28 Days of Practice: Week 4: Setting Goals

Written by Claire Allen
Published: November 16, 2013 at 2:59 AM [UTC]

Give yourself a pat on the back! You’ve spent the last three weeks tracking your practicing, working to practice consistently, and identifying habits in your practice that might be slowing down your progress. All of this is A LOT of work, and you should be so proud of yourself for committing this time to your music making!

For the final week of our practice project, we are going to focus on setting goals for your practicing and your violin playing.

Practice goals should be something specific and possible. A general “I want to play the violin better” isn’t actually that useful. If you’re a young student making your way through the Suzuki books, saying “I want to be a famous soloist” isn’t helpful, either. When it comes to setting practice goals, they should be something that you can achieve in the week before your next violin lesson.

Here are some examples of goals you might have:

• I want to play my piece entirely from memory for my next lesson.
• I want to play my scale with all the ringing notes in tune.
• I want my martele stroke to be consistent.
• I want to move with greater ease and freedom in my shifting exercises.
• I want my teacher to stop nagging me about holding my violin up.
• I want to keep a steady pulse in my piece.

The options are endless. On the next page, we’ll help you construct your goals for this week of practice.

Goal Brainstorming

1. What is something that you really want for your violin playing?

2. What is a piece you have always wanted to play?

3. What types of violin skills do you need to play that piece?

4. What is something you are working to develop in your violin playing right now? (i.e. balanced bow hold, tall violin, smooth shifting, playing in high positions, etc)

5. Is there anything you are working on right now that makes you feel really frustrated?

Creating Goals

Now it’s time to create up to three goals for your violin playing this week. Make sure that these are goals you can accomplish in a week! Write your goals down below, and then write down the specific ways you are going to practice to achieve that goal.

Goal #1:

Strategies to achieve your goal:

Goal #2:

Strategies:

Goal #3:

Strategies:

Originally posted on my website