The ultimate guide to creating a sustainable practice plan

Planning can be a game changer, but if you ask me, I can safely say that I HATE planning. The idea feels great, but the doing of it…not so much. 

It feels overwhelming, confusing, and frustrating. I mean, where do I even begin?

Well, the trick I’ve learned is to begin where you are and move in whichever direction best suits your goals. If you can get this aspect of your music practice right, it can transform the way you learn the flute. Planning, as tough as it sometimes is, allows you to have more fun and see much better results. 

So, let’s break this process down step-by-step to help you develop a practice plan that best suits your needs. 

First, let’s learn a few fundamentals of music practice.

Developing balance in your practice 

On the one hand, there are certain things that you need to practice to make progress on the flute, like scales, technical exercises, long tones, and studies. On the other hand, there are things that are primarily there to grow your love and passion for your music-making while you make technical improvements.

A good practice diet always has a balance of exercises that push your boundaries and things that are inspiring. If you feel overwhelmed, you need to do more fun things, such as playing pieces or listening to beautiful music; and if you feel bored or unsatisfied with your progress, you need to practice technical exercises to further your skill.

There is overlap here. Learning and playing pieces will help you to improve and technique practice can be fun, but understanding how they contribute to the balance in your practice is important.

Designing your plan with “practice blocks”

I like to break up practice into blocks or areas of practice that go onto my schedule. Each practice day should have elements of scales, technical exercises, long tones, and studies. Let’s break down the function of these.  

Scales and arpeggios – the foundational blocks of most music. Learning these patterns will make playing everything else much easier.

Technical exercises -. Everything from the fingers, tone, articulation, breathing, all the way to the vibrato are refined through these exercises. Their job is to help you sharpen your skills so that you can make beautiful music!

Long tones – this is still a technique practice, but they get a special mention because they are easy to forget about. Long tones are exactly what they sound like: you play a note as long as possible. They can be used in so many different ways and are incredibly helpful for your tone development! 

Studies – yup, there is a difference between studies and pieces. Studies, or études, are the bridge between your technical exercises and your pieces. Studies are usually focused on serving you, helping you to grow as a player by teaching you a specific technique. So, instead of trying to get these to be perfect, use them as tools to help you grow as a player.

Pieces – this is the music that you have a duty to serve and care for. All the work you do in practice is so that you can dynamically express these beautiful melodies. It’s important to remember that playing pieces is not about perfection, but it is worthwhile to bring the best technical skill to truly play them. 

Warm-ups –  this is for both instruments: our bodies and our flutes. For your body, start with some gentle movement; and for your flute you can begin sessions with low-intensity playing. Think gentle scales, long tones, or even a beautiful melody. There is often some overlap with other areas of your practice and your warm-up but, I advise this vital step! Start slow and you’ll keep steady. 

Playtime and the problem corner – Sometimes you discover a technical challenge or change to a technique that you know needs some long-term work. Consider using this last box as a space to creatively and curiously explore these challenges.

Setting goals

Now, bear with me here. It may feel like I am jumping around but these elements will all start to connect very soon. 

Setting goals can be an overwhelming challenge. However, goals are the rudder of any good practice plan; there to guide your direction.

First, decide on some of your long term goals. Do you want to play a specific piece, or you want to be able to play beautiful music with a beautiful tone? Do you want to work yourself up to a specific grade level (ABRSM/trinity or similar graded systems), or do you perhaps just want to have fun? Setting such goals will guide your other, smaller goals.

With your well-defined “big” goals at the core, you can move on to creating more short-term goals. When you get to this phase, here are a few guiding questions:

1. How much time and energy do you have this week?
2. Do you want to make improvements this week or just have some fun?
3. Are there any areas of your playing that you want to improve?
4. Do you have any music that needs learning this week? For example, music for band, for a lesson, or for an upcoming rehearsal. 
5. Look at your long-term goals. What can you do this week to help work toward those?

Your answers to these questions will inform your weekly flute practice goals. 

Remember, clear goals lead to clear actions, and clear actions to clear outcomes. Your goals should be specific enough that you can create an action step from them, with an achievable outcome. Where possible, you also want to be able to quantify what the result will look like. That way you know that you’ve hit your milestones. 

From goals to action

Not sure where to start? 

Let’s say that you have been struggling with your tone for a while. You have identified this issue and now you want to spend time on this. A good goal would be: improve my tone. Or, perhaps even more specific: work on finding a clearer, more focused tone. The action that could follow this goal may be a combination of practicing long tones, harmonics, note bending, and singing and playing (my personal favorite of the tone development tools).

Perhaps your goal might be to learn a new piece this month. So your goal for this week could be to just learn the notes. And this means you will break up the piece into smaller sections so that you can start learning a few measures at a time. 

How long should I practice?

You’ve got your goals down. Now what? The next logical question is usually: how long should I practice? And the next one is: how much time should I dedicate to each practice block? 

Well, it depends.

Return to the questions you answered in the goal section. How much time do you have this week? How much energy do you have? What do you feel like working on or what urgently needs to be done?

If you have a lot of time in a week and lots of energy, you may want to spend more time focusing on the skill-developing activities like scales, technical exercises, and studies. If you have a busy, stressful week, it’s better to enjoy your practice by playing beautiful music, or even doing some listening!

Likewise, if you have activities that are taking up your time, such as learning band pieces, or preparing a piece for a lesson, that will be your priority and you may have less time for other things. The point is, no two practice weeks will look the same. 

Creating your practice plan

Ok, we have covered all the theory, let’s get practical! 

Let’s say you had one of those lovely weeks where you have more time and want to make some real progress. The ratio of practice may look something like this:

1 hour to practice:

• 5-minute warm-up
• 10 minutes on scales
• 10 minutes on technical exercises and long tones
• 15 minutes on your study 
• 15 minutes on your pieces 
• 5 minutes for those little problem corners in your playing

If you have less time and want to have some more fun, then this may be a better breakdown for you: 

You have 30 minutes to practice:

• 5 minutes long tone warm-up
• 5 minutes on scales or technical exercises
• 5 minutes for your studies
• 15 minutes for your pieces

Now, let’s get specific with our goals to guide us. Here is a suggested practice plan:

Notice how specific I got for my practice plan — experience has helped me to develop the skills to create a practice plan quickly and effortlessly. You may also notice that I have the same exercises for long tones as I do in my warm-up. This is ok; there will sometimes be some overlap, and such instances are a useful way to save some time!

Now you have a good idea of what you need to do to create a good practice plan. Grab a cup of tea or coffee and start planning! 

Last tip: Rember, a practice plan is individual and needs you to be flexible with yourself, because life can get crazy! So every week, you will need to sit down and work through this process. You’ll get to know yourself at every stage of your flute practice journey.

Or get your very own practice journal, and set out your goals on a weekly, monthly and annual basis.