Many musicians will tell you that their everyday practice is dominated by the "principle of hope", just like Gerhard Mantel describes. It's so easy to get caught up in the day-to-day practising and forget to focus on specific problems or tasks. Instead of working on them in a targeted manner, people just "hope" that challenges will eventually resolve themselves through constant repetition. This process can take a long time and might not bring the desired success, which can be really frustrating. This kind of practice can even have a negative effect on musical development. In rare cases, incorrect practising can even trigger neurological disorders (musician's dystonia) which make playing an instrument difficult or even impossible. Good news is that we've developed a flexible tool designed to help musicians independently structure efficient practice sessions.

Details

Supervision

Prof. Dr. Eileen Mandir

Year

2024

Special thanks to

Prof. Dr. Eileen Mandir
Prof. Dr. Andreas Belwe
Prof. Dr. med. HC. Jabusch
Prof. Stephan Rether

Patrick Hinsberger
Jazzschool Hamburg
Hochschule für Musik Würzburg
Erik Rehbehn & der Jazzschool München e.V.
Prof. Matthias Edler-Golla
Prof. Ben Santo
Prof. Béla Stetzer
Stefan Conradi
Alexander von Hagke
Leonie Illichmann
Annelies Kaser
Charlotte Kirn
Tim Kirschke
Thomas Kreutz
Moritz Moroff
Ludwig Peter
Marcel Rainer
Manolo Stäblein

Survey

A survey of music students and professional musicians shows that the majority of respondents do not plan their practice time. Changes in progress are often not documented, which makes it difficult or impossible to evaluate the process. However, the same group is convinced that planning would help them to improve more quickly. The often rate the quality of their own practice behaviour as mediocre, and it is not clear which methods actually lead to more effective practice and which do not.

Test series

In the test series, the "Besser Üben" prototype was tested by music students in Germany. It is an analogue annual planner with 187 pages in DIN A5 format, which is intended to support and accompany instrumentalists in their daily tasks. The aim of the test series was to find out whether the planner has an effect on the practising behaviour o an what this effect looks like.

Further development

The test series led to the development of a further version of the planner and a new addition in form of an app. The book is a flexible tool designed to help you structure efficient practice sessions on your own. The core topics include self-reflection, goal setting and the development of individual practice strategies. The underlying approaches derive from the fields of musicians‘ medicine, musicians’ physiology, sports science, psychology and neurology. The planner combines theoretical and practical content and is designed for regular use. It informs, gives feedback, documents and shows whether your own guidelines are being adhered to.

The app

This app acts as a supplement to the analogue planner. Its core function is to record and analyse practice times and durations in order to visualise the resulting trends. Audio recordings can also be made and saved for each practice session. The app also reminds users of appointments or tries to motivate them to practise again after longer breaks. Predefined review dates are intended to give users a medium-term goal that promotes motivation. An integrated timer, based on popular sports apps, is designed to encourage users to structure their exercise sessions in terms of time and schedule regular breaks.