is that?” My second was “Well, it was pretty cool to write it all down.”

And so began my strong belief in the value of practice notebooks.

What to write (or what I write, that can serve as a starting point for you):

I keep track of the time of each practice session, and what I practice in each session. Usually just what piece, and maybe what movement or section I’ve been working on. A typical entry looks something like this:

21 January 2000

That’s really all you have to do to start getting a benefit from keeping these records, and that’s often all I do, as well.

HOWEVER, there are some great benefits to putting in some other commentary in your notebook. If you’ve been really struggling with something, write yourself some encouragement:

22 January 2000

Or, more enthusiastically:

29 May 2007

Sometimes I like to keep a record of how I felt, or what I would like to be better:

18 November 1999

8 October 2008

10 March 2000

And sometimes I can’t be bothered with being positive and write:

22 February 2008

Or just:

31 May 2007

Coming next time:  Why to write it