WHY DO PEOPLE GIVE UP PLAYING after just a little study? Usually not because it’s hard. Not because they hurt themselves. Not because instrument rental and lessons are too expensive.

No, the problem for most people is practicing. They want to play great, beautiful music, but what gets in the way is the daily drudgery of practicing. It’s like having a chance to go back in time to help Antonio Stradivari create an instrument, but spending most of your visit watching the varnish dry.

It shouldn’t be that way, says Philip Baldwin, assistant professor of violin and viola at Eastern Washington University.

“Good practicing is creative practicing,” he insists. Practicing shouldn’t be dull. But how do you make it more creative?

Baldwin offers plenty of tips on how to avoid mindless repetition.

First, he advises, establish a flexible set of priorities for practicing a new piece. Decide which elements you need to be working on, and which of them are most important. The order of importance can change depending on your technical and musical abilities and performance demands. If you have to play something without a lot of preparation, for example, you need to get control of the notes, rhythms, and intonation before anything else.

“It’s really important not to get the cart before the horse,” Baldwin warns. “A lot of students tend to focus on just their favorite thing. If intonation is what they deem most important, they’ll focus on it to the extent that they may not consider their physical movement. And if they’re absolutely rigid physically, they won’t hit the notes every time; rigidity destroys good playing.”

So your priorities should include some balance of getting the correct notes down, working out the rhythms and bowings, watching your position and posture, being careful with intonation (more on that later), working on shifting (with a relaxed left thumb, repeat each shift five times or more, up and down), watching bow division and articulation, and paying attention to vibrato and tone, all while developing an interpretation of the piece. That’s just for starters.

Time Management
Before you get nervous about what else you’re supposed to accomplish during “creative practicing,” Baldwin would like to remind you that you can get a lot of good work done if you manage your time smartly.

Use a tape recorder or video camera to record a segment of your practice, then play it back and note the time of every change of activity, and decide if that pattern has helped you make any progress. If not, change it.

Set a kitchen timer at the desired period you think it will take to accomplish a practicing goal. One minute? Five? That depends on what you’re working on, but don’t spend more than five minutes at any one thing. “Having to accomplish the goal in a certain time frame adds focus and makes you work faster,” says Baldwin.

Place a Post-it note at the beginning and end of the passage you’re practicing, so you won’t be tempted to waste time by reading beyond the end. Be sure to start with the correct bowing and position, and don’t go on until you’ve performed the section accurately several times.

But don’t use that technique for every single passage you practice. In the midst of one section, stop playing and perform a different, difficult section once only, then return to your regular practicing. That keeps you from getting bogged down in repetition.

Speaking of time, repeat a new activity for 60 seconds without judging yourself. “Sometimes students are afraid to try a particular bow stroke, posture, or part of the bow because they are afraid it will sound bad,” says Baldwin. “Little is lost if only 60 seconds are devoted to it, so be brave and take a risk.”

Make Your Mark
Most important to using your time efficiently, Baldwin says, is marking your music. Mark bowings and fingerings in the score as soon as you decide on them; mark reference bowings so you can start in the middle of a phrase; use colored pencils for specific kinds of markings; use brackets to identify practice spots; mark tempos. Keep pencils handy, and use them! Then you won’t waste time figuring out the same things again and again.