Scale practice is a staple in any musician's daily routine.  However, getting a young student to practice their scales daily can be quite difficult.  For many students (not just young ones) playing a scale can be the most boring and tedious thing.  Often times scale practice will be replaced by playing another piece of music or just skipped all together.  Nothing changes, it's the same notes played the same way -- which often leads to the students' lack of interest.

Here are a few suggestions to keep scale practice fresh.  I've been doing these ideas with my Suzuki students on their Book 1 Tonalizations (scales) for over a year now with amazing success!

All of my students have heard this one:  ”Ok, great!  Now see if you can do it three times in a row.”  I am a firm believer in the power of three.  However, it is more then just playing a passage three times in a row.

Problem solving and identifying the solution are also important steps.  Without those, you won’t know what to reinforce and the repetitions will be meaningless.

Like most people, sometimes you just do not have much time to practice.  Below is a list of things that you can do to your practicing to maximize the time you have available for your practicing.   Most of these things can be done easily and quickly to your practice sessions.

1. Dedicate time to working on your technique.
2. Isolate the difficult sections of pieces and practice them by themselves.
3. Play through the piece only twice when you practice it.
4. Don’t practice all of your repertoire in one day.
5. Know when playing won’t accomplish any more.

So, you’ve decided to study guitar formally with a teacher.  Congratulation!  As a teacher, the first 2-3 months of lessons are extremely important because so many new concepts and ideas are being introduced (even if you have previous musical/guitar related experience).  The following are some tips to help you get the most out of your first few months of lessons.