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Greetings,

For those that don't know, I'm a 5-12 band director at a rural school in Nebraska. Lately I thought it would be a good idea to have a sheet of practice suggestions to give to the kids so they have a reference of, as I plan on calling it, "What to practice when you don't know what to practice." I think my students sometimes fall into the trap of only practicing what's "in the book" or "what's on the concert" and I want to give them ideas of things that go beyond that, while still focusing on good musicianship and things that will help them develop greater skills.

Here's a rough outline of what I've come up with so far. I plan on fleshing a few of them out with more detailed descriptions, but I'd like to keep the document to one, cleanly laid-out page for easy reference. Any input you have is greatly appreciated!

What to practice when you don’t know what to practice

Long tones - develop consistent, characteristic tone
Scales (major and minor) - familiarize with key signatures, develop facility
- Arpeggios, in thirds, etc.
Lip slurs (brass)
Chromatic Scales (woodwinds and brass, starting and ending on various pitches)
Rudiments (percussion)
Solos
Band music
“Fun” music - gobs of stuff online. Just search!
Play familiar tunes by ear

Then some sort of note about varying tempo, dynamics, etc. to "spice up" things like scales.

Thanks for your input folks! I'll be glad to share what I put together if anyone is interested.

I think what you have is pretty good (you don't want to give them too many options or they'll never get to the concert's music ).

I would add the tempo suggestion to the scales (as you mentioned), but add dynamics to the long tones. If you can keep one pitch in tune and steady as you crescendo and decrescendo, then you can do it on a scale or moving passage... but, it doesn't always work the other way around.

Thanks! I don't intend to have the kids follow the list in order, just suggestions of what things they can work on if they're looking for something different to practice.

For lip slurs that start and end on the same note, put a hold over both the starting note and ending note and have them check each against a tuner.

I find a lot of young players will end a lip slur out of tune with how they started it.

I'm not sure if you are requiring your students to turn in a log of practice time and what not, but something that I have advocated among my band director friends is to require focused critical listening. Obviously listening to music and having both the language and aural skills necessary to make useful and informed statements takes time to teach, but the groundwork for those skills and easily be incorporated into your standards for classroom entry, and can be a great way to achieve a class full of students with ears and brains turned on.

Requiring this as part of weekly practice can be difficult, especially if computer/youtube access is limited for some students, but in some ways that can be more of a benefit, if you need to make CDs of quality listening excerpts for your students. I suggest that you make several sets of CD's, with selections featuring each instrument, in a variety of settings (solo, solo+piano, Chamber, jazz, band, and orchestra) and requiring students to listen to and critique their instrument, as well as on a rotating basis another instrument.

also, as others have mentioned, you should spell out the middle steps on the items you suggested, to help eliminate the formation of bad habits in the practice of fundamentals (Time, Tone, intonation, musicality etc). All too often do young students develop poor habits that will plague them for years to come.