Whether you want to start a professional career as a musician or simply get better at making music, then putting in the effort and time that professionals do to improve is important. Mistakes are to be expected during the writing and recording process and are often essential for you to learn from, but when it comes to playing live, it’s important to ensure that your stage presence and performance are on point. Whether you have been playing a musical instrument for a long time or are just getting started, there is always room to improve. If you want to start playing like a professional or are looking for new ways to improve your skills, keep these tips in mind.
Set Goals
It is important for professional musicians to set realistic targets as often as possible, and work towards them. This could involve using one practice session to learn a certain scale or rudiment off by heart or you could set a goal of mastering a certain song by a certain time. As you achieve your goals, you will enjoy a greater sense of achievement and improve your skills, while each practice session will become more productive.
Practice Techniques
While it might seem like an obvious way of getting better at your craft, it’s important to note that just playing your instrument is not always the same as practicing. Professional musicians practice by repeatedly going through scales or rudiments, to improve their technique. To play like a professional, you should set up a practice regime every day and make sure that these scales are something you get excellent at. Along with practicing scales and other exercises to hone your technique, it’s important to also challenge yourself with something new to master on a regular basis.
Get the Right Environment
Getting the right environment for practicing, writing, and recording your music is an important step in the process. While you can do this at home, many professional musicians like to use dedicated practice rooms or recording studios where they have a quiet environment with everything that they need to simply practice and play music without any distractions. This Dallas music studio from Pirate, for example, offers all the equipment that you need to record great music and can be a great practice room since you can record yourself playing and listening back. When you practice in a Dallas music studio and listen back to your performance, you might find things that weren’t obvious when you were playing, making it easier for you to figure out what needs improving.
Keep it Fun
While it’s important to practice scales, rudiments, and other ways to improve your musical techniques, there’s no denying that this can get boring and monotonous after a while. So, it’s important to make sure that your practice sessions are also fun and engaging for you. Spend some time learning your favorite songs and get some new material to work on to ensure that you continue feeling enthusiastic about playing your instrument and don’t get bored of it. The last thing that you want is for playing music to start feeling like a chore to you.
Be Patient
Patience is one of the most important qualities that is needed for any musician who is looking to become a professional at their chosen instrument. This is especially true if you are just starting out as nobody is going to start playing like a pro overnight and getting good at your music will take a lot of time and effort. This is likely to happen slowly if you are in the process of getting familiar with everything, and you’ll hit walls along the way. When this happens, don’t worry about it – just keep on going until you get it right.
Play with Others
Whether you are thinking about starting a new brand or just having friends that also play musical instruments, getting together with a group to make music can be a great way to practice your technique, along with improving your improvisational skills and your timing. Playing with other people is a very different experience compared to playing on your own and can be a great way for you to learn new methods and ideas along with getting honest feedback on your music.
Get to Know Your Equipment
Any professional musician should take the time to get a thorough understanding of not only their technique but also the equipment that they use. If you’re not familiar with the gear that you are using and its capabilities and limitations, then you will struggle to produce great sounds. However, don’t be that person who’s got all the gear but no idea, either. If you are new to playing your instrument, a basic and affordable one is usually best for starting out with – there’s no need to spend loads on a top-of-the-range instrument until later on when you’ve mastered it and can truly appreciate what this offers.
Consider Professional Lessons
When it comes to being a better musician, taking lessons is one of the best effective things to do, no matter your skill level. When making music, there will always be something new to learn, and getting a professional teacher or mentor is one of the best ways to make it easier for yourself to improve your techniques along with learning new ones. But that being said, music lessons are not always cheap and paying for them is not possible for everybody. There are plenty of self-taught musicians out there and the good news is that there are now more online resources than ever before to help you get better at your chosen instrument. Or, if you have friends who are better musicians than you, you could ask them to help.
Playing music can be a fun hobby or a lucrative career option. No matter what you want to do with music, if you want to get better at playing your instrument, it’s important to use the strategies that professionals use to get better at their craft.
Author Profile
- Along with leading the team, Millard also works alongside different Fortune500 companies as their management Consultant/Financial Analyst, which shows his passion in helping other businesses grow.
